Author's note: This blog is a very long account of my recent adventure to Six Flags this past weekend. I won't make you read all of it if you don't want to.
Friday afternoon I left with the vocal jazz and jazz band for Chicago, IL to perform for a music competition. We left around 1p and arrived at our hotel (about an hour north of Chicago) at about 7p. We went to our rooms to change and stretched our legs before promptly hopping back on the bus to drive about 45 minutes towards home to a middle school of an unknown name. Jazz band performed well. My guitar amp cut out as I stood up for my solo, so the first few bars were spent tapping my input to get some signal. I didn't freak, as this is an unfortunate, yet common, occurrence for my guitar. After the jazz band performance, I had to race to warm up with the vocal jazz. My voice was feeling "sketchy" from the bus ride. Six-hour conversations are never good for vocal health. We set up our sound system in the middle of an auditorium. We didn't do too bad considering the extenuating circumstances such as a 10p performance time and a six-hour bus ride to boot. We packed everything up and got back on the bus for another forty-five minutes. We were allowed to roam the grounds of the hotel until 1a. Justin, David, Beau and I discovered a running track circling the hotel. There was also a basketball hoop set up too. After searching the hotel for a cheap pop machine (most everything was very expensive; i.e. $3.50 for a bottle of pop) and retreating parched and weary, I went back to my room and stayed up until about 2.30a talking to Dave, Ben and Alex about many random things such as hallucinating blind people. We got up around 7.30a and went downstairs for a catered breakfast. The eggs weren't too bad but the sausage was terribly spicy. We climbed on the bus around 9a and made our way to Six Flags, getting there as the doors opened at 10a. We all split up in groups, some going for roller coasters, others for smaller rides. Justin and I picked up a map and went off to the arcade where we burned through $10 on miscellaneous games and prize-cranes in about twenty minutes. After the arcade, we worked our way across the park to the Great American Raceway. Justin's ankle is still swollen so we were limited to certain rides. However, with a healthy ankle, I can say the GAR was probably my favorite ride all day. While standing in line, we met a Yugoslavian foreign exchange eighth grader named Brandon, who sported a Big Black shirt, a Brewers hat and aviator sunglasses (rather American if you ask me). He donned a "Borat" accent from the moment we saw him. We made friendly conversation, asking about their performance last night (Brandon's friends were wearing uniform choir shirts) and the origins of Brandon. We got on the ride, an old jalopy car which goes around a track at about three mph. Justin and I were in the front car with the pedal to the metal. Brandon and his friend were behind us, and catching up. Our car began to putter and the sound of the engine dying led us the entire way around the track. Shouts of "Why don't you going?" and "Go faster! Why you no go faster?" in a mock-Slovakian accent coming from behind continued to break us down. Brandon and his friend, along with the six cars behind them, were soon pushing us along the track, all the while Justin and I can barely keep from crying from laughter. We got off the track and parted ways with Brandon and his mates, marking the highlight of my day. For the rest of the afternoon, Justin and I hit up some rides here and there. My favorites of the day were Viper, the observation tower (you could see the Chicago Skyline), Triple Play, American Eagle, Whizzer, and Demon. The double-decker carousel was pretty fun too. We were given a free supper of really good cold hot dogs and chicken. Dave and I were bored of walking around (we had crossed paths earlier in the afternoon and stuck together for most of the day) so we hacky-sacked in the Picnic Grove following supper. We joined up with a couple others from GET and we made our way to Viper, a wooden coaster with a mining theme. Its hairpin turns and tunnels made my heart pound for several minutes afterward. At 6p, everyone met at the amphitheater for the "Music In The Parks" award ceremony. I can only describe it as such: a middle school Wal-Mart convention comparing Bugs Bunny to likes of Jesus. A lot of screaming. A lot of over-excited youngsters with high-pitched voices. Both VJ and JB took 1st place out of thirty groups. What I won't tell you is that we were the only VJ and JB in Class A. And I'm pretty sure everyone won. After we won, everyone from GET escaped the convention, reassuring ourselves of our young-adulthood and matured voices. I joined up with my previous group and we decided to ride American Eagle, a wooden racing coaster designed to go really fast with a lot of hang time, before we had to leave. It started to rain a bit while we waited in line. Once we got off and began walking back to the bus, it started to downpour. We raced back to the bus, stopping for a $4 soda and a bathroom break. We clambered onto the bus, drenched, tired and sun-burned. We dried off, accounted for everyone and took off for home. We stopped at an oasis at some point for a late supper. My voice was fried after screaming on the roller coasters and shouting all day so I bought some cough drops and LifeWater at the BP. We had one more stop to make at the Kalahari in Wisconsin Dells to drop off a sax player at a 4H outing. Here's where my day took a 180 degree turn. I was walking in, following Ben and Cassie. The revolving door into the lobby there is split into thirds. Ben and Cassie were walking in while a group of four Kalaharians were walking out. I was walking in via the outer-most pie. Through the glass I saw an act of blatant disrespect that sent me through the roof. One of the Kalaharians put his foot in front of the door, pointed and laughed at Ben for no reason. I became livid, pushing to door to get the point across to the hooligan that I was upset. I remember thinking to myself "This is a school function. I better not start this fight." This small piece of rational thought was the only thing that kept me from walking outside and punching one of them in the back of the head to show that what they did was blatantly disrespectful and incredibly upsetting to me. I stormed off to the bathroom behind Ben and proclaiming my contempt for these assholes. I punched my fist into my hand while climbing on the bus and making a scene. Justin and I had thoughts of slashing the tire of the car those assholes were trying to jump. Our narrations were filled with anger, bringing back an old punk attitude we both used to share intensely. About twenty miles later, I apologized to Ben for overreacting, still wondering what it was specifically that made me snap. Was it because I was exhausted from Six Flags and that I couldn't get comfortable enough on the bus to sleep? Why did I vocalize my irritations with blatant acts of disrespect? I see shit like this a lot at school and I don't act upon it there. Perhaps I will never know. I managed to sleep, I think, from the Tomah exit to the Onalaska Menards. I can only assume this for that block of time is unaccounted for. My sister and I got home at quarter to two in the morning. I smoked a cigarette and passed out. Sunday was equally tiring. Vocal jazz met at the HS at noon to warm-up for a Founders' Day celebration in Galesville, WI. After struggling with a dead voice in front of a crowd of old people, we went to Braden's house and ate food and played volleyball. It was another relaxing reward for such a hard-working year. At 6p, I was back at the HS warming up for the last choir concert of my high school career. It still seems like it was a dream that never really happened. I have been accounting my travels this weekend for about forty-five minutes now and I am too tired to reminisce about my last concert. Expect another post soon.
