Ipod Song of the Decade of the Day

I dumped a bunch of old faves on my ipod a few weeks ago. every so often an album or song will come on that throttles me back. this particular song came on today as i was making my way out of Oklahoma. I started crying. it was the strangest thing. i was suddenly bombing around in my mom's volvo, shaving my head in the garage, cutting off the sleaves of the Tshirts I screen printed in graphics class... and sneaking off to see Social Distortion play the Odd Rock in Milwaukee.

it was going to be one the biggest days of my life. i had no idea where this band came from or where albums were born, but the songs off this album were my favorite thing ever, and they were miraculously coming to town. there was no way i was going to miss it, parental forbidenness aside.

i set up an alibi with a friend, and snuck out to meet my boyfriend, Lee. we cruised downtown in his crappy little brown dodge. there was a massive crowd outside already and we managed to wedge ourselves in. i dumped a bunch of quarters into Galaga and tried to ignore the usual verbiage growing louder between the skins and punk rock kids.

about a half hour in, there was a ruckus. the cops busted in. they grabbed one kid with a mohawk, cuffed him and threw him down the stone steps that exited the club onto the sidewalk. it was about a half second to ignition. i got seperated from lee, but ran out as soon as i could. in a few minutes the whole milwaukee police department was there in riot gear. i could barely see anything, other than batons flying. between legs i saw a girl getting dragged, cuffed, by her feet, face down and tossed into a truck. i didn't see him, but apparently a friend of mine from my geometry class was already inside the truck. lee managed to find me and we made off in the dodge just as i watched the stop sign bend under the surge of bodies. the explaination later was that the crowd was too large and violated the fire code. i'd never seen anything like it- i can't believe what a huge match police lit by sending in the riot squad. lawsuits were filed after the fact, though i have no idea what ever came of any of it.

needless to say, it made the news. i got busted, and was grounded for a year and proved to be the start of the final chapter of my life in milwaukee. sad thing is, I never really got to see them. they came to green bay years later, but i wasn't so into the new stuff at that point and i don't even remember the show.

I still love this album. I'm psyched it brings back such crazy feelings. just a little unexpected is all.

"I can't wait til the show tonight, when i'm with my friends everything's alright"