ac unit

no, i still don't have one of those. no point, really. here, though, ac is shorthand not only for a system for cooling an area, but also a system for emptying wallets/bank accounts: atlantic city. this was my first time in jersey at all, and by extension atlantic city. the drive to ac was pretty picturesque, really; at least nicer than i had imagined. this part of jersey is not completely built up, well, not with buildings anyway. the drive to atlantic city kinda builds the place up. hell, the road is named the atlantic city expressway. this is a road dedicated to people going from philly to ac, and vice versa. and it has billboards the whole way. and most of them are from casinos. and most of those are for a casino that hasn't even been fucking built yet. some of those are pretty shameless. my favorite one was "you know what this town needs? another casino."
if i were asked to sum up atlantic city with one word, that word would unsurprisingly be "weird". when you're coming into town on the highway, the first thing you see is a giant, skinny, lengthy parking lot between directions of the highway. i guess people park there and shuttle into town? given traffic on the way out, that would make excellent sense. but back to getting in, not out. after literally like at least a half mile of parking, the highway kind of turns and becomes a somewhat main street of the city. it dumps you in right by one of the biggest casinos on one side, and then on the other side it is an oxymoronic mega-mini-mall of outlet shops. everything is tacky looking, but not in a classic campy kind of way. more like this shit was all built around ten years ago kind of tacky. one of my first questions was whether anyone lived in this place at all, since it was literally retail/entertainment as far as the eye could see, which wasn't all that far.
but i got my answer after several blocks of crawling traffic: everything drops off and suddenly everything looks older than fifty years without repair, save new neon lights in takeout place windows. that part of town reminded me of medium-shady areas in west and north philly. our directions put us on the road that separated the part of town that makes money from the part of town that has no money. we made a brief detour into no-money land to get gas. in jersey, you are not allowed to pump your own gas. this seems a little asinine to me, but apparently the result is that some otherwise perfectly competent people from jersey actually do not know how to pump gas. they assume it is tricky business. i guess if there was some service someone "professional" always did for me, i would probably just figure it was better off in their hands.
anyway, we got back to where we needed to be, and parked right next to the valet parking lot for like two-fifty in meter fare for a savings of like twelve bucks. we had a bit of a walk down what i believe was actually oriental avenue. got a look at most of the monopoly streets, and several of them are in a part of town that does not bear mention anywhere really, and probably not board games. but at the end of the street was THE boardwalk. i did not find park place. the boardwalk was also weird, lots of people but not a ton going on. lots of entrances for things that had other doors away from the shore. those buildings are massive. the boardwalk has lost a lot of its carnivalesque appeal, but there is still a small semi-permanent setup of amusement rides and food vendors, and that was kind of cool. no high-diving horses, though.
so the show was at the house of blues. franchised venues kind of turn me off in the first place, but this was one of the most ridiculous things i have ever encountered. so i knew that this was, full title, the house of blues atlantic city at showboat. showboat, i was aware, was a casino. it is a massive structure to behold. supposed to be a mardi-gras thing brought to you by harrah's, but it sure didn't look real festive, more like a hospital from the outside. but once you get in... well, getting in was tricky. i expected a little bit of shenanigans due to my previous house of blues experience in cleveland, where, despite abundant signage, i was assured that i had entered a restaurant, and not a venue. but there was only one entrance far as i could see, so that was the door it was going to have to be.
so in the door we went. restaurant to the front of me, restaurant (same one?) to the right of me, and something billed as a nightclub to the left. the nightclub, or whatever it was, did not appear to be the venue at all. they had signs. some sort of male strippers or something. some real classy broads waiting to get in on that, as you might imagine, given all the variables. so up towards the restaurants is the box office, and we ask, and get directed to go upstairs. so we go up between the restaurant/s and boom, it is totally a casino. so i am trying to find a venue, and already i have been beset with restaurant/s, a gift shop, a "nightclub", and a casino, and now i have to go upstairs. we go upstairs. i know what clutch fans look like, and i wasn't seeing all that many. no, at the top of the stairs there is a much different restaurant type thing, meant to be all classy, with some fancy name. most of the people in and around this place are elderly and well-dressed. probably not the clutch show. so we keep going, walking past all sorts of people. i stop at the bathroom and some guy comes in along with me and starts spouting lebowski quotes. this man is drunk. he has a baseball hat and a beard. he is most certainly going to clutch. we haven't bollocksed it up entirely; we have to be there.
and there we were. after a brief line and some overly-aggressive security (i thought you waved the wand past me, not hit me with it), we were in. the so-called house of blues atlantic city looked remarkably like the cleveland one, no big surprise. but it was a lot bigger. one of the opening bands was already going. they were called lionize, and i quite enjoyed them. they were four dudes who clearly listen to shitloads of reggae, dub, and clutch. i loved their keyboards. it looked like the bass player was playing through a leslie, which would be strange. sounded great loud as hell. i was under the impression that there would be four bands, but there were only three, and these guys were probably like halfway finished when i got in. they made a plea to the crowd to buy merch so that they could buy pot. they were extremely explicit about this. unfortunately i did not have money for merch, or i probably would have bought an ep in any event. or maybe this badass clutch shirt made specially for this show, but i decided that even if i had the money, i probably don't need three black clutch shirts.
the next band was murphy's law, and they were kind of silly, but a lot of fun. i got the impression that they didn't really care what the crowd thought of them personally or as a band or musically. no, their priority was that those in attendance were having an absolute fucking blast. they were sort of a punk/speed metal outfit, somewhat simplistic fun stuff. their twist was that they had a money sax player who did some cool stuff. they were four predictable dudes for a band like that, and then the sax player was a black guy who was probably like 15 years older than anyone else in the band. it certainly worked. before they started, we noticed that there was a case of budweiser on the stage. we joked about it staying out there the whole time. it did. upon further inspection, there was also a fifth of jager next to said case. at first i thought these guys were going to be an instrumental band, they played a good tune, and then this big dude walked onstage with a mic and started hollering at the crowd. clearly the frontman. the band starts playing and the dude starts singing and almost immediately he leaves the stage. but not by the side, no, he goes off the front to the crowd level and takes the fifth of jager with him. he's pullin on it between lines, and starts passing it around the crowd. shameless way to endear yourself, but he really seemed to just want to be partying and have the crowd party with him, and there is something to be said for that. the set was high energy, and the dude stayed down by the crowd and they killed the shit out of that jager, and he started pounding and handing out bottles of bud. when the jager was running low he made a comment about how "this one is almost cowbelled". i thought that was a pretty cool turn of the phrase and made a note of it. however, later on, it proved to be no slang. during a drum break the lead singer walked over to the drummer and held it up and the dude just whaled on it as part of a solo. i couldn't believe the thing didn't break. it actually sounded really good. at any rate, this band had a good fuckin time, and that is just excellent if you ask me. they embraced their role as an opening band and referenced the upcoming clutch set more than a few times, culminating in a joke tune entitled "you are not ready to see the band clutch". there was actually another great humor song about happy the bouncer, sang to one of the front row bouncers. it pretty much went "happy... the bouncer!... dun dun dun... happy... the bouncer!" etc. good times.
clutch of course killed it. i hadn't seen them in a while, although this was probably time number fifteen or something. no surprises in the setlist, and they appear to no longer have the organ player, which makes me a sad metal in some ways, but the show was really well played and had some solid jams, including a legitimate (i.e. non-jager) cowbell jam. the guitar tech played with them on a couple tunes as usual, but after he was done he also proposed to his girl, who accepted. that was kind of cool; he's a good guy, been with 'em forever, has his own pretty decent band. it was also their manager's birthday, which got brought up several times by all the bands, kind of a running gag. all in all, it gave the whole evening a properly celebratory feel. too bad i can't afford to get hammered off eight dollar beers that take half an hour each in line to acquire. that place could probably have doubled their booze sales with a better setup, and tripled them if they dropped 1/4 of the price. their loss. oh well, i had a fuckin blast.
the next night was sunday, and that means quizzo. we actually took second for the first time in a while to win twenty bucks to the bar; lost by one measly point. oh well. we played as "honey, i shrunk the manginas". i don't know if i've mentioned it, but we are usually "manginas in the mist". we switch it up now and then, but it is almost always some movie with a key word replaced by mangina. once, we were manginas II, secret of the ooze. that might be my favorite. it is a fun thing to do with movies, almost as good as this.
the next couple of days (and even today) saw me work on a special quick-turnaround project for my prof. i found it interesting and learned a lot. i worked pretty hard on it, too. unfortunately, i couldn't really answer what he wanted in the way he wanted it. the argument he wanted to make just didn't match the jurisprudence. i felt like a real jackass emailing him this morning and being like, yeah, i don't have what you need, but i tried hard. not a lot i could or can do about it i guess, but i don't imagine he is real thrilled with me, and that is kind of weak. it just sucks to try hard and more or less fail. we've all been there.
but for some good news... i hopefully get paid tomorrow. that is not the good news i wish to impart. the point of getting paid tomorrow is that i haven't had a whole lot of cash, what with the rent-paying and all that. i had been at school working on that thing, and checked my balance on the way home. $3.44. ouch. but i had a few bucks on me, and given that i had actually been working hard at something, i reckoned i could do with some beer. well, that and the day ended with a y. at any rate, i wanted some beer, for real. the deal with beer across the street is that pbr forties are three seventy-five each or two for five. i had like four forty. i checked all my pockets, in all pants. even pants i know i haven't worn since i've moved. nothing. nothing at all. i don't have a couch so i couldn't scope the cushions. i have one chair that can hide change, and yeah, it wasn't hiding any from me. but there was a dime on the floor next to the chair. step in the right direction. now all i needed was a clean-cut fitty cent.
people ask me for change all the time. sometimes i give it to them. i reckoned maybe it was time i asked some people for some change. went down in front of the beer store, smoking a hand roll as always. sat at one of the two tables. other table had a couple dudes drinking some forties. i knew they had my money. talked to them for a minute, suggested that i bum them a smoke. went in for the change spiel. i don't really have a ton of practice or anything. first dude, who seemed friendlier, was all, no i don't have any cash of any sort. other dude was all, no change. fortunately, though, he had a dollar. i traded him fifty cents for the bill, and was in business. went in, got my beer, went back out and drank most of one and shot the shit. the dudes were alright man.
i've actually been talking to strangers more than normal i guess. the night before that it was the dreaded mill creek special. they upped the damn price to twelve dollars. the bartender assured me, however, that it was going into their pockets. thus, i don't feel bad and will probably just deduct it from the tip. hey man, i am on a budget here. in any event, i met some old guy. richard? he was downing tonic waters. that was all. he brought candy of his own. a well-traveled old man with a money beard. nice guy to talk to and watch the baseball. and then there was this israeli guy, benny. he graduated from moody bible institute, which stunned and thrilled me in that state. he was an interesting person to talk to. we chilled for a while. it was a good, strange time.
today didn't involve so many strangers, well, at least none that i really wanted talk to. i lucked out and got a call from my buddy at school: extra ticket to the phillies game. i was pretty psyched. just had to find a way to get there and back (thanks ben). the park is beautiful, and the game was fun. not the most exciting game ever, but a decisive 5-0 victory. the only bummer was that the reason we had these tickets was that it was like a temple prof/research assistant night, so we were sitting with a lot of people i didn't like. the broad in front of me ate CARROT STICKS at a fucking baseball game. she was also waving around some hillary clinton book talking about how she would have been "the best president we ever had". i hate those people so much. i probably shouldn't, but man. fuck those people. i hate to have to say it over some minor differences in worldview and personal aesthetics, but i really just can't stand them and their ralph loren and gelled hair and khakis and agsadgsdgagdsag. hate them. but i had a good time. and it was free. those two go together well. i'm hoping for more of that in the upcoming days.