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THAT TIME WE ATE HOT DOGS WITH METALLICA | BRISBANE, AUSTRALIA 2.23.13

This is an entry I wrote while over in Australia and have been sitting on it until now. I have been meaning to post entries I write while on tour more on here but have just been lazy about it. So here I am trying to be productive with this whole blogging thing (but is that even a thing anymore?). Either way here is a little piece I wrote up after our first day on tour in Australia. 

The last few weeks have been pretty crazy for me. What I thought would be just a few weeks of traveling ended up to be about 14 straight. My off time however was well spent at home watching Twin Peaks and hanging out with my girlfriend and dog. While having no social life and no job I've realized that you can potentially endanger a lot of great friendships by not going out and being social. Maybe it was the post Christmas Winter depression that was causing me to sit in my room annoying my dog with repetitive guitar solos over every song I would listen to. Walter (dog) really doesn't appreciate a good 14 minute guitar solo, I don't get dogs. Anyways it was getting to be that time where I needed to get back out into the world and devote 14 hours of sleeping inside of a bag, vomiting on airplanes, and having to deal with the daily struggle of being the only one in the band who can't piss into a water bottle.

I joined Polar Bear Club back in November of 2012. At the time we had very little planned for the new year, some small tours overseas In Europe, the United Kingdom and Australia. After that we were planning to go into the studio to record a new record. One day in December I remember getting a phone call from Jim that went as followed: “Hey, so we got an offer to open for a Bad Religion tour, you in?”. I didn't even find it necessary him asking, of course I would be in, it’s fucking BAD RELIGION! However, this did mean we had to reschedule recording and shift some touring around. After a while it started looking like the only way to fulfill what we had already booked meant that we would have to be on the road for longer than planned. At first it looked like about 20 weeks, then we cut it down to 14 weeks. Which was still the longest amount of time the band had been on the road, and was my first stint of touring with the band as a permanent member.

So we started our chaotic schedule with a 16 hour flight to Australia in mid February to join the Soundwave festival. It wouldn't be a normal flight for me without puking in the airplane bathroom before takeoff. Luckily I had a great friend during that flight, ZzzQuill who without any hesitation put me into a nice little slumber for a solid 15 hours. That leads me to about a solid hour of being coherent on one of the longest flights I had ever been on. I am certain  that I used the bathroom because I did not wake up in a puddle of my own stool and piss. However, I did wake up to the sore sight of my glasses in two pieces on the ground. I am convinced the little old Hawaiian lady with her Ukulele sitting in the window seat next to me, smacked them off of my face and stomped them into the ground for not being alive to stand up and let her use the bathroom. Sorry lady but you have to many needs when flying. We finally landed in Brisbane safely but to a rather peculiar email from our manager. Apparently all of the bands had been invited to a BBQ that Thursday night before the festival began the next day. That is not the bizarre part, what was so insane and illogical was that the party was hosted by Metallica. 

That night all of us were lined up outside the hotel room waiting for a shuttle to swing by and get us. We were all pretty sure we were getting stood up by the biggest band in the world. However sure enough the shuttle arrived and we scurried in. We arrived at the grounds where the BBQ was taking place under a large patio. As we got off the bus I had noticed that we were probably the first shuttle to arrive as there were not too many people under the patio yet. We all had assumptions that none of the members would show up. That notion  was pretty certain by the end of the day. However, we were all wrong. They were all there right off the bat with the exception of Lars, who showed up late with his girlfriend or wife (whose age is still suspect). For them I’m sure it wasn't a special moment, but to us it was pretty insane. As I walked in I looked to my left and saw James Hetfield playing basketball with Kirk Windstein of Crowbar, and Scott Ian from Anthrax. That on paper is hilarious in itself, however what really sold me that night was that nobody at the BBQ made an attempt to talk to Robert Trujillo other than his bodyguard. 

The whole party was such  a surreal moment. I found myself wandering lost, and not knowing how I even ended up there to begin with. The collection of people in attendance was made me delusional and confused as to if I was at a bizarre wrestling even infused with a Heavy Metal award ceremony. I could turn to my left and see Chris Jericho talking to Lars with my friend Mike from The Wonder Years in shock and stumbling words out to them. I remember vividly looking over to Goose (bassist of PBC at the time) talking in a large group with James Hetfield for about 30 minutes. As I watched them both laughing and joking with one another I thought to do the same thing as opposed to standing there with a beer looking 15 years too young to even be in attendance. However I am the least confrontational person and probably the least outgoing with people I don’t know. The odds of me going up to James and Lars and tell them they should have one an Oscar for their performance in Some Kind Of Monster were slim to none. So I decided to stay in my huddle of fellow band mates and friends, gazing off in aw of everything.

Is this entire entry just one big attempt to show off that I was five feet from Metallica? Sort of I guess, but whatever fuck it. I have nothing cooler to talk about. This was the pinnacle of any success I might have in life. People keep asking about this so it is worth posting. Would it have made for a better story if I went up to Lars and apologized to him for taking 5 cents out of his wallet when I was 13 because I  downloaded Master of Puppets? Absolutely, and I feel sorry for you for reading this far ahead to get to that shitty punch line. However Lars did manage to discuss the topic of garbage plates, a local Rochester staple compiled of hamburgers, hot dogs, macaroni salad, and home fries. But he wasn't talking to me it was to our drummer, who doesn't fear what I lack and that is courage to talk to celebrities of any kind (or people for that matter). However I will tell this story a million times if It will make me seem cool in any way. So remember that the next time you’re at a party and it wasn't hosted by Metallica. But if you are at a BBQ hosted by them for some god forsaken reason, make your way to a trash can and dump all of its contents onto a plate and present it to Lars with a note on it, “from Polar Bear Club".

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