black lips

churchills, a "kind of english pub," is oddly placed in the center of a pretty tough little haiti neighborhood. i had a great time at this concert; julia and i got into

some shenanigans beforehand, walking drunkenly around brickell and overtown at night

looking for the place (we were mislead by mapquest). then we finally called it quits and

got a cab, told him where we needed to go and he just kinda laughed and said "you guys

long way from there." a couple of weeks before i called and asked if it was going

to be an "all ages" show and the man on the line, in a grumpy english accent, said

"eighteen and up, bring your i.d." i thought, "fuck," and began trying to devise a plan

to get in to the show. i borrowed my i.d from this surfer-bro kid in my drawing class

that sort of looks like me but not really and whom is eighteen, i wish that i still had

it to scan and upload, it's hilarious. julia even straightened my fucking hair

so that i'd look more like him. well, as it turned out, they weren't checking

i.d's, but when we put our money together (julia had one dollar) we only had

enough for a single ticket. both of us were pretty bummed at this point, then bk came to the rescue.

she suggested that julia buy a wristband and then slide it off while inside and she'd

bring it out to me. it worked, i was shivering cold with a dry throat, straightened hair,

and no money left for beer, but by god, we were inside the black lips show.

from then on it was good times rollin'; a band from miami called the jacuzzi boys were the

first to play and they were real good. again, a stolen picture:

the last dude i expected to see there, jack, bought me a beer without me even asking him.

that was cool. between sets julia and i hung out outside and talked shit with shelby, nikki,

and soy boy. the next band kind of sucked so about five minutes after everyone rushed in to

watch them we walked back outside, drinking and smoking and talking, jazzin' up for the

ridiculous show that would follow.

we wiggled up to the front row, pretty much face-to-face

with the lead guitar player (guy all the way to the right in the picture at the top.) the stage

was only like a foot tall, the ceiling was super low, and the amps were loud as fuck. they

opened up with 'sea of blasphemy' and got on with rocking the fuck out of this oddly-shaped

little haiti bar. we were a part of the human border between the mosh pit and the stage, so

flying, sweaty, drunk people were whacking me in the back every four seconds, but i wasn't

mindin' it at the time. at one point this shaved-head mean lookin dude, who had

been watching me inconspicuously throwin' elbows at some of the moshers, looked me

dead in the eyes, grabbed my shoulders, and tossed me into the pit. i made it out fairly

easily, dodging a few tumblin' crowd surfers. this one guy who was wearing a dress took off

his tightie-whities and threw them at one of the black lips, he then jumped into the

audience and crowd surfed with his dick hanging out.

the lips were stoked on miami, though the crowd was kinda stupid, moshing to every

song no matter how slow ('dirty hands,' 'hippie hippie hoorah,' starting over).

they did a loonnggg set, playing songs that people would call out in addition to the ones on

the set list, which julia managed to get her hands on after the show. 'bout halfway through

i was drenched, my hair, soaked and thin, looked like i'd crawled outa a swimming pool

made up of sweat and beer and spit and piss. i was loving every minute of it. other songs

that i remember relatively clearly were 'stranger,' 'boomerang,' 'drugs,' 'fairy stories,'

'bad kids' (everyone went fucking wild during this one), 'lock & key,' and finally 'juvenile.'

the roadies weren't really stopping people from jumping up dancing on stage, but this one

guy that kept trying to get in between the band and sing into their microphones was

dragged over to the side by his collar and punched square in the teeth by one of the

roadies; he flew backwards into the mosh pit; i saw him after the show and he was all

bloody, looked pretty fucked up. oh yeah, jared, the bass player (guy in the plaid shirt),

leaped backwards into the crowd during 'juvenile' and nailed me in the eye with the tip of

his bass. we passed him around for a little while, julia tried to steal a lucky rabbit's foot

hanging from his belt-loop. we got out of there around two 'o clock am and drank guiness

in the parking lot for a little while. jack drove the two of us back to my jeep, which was

parked way down back in brickell. good night.