Who do I still think I am??

This one's about road trippin'.

BCF PROMPT: "Tell us about the craziest road trip you have taken, where did you go and with who? Did you think to yourself this is so worth it? Or did you regret doing the whole trip?"

'Sup y'all? It's just me, lovin' up on some late-in-the-evening internet access. Don't front on me for lovin'.

I'm of two sides when I think about this particular prompt...I've been on plenty of road trips, and I haven't been on enough. I've seen a good chunk of the eastern part of the US, maybe more than others who haven't been as fortunate. But I'm also not the greatest travelling companion (and I'm sure we'll talk about that some other time).

My craziest experience on a road trip? It has to be my first (or one of my first), which includes many other firsts as well. It was the first time I bought concert tickets online. It was my first extended trip to see a band play live (and by extended, I mean "not very local").

As I recall, I remember hearing on MTV that Rage Against The Machine was touring with Wu-Tang Clan...this was maybe '96 or '97 (don't make me pull out the ticket stub to give you the exact date). I pulled out my awesome Motorola cell phone http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.lekowicz.com/wren_forum/wp-conten... and checked with my boys Verno and DMFM to see if they were down for the adventure of a young male adult lifetime. Sho 'nuff, they were.

Shortly before the trip, Verno bailed and left us with an extra ticket. We couldn't find any takers. No big deal. Me and Dave hopped in my bright red Chevy Beretta toward Pittsburgh (PA), from Buffalo (NY). Two kids, really...cruisin' the I-90 all the way through. Or so we thought. We didn't know any better, and it showed.

Somewhere around halfway to Pittsburgh, a road sign on the interstate said "This way to Buffalo" with the amount of miles and an arrow. It was around the same point that DMFM had decided to confide in me that he'd had a nightmare about this trip, which included ambulances and dyings and lotsa other crazy shit.

I did nothing to set the poor kid's mind at ease.

At some point, after reaching Pennsylvania, we questioned our route and wondered if we were heading in the right direction (again, the internet was new to us back then, and so was internet map-making). We decided to stop at a gas station...and it wasn't a corporate chain gas station. It was a rural operation in the sticks ran by people who probably built the nearby town as well.

My boy gets out to ask if we're headed in the right direction toward Starlake Amphitheater. The attendant at the station was an old man with a hook for a hand. Thoroughly creeped out (on top of his dream), he got back in the whip and we GTFoutta there. We came across a supermarket, where we bought some sandwich-making materials, and got some proper directions from the cute cashier. "Oh, you're going to that 'Rage Against The Machines' concert...I thought about goin'"...I don't remember her words verbatim, but she was cute, and she had no clue what we were talking about, but she was helpful.

Eventually we made it to the concert, and it was amazing. Having seen numerous bands over the years since, it's still hands-down one of my top five favorite shows. Atari Teenage Riot opened (and YouTube them for yourselves), and for a half hour all we heard was "Stop the riot!!" But it started raining. The "amphitheater" was basically a stage with a cover over 25 or so rows of seats, and an elevated grassy expanse behind it. Somehow we managed to get under their pavilion...I think our tickets had us in the last row of covered seats.

The Wu came on and I was in my glory (me being the hip hop kid and Dave...not so much) as the rain came down. I'll never forget throwing "W"'s in the air with our hands and seeing him do that as Method Man climbed the speakers.

But then Rage came on. I'd heard that their leader, Zack de le Rocha, had broken his foot a few nights before the show. My fears that it was going to be a lame show were quickly and righteously ended when the band broke out with http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3L4YrGaR8E4. He was jumping around and owning the crowd. And I've said it before, but I'll say it again...there's nothing more powerful than 10,000 people together in one place screaming "Fuck you I won't do what you tell me!" It was a highlight of my then-young life. I wouldn't give that experience up for anything in the world. Even as it was happening, I had to stop DMFM from trying to beat the traffic just to soak in that moment.

The real craziness doesn't end there. Why we thought it was it was a good idea to trip on out to PA and back in one night escapes me, but we did. We got lost somewhere on I-18 and then had to backtrack. We stopped in either Erie or Warren to get something to eat. It was http://www.eatnpark.com/. The service was phenomenal and so was the food. Fantastic...a-number-friggin'-one. And I called my wanna-be girlfriend at time from the bathroom just to tell her we were ok and how awesome a time we were having.

But the brakes on my Beretta were failing, and it was obvious heading into the Eat N Park parking lot. Coffee was the greatest infusion of our lives' beings that night. We made it home safely, but we were chatty motherfuckers...we listened to Tom Petty like we'd just seen him, and not RATM or the Wu.

I came home and slept a few hours before taking my car in to get the brakes done. I'll never have the car again, but I have the memories of that time like yesterday.

MUSICAL BREAK!!

THE DAILY BOX SCORE:

20: My high school reunion is this weekend. I'll miss it, and I'll miss some of the people, but I highly doubt everyone's sitting around a table wondering what I'm up to.

I really didn't plan on saying anything today, but this prompt was too delicious to let slide and the memories are priceless in that I'd never trade them for anything. Much love, brother. Peace, and GOODNIGHT NOW!!