You're so Beautiful, You Could be a High-Class Prostitute. Seriously.

"What did you do last weekend, Liam?"

So glad you asked.

Last weekend, I decided to do things right.

I got to work on Friday and fidgeted for 8 hours. Then I went home and waited for Wolfgang and Tingles to get me. During that time I also packed my toothbrush, 2 shirts, 2 pair of socks, and 2 pair of boxers into a bag. Then I poked through my change jar and grabbed roughly $25 (not kidding) in loonies, toonies, and quarters and stuffed half into my shorts pocket and the other half into my wallet.

Wolfgang and Tingles came.

We left. I was excited.

We pulled in at Wolfgang's house. I was unhappy.

We waited at Wolfgang's for Mass to call.

He did, we drove to his house, and he wasn't ready. Neither was his girlfriend.

They got ready. Mass asked us to put a drum set in his car so that we could take it to his brother Card.

We agreed. Wolfgang has a big car.

Anyway, we got on the road. The road treated us pretty badly all the way to, through, and out of the K-Dub. Once we got past that it got better. As we entered the GTA things were going fine.

After some frantic last second (read, sitting in an intersection waiting to turn left or right) cell-phoning to Card we managed to find our way to his house. He lives around the corner from Hooker Harveys for all those interested.

We dumped the car and went for pizza. I called Nora and we all hopped the subway to meet her at Union. We met, we laughed, we cried, we continued on our merry way to the Air Canada Centre. Where we bought expensive T-shirts! Oh, and we saw the Beastie Boys.

Now, some of you may be experiencing deja-vous at this point. "Liam, didn't you already see the Beastie Boys at the ACC with Wolfgang? Three years ago?"

Yes, children. Yes I did. It was a brilliant night. Let's see how that night stacks up against last weekend's concert:

Set list:
Then: The set back in 2004 was peppered with a whole lot of bullshit. This was mostly because the Boys were trying to sell copies of their bullshit album. No, not Some Old Bullshit (which was a good album). I'm talking about To the Five Boroughs (which was a fucking terrible album).

Now: Last weekend's set was basically one long hard vibrating pillar of awesome. They playes 2 songs from TT5B, both singles from the album. Every other song had me jumping up and down in my seat and (probably very annoyingly for those near me) rapping along with the Boys. Also, this show was peppered with lots of tracks from the new album The Mix-Up, of which I have spoken before.

Seating:
Then: Wolfgang went on Ebay and grabbed us some GA seats. We waited in line for 3 hours (I had to shit the whole time) freezing our asses off. Wolfgang was also sick as a dog, so it was a pretty shitty time all around. As soon as we got inside (and I defecated) we jetted onto the floor. We grabbed spots at the very front of the room and settled down to be amazed (we stood up again when more people arrived).

Now: Wolfgang is now a penniless Uni student. We went on Ticketmaster and found tickets for $50. They were really close to the stage, too. Here's a diagram:


Green would be the floor, where we were before. Blue is the first level of seats. Pink is the second level, which is a whole lot of private boxes. We were in yellow, which is the third level. The diagram isn't perfect, because yellow projects over on top of pink and somewhat onto blue, but you get the idea. I have supplied a small bar of brown to indicate the 6 seats we had bought.

Basically, those seats blew. I didn't realize it at the time, so I let Wolfgang buy them. Luckily, no one really bought any other seats in the third level, so we just moved to good seats after the show started.

Opening Acts:
Then: The first opening act was a dog show. It was awesome. A bunch of small dogs running through hoops and stuff. I nearly pissed myself. Following the dogs was Talib Kweli. I don't really know anything about him and have never heard of him since. There was, however, one memorable moment in his performance (And if you were with me last weekend, just skip this part. I'm pretty sure I told this story 15 times). Near the end of his set Kweli yells "Make some noise if you love live hip-hop!"

I make noise. No one else in the ACC follows suit. I swear. No one.

"Uh... You guys know this is a live hip-hop event, right?"

Everyone makes noise. Sometimes, people. Sometimes...

Now: I'd never heard of Cromeo and I hope I never do again. Picture one extremely ugly dude fellating another extremely ugly dude in a fashion which is both noisy and sloppy. Now add synth. There was one memorable moment to that performance: The guitar player set down his guitar and I was sure they were leaving and the real show would begin. Then he picked up a different guitar and kept going. Then I killed three people in the row in front of us.

The Actual Show:
Then: The Boys delivered an awe-inspiring performance, which was only lessened by the inclusion of material from TT5B. They played for an hour, and then took a break for 10 minutes (they're getting close to 40) while Mix Master Mike did a huge scratch routine and a bunch of dancers came onstage. Then they played for another hour. During those two hours they switched between 3 different costumes and sets and also ran a video compiled of footage of people waiting in front of the ACC talking about how awesome the Beastie Boys were. Then they did 3 encores. The third encore was done from the rear of the ACC on the little tech-stage-thing at the back of the ground floor (not shown on my diagram above) so that the people who'd bought shitty seats would have a chance to get close (and the people who'd been on the floor at the front would have a chance to pay back the assholes at the back who'd crushed us like bugs against the railing by the stage). Then they invited everyone to a party they were throwing at the Royal York Hotel.

Now: The boys kicked my musical ass for an hour with an awesome set. Then left. I assumed that this was where the big scratch routine would come. After 2 minutes of nothing I began to worry. Then Mix Master Mike came back and did a tiny scratch routine (incorporating some RATM, although I forget which song) with no dancers. Then the boys came back, played 4 more songs and ran off the stage. Literally. Adrock yelled "This one's for you, Toronto!", some jazz song began playing, and the lights came on in the ACC. I couldn't believe it. I didn't believe it. I persuaded everyone to move down to better seats which were being vacated. But I had to stop kidding myself when the roadies totally disassembled the monitor system and drove a forklift (badly) onto the stage.

Tie-ins to Other Special Events
Then: The last show was November 9th 2004. You figure it out and then try and guess what Wolfgang and I did for the 2 days after the show.

Now: Halo 3 came out 4 days after the show, so it doesn't really count as a tie-in. Also, I have grief to give about that in a few paragraphs. Well... a big few.

The Verdict
The past almost always trumps the present when dealing with events like this. Unfortunately, in this case even an objective comparisson shows that this year's show really didn't have anything on the old one. Even if we'd had the same seats (Tangent: and that would have been hard given that half of us were girls [no offense ladies, but all the girls who were with us at the railing in 2004 got crushed, passed out, and had to be carried away by security before the show was over]) the show itself was shorter and the Boys just didn't work as hard as they did the first time. If we'd paid for ground seats and gotten a show that was half the length of the first one I'd probably be really pissed right now.

So... to paraphrase, the first show was better overall. But if one were to take any single moment-by-moment slice of either concert, they would both be equal. The music itself was still some of the best I have ever heard, it's just that I wish I'd heard more this time. And then gone home and played video games until my eyes fell out.

Instead, Nora and I took the long trip down the TTC. All the way out to Kipling and then onto a bus for 15 minutes from there.

Once we got to her rez I signed in and we went to bed. Now, here's where things get interesting. Let's backtrack:

About a month ago just before Nora was leaving our fair metropolis for the Big City, we bumped into each other in front of the bar I always eat my wings at. We talked for a while about various things, and eventually she had to go and meet some friends. As she was leaving we had sort of a weird conversation (from the perspective that Nora and I are good friends in a strictly platonic sense):

Her: You should come visit me in Toronto.

Me: Yeah, definitely. I'm on it.

Her: You really should. I have my own room. And a double bed.

Emphatic pause

Me: Yeah. Cool.

Now how was I supposed to take that? Seriously!

Aside: Maybe I was predisposed to think that she was prepositioning me. I had an almost identical conversation with Gaggy Maggie once about visiting her in Guelph.

Anyway, so a few days after that (we are still looking back in time here), Nora was hanging out at my house (not with me) and we ran into each other. I told her about how I'd had this great plan to hang out with her in TO. I was going to go to the Beastie Boys's concert and then spend the weekend at her place. Unfortunately I'd just found out that Blake, Carl and I weren't going to Banf anymore. This meant that I would need to save all my money in order to make first and last on an apartment in our town.

She told me she'd buy my ticket.

Seriously, what was I supposed to think?

So anyway, after that Nora left town and we didn't communicate until about a week before the show. During that time I tried to think about what I wanted from this encounter. There was always the possibility that Nora was totally naive and didn't know what kind of signal she'd sent. I eventually decided that if Nora made a move, I'd go for it. But it was definitely too risky to make one myself. Nora and I have been friends for a long time. It would be a shame to throw that away if I was wrong.

So, anyway, returning to the present (at least in terms of my story), we get back to Nora's room. Her roommate isn't home. I've been up since 5:30am, it is now 1am. I am ready for bed. We sit on the bed, she shows me some funny things on Youtube, and I am seriously crashing.

She goes to the bathroom to put on pyjamas. She gets back and I inform her that... I HAVE NO PYJAMAS! She said she'd figured as much and turns off the lights so that I can get nekkid (down to my shorts) and climbs into the far side of her bed.

And that was that. I climbed onto the near side and we went to sleep.

Almost. At 2am there was a terrible sustained gestapoesque banging at the door. I was seriously scared out of my mind.

"Was that your door?"

In my defence, it wasn't that stupid a question. Nora lives in an apartment-style rez. Thus, we were behind her very solid bedroom door and the knock was on the main door across the kitchen. It muffled the sound enough that it could have been someone knocking on another door. What I didn't realize at the time was that all Nora's walls are concrete. If it had been another door we would never have heard it. However, having rezzed at V1 where half of the walls are made of cork-board, I just went with what I knew. You can hear someone knocking on the door of a room in another building from a bedroom in V1.

Anyway

"Yeah, I think I know who it is, though."

"Not your fucking roommate, I hope" he says in his head.

She goes to the door and answers. I struggle to put on my clothes.

Eventually I get out there too and say hello to everyone. Everyone being three extremely drunken guys that Nora knows. The ringleader (Let's call him Nick. That's not his name, but for some reason I couldn't remember his name most of the time and kept calling him Nick) immediately starts giving me bad vibes. Specifically the vibes that come from a poorly disguised drunken stare of "Who is this pig sleeping with Nora?" (Aside: There's another thing. I don't know whether or not the majority of people who met me there thought that Nora and I were banging. Because I kept getting appraising stares, and it just seemed akward to say "We're not banging" to everyone I met as I introduced myself) which I assumed sprung from the fact that he was dropping by her room drunk at 2am for a reason. A specific reason. Like sleeping with Nora himself.

We got rid of them eventually and went back to sleep. I slept fitfully and was pretty tired when we got up. We went to the caff, ate, and I got another chance to chafe with Nick. I went to grab a drink from the fridge and there was a group of people in the way. As I got uncomfortably close to them in an attempt to get by the moved and one of them said, "what's up" to me in a low tone of voice. I didn't respond. I didn't even look at him. I looked at drinks and picked one, and then walked back to Nora who was waiting by the counter where the food came from. After about 30 seconds I looked over and saw that it was Nick, who was now doing his best not to look at us as he finished getting his food and walked out of the caff.

We did the same shortly thereafter. Armed with a ceasar salad straight from the fridge I sat down with Nora, only to discover that there was no dressing on said salad. Breakfast continued unabated around us...

When we got back to the room, I met the other major characters in this story. These are Nora's roommate Kurdy and her boyfriend who I'm going to call Madmartigan. The reason for this should be obvious: Val Kilmer kicks ass.

Anyway, they were in the room when we got back. We had nothing to do all day, so Madmartigan and I revisited the funny things on Youtube that Nora had shown me the night before. It turns out that Nora had heard of them from him, and he was able to show me a wide collection of them.

What were they? Music videos of a sort. More like videos of people playing music, which by modern standards is something different I suppose. Anyway, here they are. I think you'll like them (I harvested today's title from that last one).

So Madmartigan and I parted ways and spent the rest of our respective afternoons moving around the furniture in the bedrooms of our female counterparts. Man I wish that was some kind awesome sexual innuendo. I'll need to remember to employ it when I ever get to tell a story here that involves me getting laid. For those that care, Nora's bedroom looks really nice now.

We went to the liquor store. Why? To get booze for the party. I was the only one smart enough to bring some with me. What party? Nora's first party ever! That's right, kids. Myself, Nora, Kurdy, Madmartigan, Yonny Yonson, the Warden, and that-skinny-girl-who-always-hangs-around-with-the-Warden all got together and had a grand old time. It was a perfect division of labour:

I provided wit, charm, and donuts from Rabba.

Nora and Kurdy jointly provided the apartment.

Madmartigan provided a healthy knowledge of drinking games as well as a deck of cards.

Yonny Yonson laughed at all of my drunken jokes.

The Warden provided mad DJ skills by keeping us entertained through the employment Nora's mp3s, his own CD collection, and numerous Youtube tabs all from the same computer.

The skinny girl who I haven't given a nickname to yet corrected me patiently all night while I told people she was at York for dance. She also lent me her mad skillz in a tale I will relate momentarily.

It was truly glorious.

Here's a little breakdown:

We go out and grab pizza. I'd say it was good, but I didn't eat any. I'd just had 5 donuts. While there hilarity ensues. Madmartigan is a normal-size guy. Maybe 10 pounds lighter than me, same height, etc. He is trying to convince Nora and Kurdy that he can eay 30 cheeseburgers from McDonalds. His basic argument is that he's sure he can do it because he knew someone else who did it. I cut in with my typical rapier wit, "Yeah Marty (yeah, nickname on the nickname), but that's like saying that 'I've heard that the world record for male masturbation in 1 day is 14 times. I'm sure I could beat that in a whole day,' whereas in fact, once you're 3 or 4 in you start to realize what an awful mistake you made".

"Well, man, I knew this girl, not a big girl, a small one, who did, like, 30."

I wasn't sure what her size had to do with it, but I soldiered on. "Dude, it's totally different for chicks. Guys have a much harder time."

"What are you talking about?"

"Man, it's called the refractory period. Get out your physiology textbook. Geez."

"Man, she ate 30 cheeseburgers."

"Ah. Nevermind."

We go back to rez and our honoured guests arrive. We prop the door using an ingenious method possibly invented by the Warden. We begin to "kick out the jams" in an attempt to attract random passers by. It works and for the rest of the night there is a steady stream of people moving in and out of the room on their way to and from other destinations.

Since no one was drunk yet, we put the cards to good use. We played euchre. Let me give you a play by play: Me and skinny (that's a working nickname, definitely not the final product) team up against Kurdy and Madmartigan (working together) and Yonny Yonson. We proceed to nearly skunk them. It was 7-0 and then they finally got on the board. This was too bad because if we did skunk them we'd decided to make them chug a few tall boys of And-Ray's shitty beer.

Oh yeah. And-Ray was there too. And-Ray is a cool guy. He's Madmartigan's roommate and he represents the K-Dub over there at Hummer. He also wants to sleep with Nora. Unfortunately his subtle plan for doing this is the make her drink as much as possible and then make suggestions so thinly veiled that you... well, they weren't actually veiled at all. And-Ray wants to sleep with Nora, but I imagine it's mostly for the convenience of him, Madmartigan, Nora and Kurdy being able to sleep in any combination in each other's rooms. Well, not any combination, but it would sure make things easy.

Anyway, for those who wondered, the shitty beer in question was Tuborg. I, obviously, have never had it. Neither had And-Ray. He just bought 8 tall-boys because it was in some really metro-looking pamphlet about beer he'd gotten from the LickBeau.

Hey, there was someone else there that I also forgot about! I can't remember her name, but she's in Nora's program. Here's the point: She seemed sensible enough.

So, after skinny and I trounced the world at euchre, the fun began in earnest. We whiled away the hours playing Kings (which I had never played before) and then moved into Never Have I Ever, in which I was still sober enough to make some rather funny calls. These included "Never have I ever given fellatio", which was not really that funny on its own, but was supplemented by a) Madmartigan misunderstanding the difference between "given" and "recieved" and b) Kurdy, And-Ray, and Skinny all asking "What's a fellatio?". I also had the dubious honour of being one of only two in the room to drink to "Never have I ever penetrated the anus of another". I'll leave you to guess the circumstances of that particular event. And who the other person to drink was.

The Kings play was really really good. While the play was mostly randomized, here are some odd highlights: 1) I always always picked up cards that let me dish out drinks instead of take them. Since no one else was doing it I gave the majority of these to Sensible girl, and the majority of the ones left over to the Warden. 2) Sensible girl picked up all of the "Make a rule" cards. 4 turns in a row, 1 rule each turn. 3) And-Ray cranked up his "want to sleep with Nora" campaign by just blatantly giving her every drink he could. Did you pick up and 8 And-Ray? Well, better give 8 drinks to Nora and then mention something about doing her. Then when she says, "Fuck you, And-Ray!" she has to take another drink because Sensible girl made "No Swearing" her first rule. It was awesome.

Especially the part where the Warden and I rapped all of Straight Outta Compton substituting lewd gestures for all of the swearing. And the rapped the last verse with all of the swearing anyway, got called on it by Yonny Yonson, and then proceeded to bombard Mr. Yonson with a deluge of profanity while taking the drinks to make up for the rap.

But soon enough, things started to slide down-hill. Nick came back. He'd already dropped by once holding a magnum of shitty vodka in his hand. Careful not to make eye contact with me he invited Nora out to some bar. Luckily, Nora rebuffed his suggestion and he left. But now he was back, and he was the image of concern for Sensible girl.

Everyone but me, Yonny Yonson, and Sensible girl was in Nora's bedroom rocking out. There was actually a crowd gathered outside Nora's 3rd floor window for a while. Nick strode in (this was 4 hours since his first appearance) with his magnum just as full as it had been when he started. He noticed something that I, locked in conversation with Yonny, had not. Sensible girl was slumped over the table in a classic "too drunk to function" tableau. Well, let me rephrase that. I had noticed, but it didn't register with me as something to get worried about. People do these things, and, well, she seemed sensible enough.

Nick freaked out. He picked her up, took her into Nora's bathroom, and proceeded to force water down her throat. Who can guess what happened next? It happened all over Nora's sink, I might add. Repeat x5. Oh yeah, apparently she was from Alabama. And apparently she was a baptist. And apparently they don't drink very often.

During this, I realized I needed to piss in a bad way. After making numerous uncomfortable noises in front of the bathroom I eventually got the attention of Madmortigan who took me up to his floor to piss.

When I returned Nick, Sensible girl, Nora, and Kurdy were gone. Apparently Nick had flown the coop and left Sensible girl (now pushed out of the "too drunk" and into the "rambling incoherently stumbling drunk" phase by Nick's work) in the care of Nora and Kurdy who decided that she needed to sleep.

They were gone for a while. I was drunk. I was busy musing to myself about whether or not Nick had merely cast an elaborate ruse and was really busy trying to do Nora. This made me rather uncomfortable as I was becoming very sure that I didn't like Nick.

I attempted to explain this to Madmartigan. His only response, "Dude, Nick's gay".

Oh... Well... Oh.

Then Nora (unmolested) and Kurdy came back. Soon after that Nora and I walked Yonny to the bus, although for some reason we denied that courtesy to the Warden and skinny when they left soon after. Then we just bummed around the kitchen while I got more and more tired. Some dude named Spenny came over. He was very cool, but by this time I was really really getting tired, mostly to do with my not having slept well the night before.

Eventually we all hit the hay. Kurdy and Madmardigan have to go somewhere with Madmartigan's family and they promise not to wake us up in the morning. I hold out little hope that this is true.

I sleep better, but still somewhat fitfully. There are large portions of the evening spent looking at the ceiling.

When the clock rolled around to 8am I felt compelled to piss and then eat a donut. I put on my shirt and rolled into the bathroom. I was pretty sure I'd heard Kurdy up already, so I tried to be fast. I grabbed the donut and scarfed it. I went to open Nora's door, and saw that it wouldn't open. Allow me to elucidate something: Every lock in the building is opened by a student card. This is apparently a feature which extends to the doors of the very bedrooms. Unfortunately, this means that there really isn't any choice when it comes to locking doors. If you shut the door, it locks. Period. For those of you who haven't yet gotten, I have just sealed myself in Nora's kitchen without any pants on.

I play it cool. I sit back down at the table to consider my options. And have another donut. There was a strong chance that Kurdy would come out of her room soon and continue getting ready for her day. I was just going to have to play it extra cool. Who knows, maybe her key would unlock Nora's door too.

As I thought that, Kurdy came out and all the tension I'd been feeling regarding her thinking I was a big creeper sitting in her kitchen in my shorts fell away. She was standing in the kitchen wearing a rather small black housecoat.

Don't worry, I don't get laid here. It just helps break the tension in a weird way.

Eventually she goes and changes, Madmortigan shows up, and they jet. By this time I'm done all of the donuts and have nothing else to do. I knock on Nora's door, wake her up, and then we go back to sleep.

A few hours later we get up, eat in the caff, and wonder how to kill off the weekend. Nora has the brilliant idea of walking down to the lake. We head off, and it's great. The lake is a very nice place, at least at that part of the waterfront. We sat and talked of life and love. It was a tremendously restorative experience.

Just when I thought it couldn't get any better, it did. This huge fish swam up right beside us. We got up and followed it around the lake for half an hour. This cemented something I had been suspecting for some time:

That was the greatest weekend I've had in a long long time. And that's really all there was to it.

After that Nora and I hopped the TTC and ate at the greatest Asian restaurant in the world: Ginger 2. Then we went to the Eaton Centre, Nora paid me for the BBoys tickets, and then I bought Warhammer and she bought some comfortable pants for class.

We jumped back on the TTC down to Union, and were just about to initiate a tearful farewell when the Warden appeared in front of us. It turns out that he was taking the same train home as me.

And that was pretty much it.

Nora: I love you. I'll be back soon.

MTOD: If you're reading this, then stop. The only way we can communicate now is through notes left on Nora's wall.

Everyone else: Thanks for reading this far. You're troopers. Goodnight.