Les Savy Fav, 9/22 at the Bowery Ballroom: The night I almost beat the asses of two Boston fratboys

Dedicated to that one guy who works there who for some reason decided to pick on my friend all the time and I don't know what his goddamn deal is with her

My plane from London was to land some time between 2 and 3 pm, but thanks to headwinds and usual plane lateness I ended up arriving between 4 and 5. A text message greeted me saying, "Are you back in America yet?" I was due at a the same evening, and was attempting to rush home. However, considering I was depending on the subway to get me home, I suppose "rush" isn't the correct word to be using. I arrived back at my apartment with just enough time to drop off my luggage and do a quick shower and change so that I didn't smell like 8 hours of an airplane.

By the time I hopped down to the Bowery Ballroom it was a bit after 8:30, but the show hadn't started yet. Miss Kelly and I chilled, then went up to the performance area and chilled some more, talked with some people. The crowd looked eager and ready to have fun. All in all, it was a good vibe...at first.

So after the second opening act Parts & Labor got of stage and we were in that waiting period for Les Savy Fav to come on stage, two drunk guys had weasled their way into the space directly behind us.

For those of you familiar with drunks at shows, they usually fall into two categories. One being just asshole-ish drunks who can be a range of combinations of harmless and friendly/excited eager. They're not bad people, they just happen to be drunk. Sure it's annoying, but some people I suppose just like being drunk so what can you do. I personally don't know why you'd get smashed at a show, but hey, different strokes for different folks. The second group is the drunk asshole. No redeeming features whatsoever. They're just an asshole that happens to also be drunk. These two assholes were of that latter group.

It first started out with them just being goddamn rude. For one thing, all they did was talk smack about the girls around them. Either pointing out how funny so and so looked, or making fun of what so and so was saying. All of this being said in that jerk fratboy at a party type of patois. Basically something like, "That Jessica is such a fucking slut...and don't fucking get me started on that fat bitch Susan," type of conversations where they think no one's going to step up to them because they're big man on campus or some bullshit like that. They weren't even from around here yet felt like they could totally just disrespect everyone they saw. I mean I don't care if they were from Boston, but you don't go to some other fuckin' city and just start talking shit. That's like if I was invited to a friend's friend house and decided to start insulting his lifestyle for no goddamn reason.

Now to explain about my friend Kelly. She's that person at the show who will start a friendly conversation with you no matter who you are. She loves shows, she loves meeting people at shows, that's just her. Hell, that's how we became friends in the first place. I'm not that super social at shows, but she was the one to walk up to me and intitate a conversation. Perfectly nice person.

I explain all this to highlight how the following scenario was the height of douchebaggery. So the drunk assholes start cheering and Kelly, who's also excited turns around and goes "All right!" and holds up her hand for a high five. Drunk Asshole #1 shoots her this look and goes, "Don't touch me. That's disgusting."

Kelly just put a whatever look on her face and turns around but the two assholes keep giggling like Beavis and Butthead, no doubt impressed with themselves at the superior "burn" they'd just unleashed. Anyhow, I overhear them and now they're talking about how "gay" it is that Kelly's taking pictures and how they're such dedicated Les Savy Fav fans and how they should be upfront and how they're going to push everyone out of the way once the set starts.

I turn to Kelly and I whisper in her ear, "Hey, I'm about to kick their asses in a second, so if I get kicked out don't get mad."

Right then I hear one of them say, "We should totally push these bitches out of the way."

I turn around and I go, "What the FUCK did you say, asshole? If you have a motherfucking problem, say it to my face, don't fucking talk shit to my back. Your dick so small you need to get drunk and talk shit about people at a show to enjoy it anyway?"

Asshole #1 puts this idiot look in his face like "What did I do?" and starts denying he said anything. I think "What a fucking punkass bitch. At least have the balls to say you said something."

Asshole #2 is "attempting" to defuse the situation and all of the sudden he's all "I didn't say anything."

So I go, "I wasn't fucking talk to you was I? I was talking to your asshole friend here. Hey if you fucking like Les Savy Fav for real, you should shut your goddamn mouth and just enjoy the show with everyone else. I heard you going 'Oh, it's so gay to be taking pictures' you fucking homophobic motherfucker."

The two of them continue to deny saying anything and how they weren't doing anything, but by this time I'm pissed the hell off. It wasn't even like I was yelling or anything I just kept going, "I fucking heard you call us bitches, asshole. What you're going to push us out of the way? I fucking dare you. You touch me or come anywhere near me during the show I will fucking elbow you in the face and fuck you up, you understand? I fucking warned you. Now shut the fuck up, don't talk about me, don't fucking come near me, or I swear to God I will fuck you up."

Now Asshole #2 is fake holding his friend back (who wasn't even attempting to do anything anyway) and says, "Hey, hey, calm down now Judo Black Belt."

I get all up in there and start jabbing my finger in his face and I go, "What the fuck is that supposed to mean? Is that some kind of fucking threat? I'm supposed to be scared you know judo? You fucking know judo? I'll go fucking ghetto on your ass, motherfucker. Just fucking try me. Fucking threatening me? Want me to kick your ass in front of all these people? Want to see your ass get kicked by a girl in front of a bunch of people?"

Anyway, they don't even come near me the rest of the show, but of course later on I see them trying to smack my friend Kelly in the face repeatedly.

Now, I don't like getting into arguments, and I don't look like the type of person to go around fighting. In fact I try to avoid them and honestly rarely do. I just dno't like drama. It tires me and arguments and things like that feel very tedious. So the problem is while it takes a lot for me to get into the mindset of getting into a fight, at the same time once I'm set off, that's pretty much it. Which is another reason why I try to not get into fights or arguments because I go and I see nothing else but the conflict at hand. It takes a while for me to calm back down and that means either a) the other person would have to walk away at some point or b) it just escalates into something uglier.

I had no delusions of grandeur that I was going to beat those guys up. They were two guys in shape. If it had ended up being a physical fight, I probably would've gotten hurt, but I've been in situations where I've been hit or someone even touched me in a fight and I just go berserk. Almost like a fine red mist just settles over my eyes and it doesn't stop until someone pulls me off. I don't go in knowing I'm going to win. I don't know martial arts. I don't have any techniques. I just fight dirty with total disregard to my personal safety. It's more about causing as much damage as possible before I go down. So I know if anyone of them had even pushed me or who knows, thrown a punch, I probably would've been in some serious shit, but at the same time I know that I probably would've clawed off half their face or bitten off a chunk of their nose or something to make sure they were at least scarred for life for daring to even lay a hand on me.

But my point is this. If you're going to saying shit about a girl, you're either such a coward that you can't be talking shit about guys your own size or you're an asshole who thinks putting down girls is funny or some shit like that. I'm no rah-rah feminist, but if you're saying fighting words you better be ready to fight. They might as well have smacked me in the face for all the shit they said, then at least I would've had the equal opportunity to smack them back. It was insulting that they could only talk like they were some big men when they thought no one was listening or would say anything back and it was even more insulting that they denied that they said anything. I've seen some and put up with some bullshit treatment from assholes who thought they could talk to me anyway they could, and seriously, fuck them all. I'm not putting up with that bullshit anymore.

Also if you fucking love a band so much, then just enjoy the damn show. That's the least amount of respect you can pay to the band. Don't be insulting or ruining the experience for other people who came for the exact same reason you did. You can't talk about how much you love a band or their music if you're going out of your way to actively ruin it for other people who want to enjoy it too.

Besides that, if you couldn't tell, it was a fucking awesome show.