Special J's
ADVENTURE TO TORONTO
the text version.
DISCLAIMER: I don't suggest to anyone that they actually wade through this... unless of course they really want to.
02.24.2000 - 3:29pm EST
I can’t tell if I’m sick or not. sick tired or lazy, i suppose. ber now wow! Guess now’s as
good a time as ever to write about my “trip.” Who be trippin? So Toronto. I had it built
up to be so much - and it met all my expectations plus some, but in ways I never would
have expected.
It all started back in December when I met Amy and the frugals from JMU at the moxy
fruvous shows in NYC at the westbeth theater. Needless to say, I liked them right away-
maybe because they were college kiddies just like myself and they seemed to have their
heads on straight about the band (unlike some of the smitten fans around!). Anyways, we
all kept in touch via email and such and somehow - they were grooves enough to offer to
drive me up to Toronto with ‘em for the convention weekend. Wow. I was so souped to
hear that they’d be willing to go that much out of their way just to help me out that i
couldn’t refuse the offer. :D there was absolutely no way that i, a poor college kiddie,
could have afforded to fly so it definitely was awesome.
So it all really started on Thursday evening, however. I knew that Amy and Co.
would be leaving JMU in Harrisonburg, Virginia around 6pm after their classes were over
and heading up here to meet me in good ol’ NYC. Last i heard it was about a 5 hour
drive to the city and of course, i was anxiously awaiting their arrival all evening long. I
had so much work to do - but really I was just too preoccupied with my own thoughts to
sit down and do any of it. Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not the type to get all giddy
and excited over something like a concert and such but i think the whole experience that
was yet to come - driving from NYC to Toronto with a group of people I’d barely talked
to was definitely going to be interesting.
I wandered around the village for a little while on Thursday night just to soak up
my surroundings and such - i tend to do that a lot. anyways, i visited with a few friends,
said goodbye for the weekend and then finally headed back to my apartment around 10pm
to just sit around and wait. yeehaw. I’m not really sure when they buzzed me but I went
downstairs and met the crew in my lobby and was totally psyched to see that, Paul, a guy
that had IMed me the night before had decided to tag along for the journey despite the
fact that he doesn’t even like fruvous. While that may not seem like much, our
conversation the night before had spanned from talking about transformer underwear and
converse shoes (the general “good ol’ days” as told by a college-age person) to the whole
trip and why I thought he should come along. I never really thought that he’d actually do
it. So grooves. There it was Amanda, Amy, Atasi, and Paul. We wandered down to
the west village around midnight to see if we could pick up fake IDs for amanda and atasi
but the place was closed and there wasn’t much else we could do. We crashed in my
apartment at around 12:30am when we got back with my alarm set for 4:30am. yeehaw!
At which point we got up - i was exhausted - that was the only sleep i’d had in two days.
So we pack up the car and the five of us squished ourselves in - Paul driving, Amy shotty,
and the three of us remaining in the back. 5am and we were on the road... “So jordan, tell
us how to get to the holland tunnel” “the who? ok, just because I live here doesn’t mean i
know how to get around! I don’t have a car!” Eventually we made it there and down
onto the jersey turnpike where I got to hear stories from their trip to the city in december
for the fruvous shows where Atasi was so tired that she didn’t pick up the ticket at the
tollbooth so when they were exiting they had to pay the full price instead of the allotted
amount *grin* I was already beginning to like how funny the group was. I definitely had
nothing to worry about with this crew of people.
So here it is, Friday morning and when we made it into Pennsylvania - I crashed.
When I woke up somewhere near the Poconos, the rest of the crew (save Paul who was
driving) was crashed. So i ask Paul, “Do you like 80’s and 90’s rap?” and he just gets
this cute grin and says “hells yeah - what do you have?” and i pulled out my extra special
“Crackberry Juice Mix: Stuck in the 90s” mixtape that i’d put together a few days before.
First song: Color Me Badd’s “I Wanna Sex You Up” and within seconds after the first
“tic-toc you don’t stop... ooooh oooh oooh!”s the entire car was booming along down
the highway and we were all up and singing along. I knew at this minute that I was going
to enjoy my trip with the JMU crew! :D Throughout the entire tape, each song was
gleefully met with a “oh hells yeah!” or some similar response. Definitely cool to find that
we were grooving to salt n’ pepa, mc hammer, NKOTB, biz (we’re on a first name basis),
eazy-e, 2 live crew, naughty by nature, among a bunch of others together on our way to...
a fruvous show? *grin*
I think it was at this point that we all started playing the question game - which
actually was a nice way for me to relax and meet the rest of my crew and meanwhile open
myself up and let them see just what a crackberry (er, crackhead) i am. It was nice to see
that my sarcastic nature was reflected and reacted to very well in the rest of the car. So,
the trip led us back into NY and we headed through Cortland and Binghamton and all i
could think of was my bud that just transfered down to NYU from SUNY
Binghamton and how her bf went to SUNY Cortland. Anyways, I would never have
survived at school up there. One of those - “yeehaw! let’s get drunk again tonight”
schools because there’s nothing else to do anywhere nearby! Those schools are all nice
for about three weeks and then it just gets old real fast. Allright so somewhere around
here Amanda took the wheel and YIPES! we were all tweaking. I don’t think amanda
drove again after that *grin* it wasn’t really her fault - we were being chased by the
snowstorm the entire trip long and as a result the front windshield was covered almost
completely in mud and crap and the wipers were not doing a thing to help. anyways... i
think amy was driving by the time we crossed the border and when we got to customs all I
can remember was Paul and Amanda leaning out the windows to take pictures of the
“Welcome to Ontario” sign. Yay! the picture came out.
I was mostly psyched that we drove through Niagara Falls because, despite the
fact that we didn’t see anything, we all decided that it was always nice to be able to say
“yeah, i’ve been there.” Anyways, the trip through ontario was pretty uneventful. We
slept some more and when we got into the actual city of Toronto - we were all souped.
Again, we couldn’t see out the windshield but this time it was due to the fact that the
defroster wasn’t hipping so we had to roll down all the windows (yes, in the fine snow and
all) and since we had the windows down - we thought - how could we make sure that
we’re scream out “ANNOYING AMERICANS” to the best of our ability? AH! i know!
let’s boom our music! and that we did. just like on the streets of denver growing up - we
boomed down the streets of Toronto. it was fun. good times.
Friday afternoon, we check into the hotel... at least Amy and I did because we had
to let them think that there were only two people staying in the room (oh yeah - cheating
the system, gotta love that). Paul, Amanda, and Atasi met us in the room a few minutes
later. We all kinda relaxed for a few. Paul was grooves enough to offer to go exchange
our money for us and so off he went while we, the chicas, spent some time in the room.
Amy decided to make a few phone calls *grin* and then went out to get dinner. We
ended up at Hoops bar n grill which was totally cool. Had some yummalicious food and
beers and then decided that we’d head up to Lee’s. Before we went into the subway
station however, Amy and I ran back to the hotel to pick up a letter that Laura (another
JMU student) had written. She totally wanted to go to the show but couldn’t make it so
she wrote a funny letter as a joke to us that said “tell Jian I love him and make sure you
get his autograph for me. PS. if he’s in a bathing suit get a picture of him” I had read this
letter in the car and started laughing so hard that i was crying “when is he just gonna up
and be in a bathing suit?” hahaa! it was great... so as a way to be totally evil friends i
suggested that, if we get a chance, we should have jian sign the actual letter for her.
Ok, so we decided to get to the venue all early because - amanda and atasi still
didn’t have fake ID’s and they still needed to get in. I told them all these stories of when I
was back in denver trying to see shows at the bluebird and ogden theaters and how i
always used to sneak in back or side doors and then go hide in the bathroom and stuff.
Anyway, so we decided to get there early and check it out. we headed to the back
and, yes, there were two doors but both were definitely shut and locked. The plus
side was that there were holes in both of the doors and we could peer in and
see the band soundchecking. that was cool but the novelty of it faded away real
quick and we all decided to split and think of a new plan to get the girls
in. So we head around to the front and join all the fruheads in line. We notice that there
are people wandering in and out of the club non-stop so i told amanda and atasi to just
walk in totally calm and act like they totally have a destination and purpose in mind and to
just head straight for the bathroom and to sit in there until they let the rest of the people
in. It worked all good - the only thing we didn’t realize was that they were going to have
to sit in the bathroom for close to 2 hours. haha! ok, so paul heads down the street to a
pub while amy and i stood in line. Paul got back and stood in line with us for a few
minutes before he recognized that it was foolish to just stand around in the cold - and he
walked into lee’s, sat down at the bar and had a beer. A few minutes later, after we
realize that he isn’t getting thrown out or anything, amy and i look at each other - look at
all the people around us - and decided it’s ridiculous to be outside. So we go and join
Paul at the bar and just hung out until they started letting people into the venue. While
there we say hi to Jian who kind of curiously asks how we were already in the venue and
such. I couldn’t really tell if he was annoyed or not but i figured if he had a problem with
it he would have been like “get da hail outta heah.” (that’s ghetto for “please leave”). Paul
became “best buds” with the bar tender and his life story is actually really cool. I like that
guy.
Allright, so we’re all just hanging out before the show when the opener comes on -
Martina wha? i dunno. Anyways, she says something about how she feels very lonely on
stage by herself without her “backup band” and said something along the lines of “I need
some dancers or something” just totally playing. Paul being the crazy that he is - offers to
come up on stage and dance. Martina lets him and somewhere along the line a chica from
the audience (mindy?) offered to dance with paul for the song as well. so there they were
dancing to the song and I had to listen to fruheads all around me bitching and whining
about “that’s not fair to martina” and i just looked at them and thought, “she would have
told them no if she really didn’t want them on the stage with her.” whatever, i think it got
people interested in her set and you have to admit that the people stopped talking through
that song like they had through the rest of ‘em. She finished and during the interim
between her set and fruvous’ paul hears the giddy teenage girls standing behind us talking
about how dave is standing over in the corner so he asks us “Is dave in the band or
something?” *grin* we said “Yup” and with that Paul goes over to dave and talks for a
good 15 minutes at least. Ok, i was just laughing - what does paul have to say to dave?
he didn’t even know who he was! *grin* we’d keep looking over and there they were
slapping each other on the back, having a grand ol’ time - they looked like they were best
friends from days of yore! anyways, dave has to split to go get ready and paul comes back
to where we’re standing and we all just give him this look of “what in the world?!” so
Paul explains that he was talking to Dave about how scared he was of “fruheads” and how
he didn’t really like the band, he was just there to chill and stuff... guess they just had fun
looking around at the situation in front of them - i know i did.
That done, fruvous takes the stage and well, you all heard the setlist. It was
grooves. I liked the show a lot. The energy level seemed to be *less* than that of the last
time i had seen them in NYC but maybe i was just hallucinating. (is that enough said?)
haha, all you guys reading this review have gotten this far and are like “So, dude, where’s
the frucontent?” Sorry, I feel really bad - you can stop reading now... or go on...
whatever floats your boat...
So after the show we see that there’s a crowd of giddy females and we figured that
somewhere in the middle of it must rest Jian. We waited a little bit for the crowd to
disperse but honestly he’s like a neon light and the women are like freekin bugs that just
can’t resist... it’s all good in the hood. We all made our way over to him and gave him
Laura’s letter and Jian had somewhat of the same response as i did “in a bathing suit?
what? when? huh?!” it was coo... he signed it with something along the lines of “when do
i get to see you in a bikini” hehee. i laughed. so did laura when we gave it back to her.
Ok, so we head out of the venue all happy like and have the intentions of taking
the subway (which can i just say is so clean and friendly compared to NYC - wow, i was
in shock when i got down there first). The guy says “it’s 1:46am and the last train is
pulling up right now - it leaves at 1:47am... you guys can try to make it” so we ran. and
since amanda and i got there first we stood in the doors and held it up (don’t you just hate
those people?) until the rest of our crew got on. We were all tired but there weren’t any
seats in the car we hopped into so we all stood up... it was the JMU crew on one side and
me on the other. that was fun. then it became the “ethnics” (that’s what amanda and atasi
tagged themselves throughout the weekend because they felt as though they were like two
of maybe five total non-white people they saw at the shows) against us. somehow we
found all of this really entermusing.
So we got half-way back to the hotel but of course we couldn’t make the transfer
we were supposed to because the subways stopped running (what kind of bull is that?) and
so we walked back to the hotel from there. That was really cool. I love toronto :D We
got back to the hotel chilled for a bit and then crashed. i was soo sleepy.
I woke up about six hours later. I hate sleeping - i think it’s such a waste of time.
There are so many other things i could be doing. So i hop in the shower and try my
hardest not to wake any of my roommates up. I see that paul’s eyes are open so i whisper
to him “i’m going down to the lobby to read” and snuck out the door. I sat in the lobby
for a bit just watching what was going on. That was interesting. I tried to read my book
“the zen teachings of bodhidharma” but i really didn’t get that far... I headed back upstairs
around 11am and found that the crew had just woken up. I fall asleep for about an hour
while everyone is showering and such and when we were all ready we headed down to mr.
sub for lunch. that was highly entermusing cuz i had no clue what the hell was going on.
Anyways, we got back to the hotel and amy, atasi, amanda, and I all wandered into the
con. we looked around - watched the I Will Hold On video - made some insights into it.
watched a king of spain video and then headed in for the “open mic” The JMU crew’s
bud brett and his friends were going to be covering the Gulf War Song and according to
my buds they said that their a capella group covers fruvous songs often and they always
sound grooves so i was hyped to see ‘em.
The open mic surprised me - I had expected to be totally unthrilled and thought i’d
only be listening to people butchering otherwise good songs. Needless to say, i was
shocked to hear how awesome everyone (ok there were a couple i could have done
without hearing - but nothing so bad that i scarred my appreciation for the lads songs!)
sounded. The little munchkin boys were awesome :D i was cracking up so much. very
nice. The awards were fun and it seemed like everyone was having a good
time. We (the crew minus Paul) got in some pics with Jian and Murray...
My buds and I opted not to stay for the Q&A session. Oddly enough, I was
introduced to Moxy Fruvous when Sarah threw a couple of videos of them performing
somewhere on the end of a TMBG bootleg i had traded her for... she also threw in Jaymz
Bee and his Royal Jelly Orchestra videos on there too. I just thought that was somewhat
ironic. needless to say - i was more thrilled with Fruvous the day i watched that video
than Jaymz. he was cool tho. We got back into the con before the Q&A was over so we got
to hear a bit of it. The topic of public radio was raised and everyone was so supportive of the poor
indie, obscure, and otherwise unheard of things. Totally 100% understandable. But the
question has to be asked - just because you’re pro-indie, does that mean you *have* to be
anti-popular? I felt completely shocked talking to people as they bashed the pop culture in
order to be pro-unique and pro-individual stuff. I had no respect for the people i was
talking to - how can you even begin to claim you understand the indie artists if you don’t
understand the pop culture *and* understand the unique differences between the two that
distinguish them from each other? if you totally reject the world around you without
being aware of what that world really involves ... you have no basis or credibility for
making a judgment at all. my 3 cents. it had to be said.
Ok, that being done - we anxiously await fruvous’ appearance at the con. That
was totally grooves. I’m one of a mere few that considers the b album as my fave (yeah
yeah it’s detarded to pick one but hey...) so i was super-duper-alice-cooper groovin’ to
this little performance. Paul, meanwhile, was not too excited and he left partway through
to go pub-hopping. Amy, Atasi, and Amanda all got in a pic with Dave and then we jetted
out of there.
Dinner at the pizza pizza on the corner. I was so crazy - don’t know what got into
me. (amy, wanna buy this bag of doritos? only $500 CAN!) Anyways, we were sitting
there and watched as fruheads kept passing. Finally I thought to myself - they’re all
heading to the subway - i’m wondering if doors are earlier tonight than they have been the
last few nights. We all head down and take the trek to lee’s again and find out that doors
aren’t until 9pm! what were all you fruheads thinking standing in line for 4 hours? (we
heard people complaining that they’d been in the line since 5:30pm). Whatever, we did
what we did the night before and went into the bar. This time there was a different
bar-tender and she, along with the rest of the lee’s staff, didn’t like fruheads to say the
least. Paul chatted with Martina some more and i can’t tell if shew as afraid that he was
some mad stalker or something or just generally pleased that she had a major fan. We
chilled inside again until fruheads started entering and all was good... we staked out places
in front, stage-dave tonight and that was mad-cool. I can talk some more about how
people are so anti-tall people but i’m saving that for the fruhead post. sorry. Martina
sounded so much better tonight with the drummer - i was groovin a helluva a lot more
than the night before.
Fruvous comes on. not much to say here other than the whole being spit on story.
that was entermusing. thank you mike! ugh! anyways, amy bought dave a beer and set it
on the stage with a little note that said something along the lines of “compliments of
amy”... unfortunately dave didn’t see it. Jian did however - he took a big swig of it
somewhere in the middle of the show and amy and i just looked at each other and laughed.
Jian managed to step on the little note too :( aw amy! anyways, amy then points the beer
out to dave and he smiles. it was all good in the hood except he prolly thot we’d drinkin’
the bit of it that was missing, not jian. hahaa! ok...
so after the show we got jian back for stealing dave’s beer... he sets his beer down
on our table as he’s signing autographs and i’m like “oh, did ya get me a beer? thanks!”
all sarcastic like and totally way more forward than i ever am in real life and he’s like
“mmm... grumblegrumble... you can have some... grumble” so i took it. then the crew
took the rest. i laughed. I had all intentions of buying him another beer (since, yeah, we
drank most of it) but i couldn’t find him so whatever - we owe jian a beer that’s all there is
to it. *grin*
It’s well after the 1:47 subway cut off time (am i laughing at your city? noooo!) so
we hail a cab to take us back to the hotel. This guy is so awesome - he asks us where
we’re from and what we’re doing in toronto and when we tell him that we’re here for a
concert, he says “oh, which one?” and we said “moxy fruvous” to which he’s like “oh
yeah, i drove those boys home a couple of years ago... well three of ‘em... there’s more
than that in the band, right?” and we’re like, “yeah, there’s four of ‘em” and he’s like
“yeah they had a show and three of them got in the cab and, there’s an indian one in the
group, right?” “yeah” “he went off with some girl, but the other three got in and i drove
each of them home... one of them made me stop off at a flower store so he could buy
flowers for his wife.” At this point, i can’t tell if he’s just making all this stuff up or not
but he goes on and tells us all these stories about what they were talking about and...
here’s my question, did fruvous ever open up for bob dylan? i seriously gotta know.
anyways - he goes off and tells us where each of the three of them lived and i’m sure if i
was from toronto it would have some significance to me but honestly he’d say stuff like
“the beaches” and i’m like... oh. that’s nice. *smile and nod* like a blonde haired blue
eyed chica. anyways, i laid all the rest of my canadian currency on this guy and we
headed up to the hotel and chilled for a bit. got food, chilled some mo’, then crashed. we
got up pretty damn early, packed our stuff up and headed out on the road again.
we’re all good driving along and somewhere in the middle of Pennsylvania, after
we stopped at a bagel store (ironically, :manhattan bagel:) at which point the crew decides
i need to be at the wheel. I tell them that i’ve never driven an automatic - which is sad but
true. in colorado it’s all about the standards cuz you get in the mountains and i swear to
god it sucks if you can’t downshift... anyways... i digress. I start driving on the condition
that i don’t have to be in charge of the directions - they had to tell me where to go. they
agree. So there i am - i like to drive fast. i think it reflects my entire life - cuz everything i
do is mad fast.... i never stop (i already commented about how i think that relates to the
fact that i hate sleeping - it just slows ya down)... anyways, i’m zipping down the highway
at 110mph and it’s all fun. we pull over about an hour and a half later when i look down
and see that we’re at empty YEEHAW!!! at that point amy takes the wheel and as we pull
out of the gas station and get back on the highway amy and i (sitting shotty) pull down the
visors because the sun is in our eyes. WHAT? we’re definitely going west... and we have
been for the past 2 hours. ouch. so we laugh it all off and turn around. We start heading
back the way we really want to be going and we realize “hell, we’re closer to
Harrisonburg, VA than NYC” Paul asks me what time i have classes at tomorrow and i
tell him “it’s presidents day so NYU doesn’t have classes” they all look at me and it’s
basically agreed that we’re going to Virginia, not NYC. “mmm. ok!” and we were off.
Howerver, Atasi was asleep for this whole conversation and when she wakes up she’s like
“where are we?” we tell her and she gets this annoyed “oh my god, we are so much closer
to VA than NY!!! this sucks!” We all laugh at her but don’t say anything. pretty soon
thereafter i start reading my entry in the car’s “trip journal” and reveal the fact to Atasi
that i’m going down to VA to chill with them for a lil while she seemed to be pretty
psyched. So there we were driving through Maryland, W. Virginia, and we finally get into
VA... only to get pulled over. yeehaw. it was 79 in a 65, one mph shy of “reckless
driving” i just laughed at the fact that i didn’t get pulled over when i was driving. we
shook that one off too and made our way into harrisonburg. but not before we made a
quick stop at “Sheetz” for gas and ... shmuffins. oh yeah. i was 100% broke but whatever
- i got a shmuffin and was all good in the hood. We pulled into Harrisonburg and i was
thoroughly entertained as we drove onto campus and the kiddies in the car new everyone
that was wandering around... i just thought of NYU and how it’s in NYC and there’s no
way in hell i could do that. *grin* we chill there and tell all the kiddies about our trip.
Monday evening after everybody’s classes are over - we all hop into the car again
and they drove me back up to NYC. these kids are so super-duper nice. i can’t wait to
see ‘em all again! oh yeah - and i can’t wait to see the band. (can’t forget about that,
right?) it’s all about the music.
It was cool getting to know all these new people that i totally dig, without a doubt! This
trip, if for nothing else, made me realize that nothing in the world is so serious
that ya gotta get in a bad mood over it. Be it driving 4 hours out of the way or standing in
the cold around a bunch of people that are doing nothing but complaining... it’s all good in
the hood and now i have great stories to share with great people, right?
so the question in the first sentence of this: sick, tired, or lazy? probably none of the
above - just had too much floating in the depths of my head.
[This site last updated: 03.25.2k]
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