Let me tell you my Nickelback stories, as in my stories about that horrendous band from Alberta, Canada. There are two of them.
The first one is from my senior year of college, which is not to be mistaken for my last semester of college. They had just put in a bar called Bar Knoxville on the strip where all the students go out. If you are familiar with Bar Knoxville, 1) I am sorry and 2) chances are this is not the Bar Knoxville you know, or it is as I doubt anyone but me reads this. When it first opened nobody went. One time we were just walking by and they gave us free shots just to come in. So we went, got our shots, and left because it was empty but designed to be crowded with dancing people. This was not a Thursday night, however, because if it were we probably would have stayed as on Thursdays they had appealing drink deals like $3 shots of jager, $2 vodka drinks, and $1 PBRs or something like that. At first it seemed as though we were the only ones that realized this was a good deal because for the first while there me and my friends were like the only ones to patronize this establishment, and that's barely an exaggeration. So on one of these random Thursday nights in the fall of 2006, me and my friends were just hanging out in this bar that was pretty much our own, when someone says they think the guys from Nickelback were standing over in the corner by themselves. It was not that random an occurrence as it may seem as they had played in town that night. So I go walk by as if I am going to the bathroom but instead of a straight line I arc on by them to verify and as far as I could tell it was them by the looks of the guy that looked like their lead singer.
And that's my first story of why Nickelback is terrible.
Here's the second: It was the spring of 2009 and I am in Guatemala. Me and my fellow accompanier are assigned to accompany this individual from the capital back to our town. He had just been to the city to be a spokesperson for the indigenous community for the release of military documents that might provide evidence of genocide against the Maya communities, so his security was a concern. Rather than having us take public transportation, which is notoriously dangerous, back to our town in rural central Guatemala, the human rights organization paid for a cab for the 4 hour ride back. And for just about every minute of that ride back in the cramped car, winding through the mountains in traffic, a Nickelback CD was kept on repeat. My friend and I, who was from Canada and had equal hatred for the band, agreed that was probably the closest to torture that we will ever come, if I may say so without appearing too insensitive.
And that's my second of how Nickelback is terrible.
Anyway.
So a few people come over to my house on Friday to "pregame" before heading out. I don't know how this usually goes down for you but ours entailed watching Elf.
Believe me it gets even more random.
We then head on down to Adams Morgan because it's either that or U St. and we are always going to U St., but that's probably because we're not 20 anymore and its close. And we end up at Brass Monkey. I was just reading this book about this woman's year after her husband died for emotional appeal, which turned out to contain really no emotion at all because that's how grief works, and it spoke about a "vortex" in which you find yourself in one situation that derives one memory that derives another and so on. Here's my Brass Monkey vortex: The last time I was in this bar I believe I was like 21 or so visiting a friend during Fall Break and one of his friends stole a bottle from behind the bar. The year before I was there visiting people for Fall Break as well and we ended up at the same place. Maybe the years are reversed but whatever, they happened. Also, one of these two years I remember not being able to get in for a while because I had a hat and they wouldn't let me bring it in. I think I put on a car nearby and hoped for the best, which worked out.
Anyway. Moral of the story is Brass Monkey a sub par bar, and not in the good way, and I do not know why we ended up there. Especially since I found myself forcing myself to move my body while others were 'dancing' around me all the while trying to convince myself to just hold out and keep moving because we might not be doing this the whole night but might go somewhere that being stationary is acceptable. And we did. Why am I not friends with more people that sit down more often? And after all these years, I still have not yet completely understood what the point of bars are for me since I have no interest in meeting new people at them and very few bars have couches and beer less expensive than that I could buy at the store. I guess because that's what everyone else is doing and because sitting on my couch is not very blogworthy.
So we get out of there and I buy the obligatory slice of jumbo slice, which, again, I sincerely believe tastes good regardless of the intoxication/sobriety level. And then I walk my friend's friend home because we live near each other and since I prefer to walk than taxi she's kind of out of a choice. Am I the only one that thinks records, like the big round black wax ones, are a lot more impressive, technologically, than digital music? Probably not. But is it not just the neatest thing that microscopic grooves in plastic can make music?
And now it's like 4am and shortly before getting home I remember I forgot my keys. The two roommates I try to call do not answer and then I find a homeless person sleeping outside of my roommate's door who lives in the basement. The homeless man, named Bradley, says he's been there for four nights. He says he came from Northeast and I don't remember how he said he ended up outside our house except for the fact he had been interacting with neighbors or knew of others who had been sleeping there or nearby, which makes sense because it looks as if someone had been living underneath the steps to our front door. And we talk more about life and such until I convince him to go to the shelter down the street.
So I take him there and luckily he has an ID on him because the shelter requires it, which I thought was ridiculous, and I say goodbye to Bradley. It's 5am now and it's kind of a far walk up a big hill, so I call my roommate for a ride and fortunately he answers and agrees to come get me.
So whereas normal people, or at least in the pre-cell phone days, have the phone numbers of other people they may or may not fall in love with on their person the next day, I woke up with the number of the shelter closest to my house on my hand.
The only thing I had planned for Saturday during the day was to go to the library to return books, which I did. Then I met up with my roommate at Lucky Strike at Gallery Place, which I thought was a bowling alley but is really a fancy bar with some bowling lanes in it. But not before stopping in Urban Outfitters to look at things I am not going to buy but find these
headphones to add to my christmas list
Then we got ready to trek all the way on over to Virginia, across the Potomac, to a friend's house for an ugly christmas sweater party. I wore a sweater that I used to love that looks like the ocean but others call ugly.
Have I ever told you what I think of Virginia? I share a similar opinion of it as I do Nickelback: unappealing, grotesquely shocking that others find it appealing, and full of white people. She doesn't even live metro accessibly.
So after some spiteful awkwardness, fun times, drinks, cheese, and ranch and vegetables, we head back to the city. It was odd how relieved I was to get back into the city where there is entertainment more abundantly than every mile or so. Fucking Virginia. So my roommate and I grab a beer at the Getaway while we wait for others to get up to Zeba, which is right across the street (why does anyone live in Virginia/like Nickelback?) for a gentleman's combo (Yuengling and a shot of Jameson).
On the obligatory stop at Giant on the way back after said beer/shot combination, I get a thing of gouda, fried chicken wings, and hit in the face with a giant package of toilet paper by my roommate. There is a chance I will be all over youtube for that one if an employee there takes the time to put the night's security tape up. I'm not looking forward to that.
So sometime in the future we (as in my roommates and me) are going to have a casino party at my house. You should come. In order to practice/prepare/have fun we bought the games, such as craps and roulette, in advance and have been playing ever since. So, the moral of story, other than if you are going to be homeless make sure you have an ID, Brass Monkey and Virginia are terrible, Nickelback is even worse, and my house is better than yours, is that even fake gambling is addicting.
