Just a Lark

I’m back from a weekend of hanging out with my family and friends back home in the so-called “biggest little city in the world.” I lived there for over ten years and I still don’t know what that means. Anyway, it was quite the adventure and good times were had, as well as some really weird times.

Originally I went to go see a concert, which is something that I never thought that I would ever do–Reno’s not exactly well known for good shows and for good reason–but Freezepop, a funky synth pop band that’s probably most known (which is to say not very) for their contributions to Harmonix’s various music games over the years was playing there. Chances are if you’ve played Amplitude or Guitar Hero or Guitar Hero 2 you know them for Super Sprode or Get Ready 2 Rokk or Less Talk More Rokk. Anyway, I heard about them playing there from my brother and made plans to go with my friend JD.

So this is where Rainbow Road is!

Of course, after said plans are made, I find out that they’re playing at 12 Galaxies in San Francisco, and JD can’t go because of work, but whatever, I figure I’ll at least hang out with my friends and family and make the trip anyway. So I try to get some of my friends to go, and they’re totally not down with going to see a concert they know nothing about for $10. I mean, seriously guys. I’m pretty much the exact opposite; I’ll go pretty much anywhere if someone asks me. But I luck out and my friend Chris is down to go even though he hasn’t ever heard of him, so high-five to him.

But when we get there, I get a bad feeling about it, because there is literally no one there, and the doors are locked. There’s like three dudes at the bar inside but no one makes any effort to pay us any attention as we try to open the door. Three other guys show up, and after they make a call the backdoor opens and lets them in but not us, and so I’m properly pissed off and say “fuck it” and leave. I’m not going to wait around for a shitty venue (and it was legitimately ghetto) to get their crap together.

So Chris and I go down to Silver Peak, this microbrewery downtown known really only for their location–you could really put any business that served alcohol in there and it would make a ton of cash–and meet up with my other friends Ryan, Ryan 2, Adam, and Chris’ new wife Liz. Things sort of spiral out of control when Ryan 2 and Adam show up because we move on from drinking Captain & Cokes to Irish Car Bombs, and we end up relocating to The Green Room. I’ve only been there twice, but it’s my favorite drinking place in Reno now, which basically means it sucks a whole lot less than the rest of the bars. There, we witness a fight that literally involved the bartender (you don’t mess with the bartender, I don’t care where you are), some crazy dude with mutton chops, and a dog. I don’t really know how the dog got involved but it looked like Mutton Chops was trying to steal it or something. About that time, my brother texts me that he’s at this cool tea shop that has bubble tea (the best kind of tea) and says we should meet him, and so we do.

And there, things come full circle, as I learn the story behind why I didn’t get in to see Freezepop, from one of the like, ten guys who managed to get in before it was locked down. Apparently the owner did a bunch of drugs and got paranoid and shut everything down. This is only what I was told, but knowing Reno, I can’t really discount the possibility that this is the real deal. So basically I spent the rest of the night super pissed that I missed a concert because of something so ridiculously stupid. I mean, honestly, what the hell?

The rest of my time there went well though, so it wasn’t a total loss. Spent some time with the family, had dinner with my dad at a new (and actually good) Chinese place, saw American Gangster (really great movie), had blueberry pancakes with my friends, and more. My parents have never been the sort to go out and do stuff around town, so any time spent with them was mostly at home. It’s not entirely their fault–my mom works a ton and frankly, Reno’s still very much the kind of place where people wear ten-gallon hats, drive pick-ups four times larger than necessary, and dislike the idea of a darker skinned woman of indeterminate ethnicity being with an obviously white man, as sad as that sounds.

Wow. Reno sucks.