Chapter One
As i type in this first sentence trying to figure out where to start this story, the story of my journey with my wife Alejandra, I suppose I should start at the very beginning. Duh!
The date is June 5th 2010. The place is verizon wireless amphitheater Irvine, Ca. The event is KROQ Weenie Roast.
So when the tickets to go the Weenie Roast got purchased my brother got two tickets one for him one for me. The day of the festival arrives I get a call from my brother saying that he wasn't going to come because he had already seen most of the bands on the line-up. At that point I decided to go alone and took the extra ticket to maybe sell it off for a few extra bucks for some beer. I get to the parking lot and I run into a “3rd party ticket salesman” and he asks me, “want to buy some tickets?” I think to myself for a minute knowing i have an extra ticket and I say to him.
“Well as a matter of fact I have an extra ticket myself. Do you mind if we trade my two of mine for one of your tickets in a better section. Do you have one in orchestra?” He goes through his stack and finds one in orchestra and he says.
“One sec I got to make a call.” He makes a phone call to whom I could only assume was his boss. “I got this guy here he has two tickets in loge and wants to trade for one in orchestra. Is it ok to make the trade? Uh huh. Ok.” He looks up at me and hangs up the phone. “Alright so my boss said it was ok to go ahead with the trade.” I’m thinking to myself AWESOME and the theme song to T.V. show The Jeffersons, Movin on up plays in my head
I take the ticket, this ticket to the orchestra section, I got to sit 50 meters from the stage. All thanks to my brother not coming to the concert. Now as I take this ticket I’m a little skeptical and I say, “If this doesn’t work I’m coming back to get my tickets back.”
He says, “Don't worry it will work.”
So I walk up to where they scan the tickets a little nervous about the ticket, and also the fact I had a couple joints in my wallet. So I hand the ticket to the guy who is scanning the tickets I’m thinking to myself, Please work please work please work. Beep the ticket scans and into the concert I go. Yay! Now when you enter into the verizon wireless amphitheater there is a main stage and a side stage. The side stage has two stages side by side so while one band is playing another one can setup and teardown.
Walking up to the side stage I hear "Sweet Disposition" by The Temper Trap upon realizing the song and excited that I didn’t miss their set I start running up to the loud music.
I start singing with the music, and I start dancing, I’m having a great time enjoying the music and the atmosphere. Rocking out to The Temper Trap I pull out my camera take some pictures. I notice the next band is getting ready and while they’re setting up I think to go grab myself a beverage. So the first stand I find is a beer stand so I take out my wallet nonchalantly pull out a $20 that is sitting right next to my two joints. I ask, “What do you have?”
The clerk replies, “I have two sizes medium or large.”
“I’ll take a large, please.”
“Twelve bucks.”
o.O “The fuck? Ok.” Then he hands me a 32oz cup and I think fair enough, and take a walk back to the crowd. Next band up was Passion Pit. I enjoyed them very much, by the time Passion Pit finished their second song my beer was empty, I needed another. I walked over and gave another 12 bucks plus tip for a 32oz cup of delicious and refreshing beer. I finish the beer real quick and realize I’m starting to feel buzzed. So I slow down and wander off to the back of the crowd smoke a cig. I keep to myself for most of the afternoon trying to gather myself watching the next band which was Against Me.
I know a few of their songs and enjoyed the songs I recognized, the songs I didn’t know were alright. I was feeling kinda drunk at this point so I took a walk up the hill to the where the vendor area was, in between the side stage and the main stage. Here was the next part of my fun day, some of it is a bit of a blur do to the alcohol.
From here I walked the grounds and checked out most of the vendors and kind of judged them. The reason I judge the booths was that i used to do Brand Ambassador work and worked booths like the ones at the festival, at different type of events. My favorite booth that was there was The Chronic Candy booth, there I lit my first joint, I shared it with the guys at the booth and the other people behind the table. As we all smoked the joint at booth they let me come behind the table and chilled out on the couch and smoked a few more bowls. Home-Boy pulls out his backpack and in his bag is what looked like a QP and I was happy to see that I had a hook-up to get an eighth for the remainder of the concert. I asked the dude if I could that eighth and gave him 40 bucks and rolled that into 4 more joints for the main stage. I hung out at that booth probably longer than welcomed but they had a couch and some good looking girls at the booth, and I smoked them out a bunch, so I was chillin. As I heard Cage the Elephant playing on the main stage I said, “Take care I’m out,” and I took off. On my way to go watch Cage I grabbed some food and headed into the orchestra section.
As I grabbed my upgraded seat from trading my tickets I settle in and there is no one around me just one dude to my right, and Miss Double December just down the row.
That guy ended up being real chill and he had some buddies that came a little later. As soon as his buddies showed up they had some smuggled alcohol in flasks that they shared with me. Since they shared their alcohol with me I shared a joint with them. I ended up getting really fucked up with those guys. When they left I think it was around the time Devo was on stage this part was a bit of a blur. But I do remember singing along to a Devo song really super loud and my new buddies weren't my new buddies anymore and they took off. As I’m sitting in my seat and Silversun starts playing I start fading in and out, because how fucked I am. And once I realize that this is happening, I decide to take a walk over to the smoking section. Because I can't smoke Cigs in the open amphitheater orchestra section but no one has a problem with my joint, what the fuck? Anyway I smoke my cigarette grab a water and a red bull and head back to my seat. Feeling a little better I’m getting excited because the next band that is supposed to come out is the headliner Sublime with Rome. But as the Stage turns around it’s a surprise guest STONE TEMPLE FUCKING PILOTS all original members of the band. I did not expect to see them seeing as it has been years since they have been on stage together.
As I watch them play their first song a group of girls come walking through my lonely row of seats, and sit 3 seats over from me. And the Prettiest girl of the group was sitting closest to me in the row it. While STP plays the second song I pull out my second to last J and light it up, then pass it over to her. Alex looks at it at first wondering what it is that I'm handing her. Once she realized what it was she took it and hit it and passed it over to her friends. She looks over at me and asks, “Who are you here with?”
I look over to her say, “I’m here by myself. Why?”
“Why are you by yourself?”
“My brother was supposed to come but he decided to not come, so I came by myself. Why do you ask?”
“Just wondering..” She says with this really confused look, like I was nuts to come alone to a concert. As STP is playing their set we started dancing together and singing the songs together and she was always looking back at the ushers and kept asking why I would come by myself.
The only answer I could give was, “To be able to watch Bud and Eric from Sublime
live.” I eventually ask her, “Who are you looking for when you look up at the top of the stairs?”
“Nobody it's just we photoshopped our lawn tickets to look like orchestra tickets so we can come down here.” At this point in my life where I'm writing this story I know it was fate that I met this person that night at that spot.
Stone Temple Pilots had ended and up next was Sublime and the amphitheater lit up, thanking STP and welcoming Sublime with Rome. At this point of the night I’m starting to sober up and I start talking to Alex who had moved closer to the seat next to me. She looks over at me and says, “You really came here by yourself? How did you get here? I mean did you drive here or get a ride?”
“I drove here, I only live like 45 minutes away no traffic, hour and fifteen with traffic. Why do keep asking?” Completely unaware of the fact that she thought I was attractive. She smiles. As Sublime with Rome was playing their last few songs, she turns talks to her friends for a couple minutes and comes back and said to me.
“What are you doing after the show?”
“Nothing I was planning on just going home after a small nap in my car to sober up. Why?”
“No reason, just wondering.” She says with a big smile and turns to her friends again, she talks to them for a minute, then looks back at me. As Sublime finishes up playing the last song of the night Alex asks, “Want to walk with me to the parking lot?”
Now look at this point in my life I’m 23 years old, I was in the navy for a short bit before I got kicked out (FOLLOW for more stories!) and moved to Virginia. Lived in Virginia beach, Va for a couple years partying my ass off on the Boardwalk. And someone says, “Want to walk with me to the parking lot?” In my experience nine times out of ten that means “You want to go fuck in your car?” Now I’m thinking I won the lottery today this day turned into the best day of my life. Not only did I enjoy watching a lot of my favorite bands at less than 150 feet away, the cherry on top, was the cherry on top.
So as we walk to the parking lot she asks me, “Do you have a condom?” I think about the question for a second and I start to panic after realizing I don’t. I look over at her with a sad look on my face and couldn’t even say the word and could only just shake my head left to right. That is when her smile turned to a frown, then with a determined look she walks over to her friends and asks if any of them have one. With more luck on top of luck a friend had one for us. As we took off to my car and her friends walked over to her car we get into the back seat of my brothers car, the one who didn't want to go, a Dodge Intrepid. The vehicle mentioned has a rather large back seat and the windows weren’t tinted at all the only real thing we had for stealth was to just stay low.
As Alex and I get into the car she tells me, “I don’t normally do this.”
I smile give a little chuckle and say, “Yeah me neither.” Now fast forward about twenty minutes this isn’t the penthouse forums, as we’re finishing up I take the condom off throw it out the car door. I pull up my pants and right after I button up my pants, TAP TAP, someone taps on the window of the car with a flashlight I look up. It’s a cop just my luck that this is how my night is going to end. All I can think is I’m getting arrested for fucking in the back seat. I roll down the window I know the car stinks like sex and weed look up at him smile and say, “Can I help you?”
“You two doing all right?” The cop asks while shining the light in the empty front seats.
Trying my hardest to not say or do something stupid I say, “Yup, we’re doing great just waiting for all the cars.”
He turns the light at us says, “Alright you two have a good night stay safe.” Then he walks off. I climb into the driver seat and she climbs over to the passenger seat I look at her and say, “That was fun can I get your phone number maybe do this again sometime maybe in a bed and not a car.” She gave me her number and I drove her over to her car where her friends were waiting for us. I told her to drive safe and I drove away thinking that this was the best day ever.
Here are some more photos of the day that I liked. Unfortunately I didn't take a picture of Alex the day I met her, just the way it goes.
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