A Crazy Game of Concert

At some point during the summer of 2007, I was sitting in Fitzy's with Anfron and Moro when "Crazy Game of Poker" came on and I casually mentioned that I'd lilke to see the song performed live. Anfron responded by informing me that OAR would be playing at PNC on August 11, and that he was looking for someone to go with. So that was all the motivation i needed. For those of you who aren't familiar with Anfron, here's a quick introduction.

Originally the plan was to meet up with some chick that he knew from down by PNC and spend the night with her and her hopefully hot friends. But that plan was aborted when Anfron got back with his ex, "TheWolf", who would now be coming to the concert with us. Upon hearing this news I began mentally preparing myself for the worst. The two of them have broken up and gotten back together more than George Steinbrenner and Billy Martin, and its a rare occasion when they are spotted together not fighting. Throw in a ton of alcohol and a rowdy concert crowd, and you have yourself the makings of quite the running diary.

122pm - Anfron calls and tells me to be ready at 3 for the concert, which starts at 8, assuring us plenty of tailgating time.

300 - Anfron calls and says to be ready in a half hour, and to bring a football.

338 - Anfron shows up without missing the driveway, an impressive feat for someone driving to my house for the first time. He is accompanied by TheWolf and some random kid named Jon, who will henceforth be referred to as "JohnnyRandom". He also sends me on a wild goose chase for ping pong balls so that we can play beer pong in the parking lot.

345 - Anfron and TheWolf begin arguing about Dunkin Donuts. She wanted to stop for an iced coffee and he wouldn't let her because they were already running late. Now she wants him to stop at the first rest stop and get one. He steadfastly refuses.

350 - After stopping at the first rest stop, Anfron calls from inside because the line is too long and he refuses to wait.

357 - TheWolf: "Do they step on your feet?"
No one has any idea what she is talking about, until she finally explains that she was worried about her feet gettting stepped on at the concert, so she wore sneakers. Still that was not enough to allay her concerns.

404 - Traffic is quite a pickle.

406 - 30 Seconds to Mars comes on the radio.
Ostrowe:"I hate these guys."
TheWolf:"I'll leave this on."

414 - After asking me if I knew her friend from South, and me explaining that I did not, but I knew her from work, TheWolf responds "You don't work at TTC!" Oh how I wish that statement were true.

419 - I start stirring the pot.
Ostrowe:"I'm glad I had some iced coffee before we left"
TheWolf:"Fuck you Ostrowe, that's not funny"

442 - Yet another iced coffee argument.
Anfron:"We're late, I can't believe you're making me stop"
TheWolf:"The gates don't open till 5, Jen told me so"
Anfron:"Jen's fucking stupid"
TheWolf:"Don't call my friends stupid!"

444 - We stop at a rest stop that has a Krispy Kreme so Anfron can go inside and get an iced coffee.

449 - TheWolf:"This is terrible, I'm not drinking this"
Anfron:"Well you're not getting another one"

5pm - Passing by a truck that says Coachmen, TheWolf mistakes it for "Cockman"

505 - Arrive at PNC a shade under three hours prior to the concert; it is already packed with tailgaters, most of whom appear to still be in high school.

513 - I receive a call from Power inviting me to a kegger in Pearl River; he claims it will still be going on after the concert is over.

515 - Anfron fires up the grill.

525 - Some guy comes by handing out stickers; I grab one that says "FedSex - When You Absolutely Need to Get it Overnight"; its still hanging on my desk at TTC to this day.

545 - Event staff makes us move so someone else can park; event staff blows.

558 - Some 12 year old kid walks by and someone in our group asks "How's Junior High?"; someone = me. A scalper walks by yelling "Tickets?", Anfron responds "Titties?"

628 - Anfron starts blasting KISS from the car stereo as the assorted high schoolers look on in horror.
Another Scalper:"Tickets?"
Ostrowe:"Mooncrickets?"

632 - The sun is not a gentleman.
Anfron:"I wish the moon were here. The moon is a gentleman"

633 - Some guy comes by selling his CD; the best excuse I can come up with not to buy one is "I don't . . . have any . . . really . . . cash"; in other news, I'm retarded.

635 - Anfron (to TheWolf):"Why don't you show your titties?"

637 - Ostrowe:"(TheWolf), you have chicken on your face"
TheWolf:"Which one?"

653 - Anfron starts blasting some Billy Fucking Joel as the high schoolers start to run and hide.

710 - Anfron tries to get TheWolf to deep throat some broccolli; she is game and proves to be fairly successful.

717 - JohnnyRandom almost kills a girl with the football as we are tossing it around the parking lot.

737 - Some random, also named Jon, has spent the past 10 minutes hanging out with us; apparently he's going to TheWolf's bodysculpting competition in a few weeks and he's going to take us all to Seaside afterwards.

738 - A limo goes by and an argument ensues as to whether Jim$ or 15 year old girls are inside. Eventually we determine that its both.

740 - TheWolf:"You're like a police officer stop fucking writing shit"

744 - Some dumbass kid either doesn't see the sign or thinks he's short enough to make it under and smacks his face on it. He looks around to make sure no one saw it and I helpfully point out what a dumbass he is to anyone who missed it. I'm a gentleman.

747 - Some guy walks by with brown stains all over his ass; at this point its anyone's guess as to what those stains are.

751 - The second time's the charm as JohnnyRandom nails a girl with the football, causing her to spill her beer all over herself.

757 - First MC sighting. That makes one more than at the Toby Keith concert a few weeks earlier.

808 - In a development that's certainly not going to be good for business, TheWolf has been sitting in the car sulking for the past 7 minutes. I do not envy Anfron right now.

816 - Anfron emerges from the car and proclaims he needs to drink more, followed by TheWolf demanding he give her the keys so she can drive home. Seeing where this is going, I grab my and JohnnyRandom's tickets and tell TheWolf I'll get my stuff back when we get back to Rockland. After several minutes of her and Anfron staring holes through each other without saying anything, she finally proclaims she's not going to drive home because "I wouldn't do that to my friends"

828 - JohnnyRandom and I finally get in to the show, leaving Anfron and TheWolf in the parking lot fighting with each other.

835 - Due to the amount of underage kids we are only allowed to purchase one beer at a time. Also, we have to buy bracelets that can only be stamped three times before we have to either buy a new one or can't have any more to drink. Ostensibly this is done so no one can buy booze for the underage kids.

839 - JohnnyRandom and I make a deal with some 17 year olds and agree to buy them beer in exchange for a fee.

As is usually the case with running diaries that take place when I am drinking, there is a huge gap of time without a single entry. I do know that between this entry and the next one, Anfron and TheWolf arrived, and met us, and for some reason Anfron let TheWolf hold on to his phone. File that under "foreshadowing".

The opening band was Augustana, and there was absolutely nothing noteworthy about them, save for their lone hit, "Boston", and even the performance of that song was pretty lackluster.

930 - OAR finally comes onstage, and Drunk Anfron loses his fucking mind and starts running around and high fiving people like the Giants just won the Super Bowl.

937 - Anfron gets up and runs around high fiving more people.

941 - Anfron disappears into the ether.

942 - Anfron returns

945 - Anfron gets so excited he falls backwards over the seats and knocks TheWolf's sunglasses off, prompting yet another hissy fit.

947 - Anfron disappears again, this time for good.
Unfortunately I didn't mark the times of much that happened after that, but it wasn't long before the shit really hit the fan.

Anfron starts getting texts from someone asking where he is. Of course, he can't answer cause TheWolf has his phone. What complicates matters more was that in this case "someone" = the girl he was supposed to meet at the concert. TheWolf is none too pleased with this.

She immediately starts texting the girl back, asking who the hell she is and why she was texting her boyfriend. It didn't help matters that the girl texted back, "Anfron broke up with his girlfriend" and "You better keep an eye on your man". This of course sent TheWolf into hysterics. As entertaining as it was to watch this girl become completely unhinged, I was fucked because JohnnyRandom had disappeared as well, and she turned to me for comfort. I could barely keep a straight face as I told her there was absolutely nothing going on between Anfron and this girl, and that she was probably misreading things. Eventually she managed to calm down, but not before threatening to get her friends to beat up this girl, threatening to get her friends to beat up Anfron, and unleashing this gem:

TheWolf:"You're such a good guy. I knew I should've hooked up with you when we met"
Ostrowe:" . . . Uhhhhhh . . . no"
TheWolf:"I know, I wouldn't want to ruin you guys's friendship"
Ostrowe:". . .Yeah . . ." (At this point I start plotting to kill Anfron for making me put up with this)

Around 1030 I got up to go to the bathroom, and hopefully get away from TheWolf. She was not having that though.

TheWolf:"Please don't leave me! I don't want to be alone!"
Ostrowe:(silently cursing Anfron)

1040 - While I'm still in the bathroom taking a piss, "Crazy Game of Poker" comes on. The one fucking song I came to see, and it comes on when I'm taking a piss. I now start hoping Anfron gets crushed by a falling concert speaker.

The rest of the concert itself was fairly uneventful. After "Crazy Game of Poker" they played one more song before the encore, and by the time they got halfway thru with the second song ("Love & Memories", the only other song I would've cared to see) we were already in the parking lot on our way back to the car. We had managed to meet up with JohnnyRandom on the way out, and now were missing only Anfron. At this point I could've cared less if we left him in Jersey, and I'm pretty sure TheWolf felt the same way. Which leads us to our final entry:

1125 - We get back to the car to find Anfron already there; when TheWolf confronts him about the texts, the only word out of his mouth is "Titties".

The ride back was an event in itself. After about a ten minute strech in which Anfron just repeated "Titties" over and over again, he finally passed out. TheWolf raged like a maniac on the ride home, swerving all over the road and threatening all sorts of revenge on Anfron. I was literally in fear for my life. At one point she even unleashed this threat towards me:

TheWolf:"Don't even try calling or texting him to let him know what he's in for tomorrow! I have his phone!"

Somehow I made it home in one piece even with Glen Close in Fatal Attraction behind the wheel. Sadly, but to no surprise, the keggar had long since ended. I later found out from Anfron that he did meet up with that chick and wound up hooking up with her. Being the gentleman that he is, he also apologized profusely for the fact that I had to put up with TheWolf, and I of course accepted. Amazingly, the two of them are still together.

I was not an OAR fan when I decided to go to the show, and their performance did nothing to change my mind. Given the situation though, I would be willing to give them a second chance. After all, it was a Crazy Game of Concert.