From Toddlers to House Parties, my Labor Day Weekend Reunions

 Hey everyone, it's Labor Day weekend here in the US, and with the amount of work I did it most certainly was a laboring weekend. On Friday I had my highschool reunion, Saturday was full of shopping and errands while mskate was on a trip with her best friend, Sunday was my friend's daughter's 3rd birthday, and then Monday mskate and I were hosting a labor day party with my side of the family. I'll go through it day by day.

Friday was when I had my 10 year highschool reunion. Yeah, apparently I've been out of highschool for 10 years, and one of my former classmates organized a reunion. Mskate and I went to highschool together, but since she was going on a trip on Saturday she decided to sit it out. I was really excited to go though, and when I saw that some of my old ilose friends were going I knew I had to go. I pulled out one of my safety vests (because I wore one daily junior and senior year) and got ready for a night of fun. I'm glad I left an hour early because it was kind of hard finding the pavilion we rented. I was one of the first to show up, and a lot of people appreciated that I wore the vest because they wouldn't have found it otherwise. One of my friends said "[Pokematic], I'm really glad you wore the vest, that was the only way I would have found this." Since only about 10 people were there in the first 30 minutes the girl that organized it said "hey, let's go around and say our name, what we're doing now, and what our highlight of the last decade was." When it came to me I said my highlight was getting married to our old classmate [mskate] last year, and my lowlight was selling 30 shares of gamestop for a $200 loss 2 years ago and converting 80K dogecoin to $5 worth of bitcoin 5 years ago. I basically spent all night hanging out with my ilose friends, catching up on 10 years of lunch conversations; things like our jobs, tabletop games, videogames, 3D printing, and our general geek hobbies. It was cool because we had everyone except zeldamaster and Trusdale. I also saw some other highschool friends that I kept a little contact with, and we caught up some as well. Dinner was unfortunately chicken, so I ate a lot of collard greens and corn. I'd guess that there was about 60-80 people that showed up, but I only recognized some. It's not that I wasn't paying attention or anything (like mskate likes to point out that I do a lot), it's just that I haven't seen a lot of these people in 10 years and people change a lot in that time, and there were only like 4 people that look almost the same as they did back in highschool. At about 8 before it got dark we took a group photo, and after that it was more hanging out. Before we left for the night we decided to exchange discord names so we could keep in touch. It was a great night. A number of people asked about mskate and I let them know she was going on a trip on Saturday and wanted to be well rested, but I said I'd see to it that she made it to the 20 year reunion.

OK, now it's time for Saturday. This was my "day to myself" with lots of errands. I had to get my allergy shot this week, so I went up to my parents area for my appointment. Nothing supper special, except that I took a long way home so I could stop at Ollie's and the meat store on the way home. Since we were hosting a grilling party on Monday I wanted to make sure we had enough potato chips and snacks, and meat. I picked up some spices and a power bank as well as chips, and got a variety of chips because I didn't know what everyone would like. Then I went to the meat store and bought over 50 pounds of meat. Over August we decided to try to not buy groceries or spend other money, and got our freezer pretty low. Now that it was September I decided to stock up again, and get hamburger meat for our party. I pulled all our meat in the house and reorganized the fridge to hold all this meat. I processed about 40 pounds on this day (which means taking it out of the butcher packaging and putting it in labeled freezer bags in single servings). I also had to move some stuff around the deep freeze as well, and it's about as full as it can get now. After the shopping and processing I did some more cleaning and prepping for the party on Monday, but otherwise pretty chill. Also, the replacement battery for a PS4 controller arrived so I finished that fix from a week ago (I bought a controller for $4 at a garage sale, but the battery was shot and needed replacement, so I bought a replacement on amazon for $15 and brought this controller back to life for under $20). I bought a replacement battery years ago when I thought my main controller lost it's charge but it wasn't the right type (battery was for an older model, and this controller was the newer model), so the controller laid on our coffee table disassembled until the battery came. Now it's assembled and working, so win (plus mskate is happy that the controller is no longer on the coffee table).

OK, now it's Sunday. I went to church and mskate got home a little later. I missed her friend when she arrived (I was already off to get my shot), but I saw her on the return trip. It was cool seeing her again since I hadn't since the wedding. Sunday day was pretty low key, but around 5 PM I went over to our friend's house for his daughter's 3rd birthday. This itself was also a little reunion, because this is my mom's godson and we would typically see each other 2-3 times a year, but haven't since 2019. What's also really fun is godson's wife's aunt was a counselor for my k-12 education and she was pretty involved in my educational development, so it's fun that she is able to say in my family's life beyond my k12 education. Mskate wasn't able to go to this one either (again, too tired), but she'll make it to the next one (which will probably be the son's 6th birthday). So this was funny, the mom decided she wanted to have a magician WAY to close to the party and didn't hire a real magician, so when I got there she asked if I could do some coin tricks, and I'm like "uhhh, I guess so, it's been years since I did magic though." She bought some plastic pirate coins, so I looked up some coin tricks after dinner and visiting with people. I learned 5 tricks but only managed to feel confident with 3 (2 of them required dense metal coins for the fast "toss the coin between hands," and the plastic was just too slow). I was summoned before I could find other tricks, so I did the "there's a coin behind your ear" tricks, and I rubbed the coin until it disappeared, and I rubbed the coin on my forearm to make it change color only to have it "accidentally" disappear. I was a little worried I wouldn't be very good (again, I probably haven't done magic tricks for 20 years), but I told myself "I'm entertaining 4 year olds, they're easy to fool." I ended up doing a really good job, everyone was fooled even though they were sitting all around me. Part of the success came from my ability to play a convincing character. I played an "incompetent magician who is always making things disappear." It ended up going over very well.

Not long after it was piñata time. Since they were little it was a pull string piñata, and that got a good laugh from my mom and I; when my brother and I were growing up, we reused the same pull string pinata for probably 6+ birthday parties, and I knew the winner string because it was always in the same spot. We joked about it and when it was getting low on strings I told mom "I think I know the winner." The parents handled it well though, because each kid got a whack at it before saying "OK now for pull string." If we did that I would have probably enjoyed it more, because I wanted to hit the pinata when I was little. Presents and cake were "what you would expect from a 3 year old's party;" the birthday girl was too distracted to really focus on opening more than one present, and the non-birthday brother wanted to open presents but it wasn't his day, but it was still fun. The cake was also nothing too special, except that it was a dairy free gluten free cake, which ended up being pretty good. After cake it was getting pretty late for the kids (8PM), so it was clean-up and go home time. I stayed behind after to help clean up some and maybe enjoy adult company after the kids were asleep. During this time when the other adults were busy one of the older girls (maybe 7 or 8) needed entertainment so I kept her busy by continuing to "screw up" the color changing coin trick. I did it probably 5 times and I was getting tired, so I'm just like "oh man I hope I don't let the trick slip," but I kept her fooled every time. Cleaning took longer than expected so I decided to leave not long after. Before I left though, I did the "color changing coin" trick for the dad since he missed the main show. I changed up the act before I left, and now instead of being incompetent I was just tired and "prone to accidents." After I did it he was very confused, looking for the coin, and asking "how'd you do that?" It was a fun time, and I said "next time I'll do balloon animals, I have a lot more experience at that."

OK, now it's Monday, Labor Day, and the first party mskate and I hosted at our house. Sure, our "first dinner party" was earlier this summer when camping, but this was the first time it was at our condo. We had been prepping for about a week, and I did all the final shopping on Saturday, it was now time. We had some hours to prep, and around 2 people started showing up. We basically talked for about an hour, and then prepared the burger patties and processed the ground beef. We pulled 2 pounds to make into tacos later, and pressed 11 patties since that's how many would fit on the platter with 2 levels, and rolled the remainder of the beef into meat balls. I grilled up 5 hotdogs and baked 5 potatoes in addition to the burgers. The fun thing is I grilled up everything on my little grill Dad called "the little grill that could." Everyone enjoyed it and the party went off without a hitch. After dinner my mom, aunt, brother, and I walked down to the park that's by us, just for a walk, while mskate and dad just hung out at home. Our park has a splash pad that my aunt and I splashed around a little in after some peer pressure. Overall, fun little party, and it was good to actually celebrate labor day for once instead of crying over it being the end of summer vacation (our school year started not long after labor day, and with mom as a teacher it wasn't a "fun holiday" for anyone).

Busy as it was, this was a fun weekend. Sure, it would have been better if things were spaced out a little more, but that wasn't the way things worked out. Since a lot of people missed out on the class reunion, I think there is going to be more of an effort to let people know for the 20th. I also know that the next children's birthday party I'm going to I'm going to make balloon animals, so that will be fun. This has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

Grandma's 85th birthday and 60th anniversary part with the family

Hey everyone, oh man do I have a story for you guys. So my grandparents have been married for 60 years and my grandma has been alive for 85 years, and because those are some serious milestones my mom threw a MAJOR party for them, inviting all the extended family for a weekend long celebration that for me basically lasted all week, and for my mom, a year of preparation. I'll start out with the little bit of prep that I had. For me I made a video slideshow of my grandparents throughout the years from marriage until about now. These were the songs we used, in the order of use.

Mom scanned a bunch of their old pictures and that was a bit of a challenge, because pretty much all the pictures they marked as wanting them were from the last 20 years (grandkids). There were some wedding album pictures, and some with my mom and her siblings as kids, but most were grandkids. I'm like "uhhh mom, one of the songs is 'when your old wedding ring was new,' it doesn't match well if all I have is when the old wedding ring is old." She then found more pictures from the wedding and when they were newly weds, with bringing their kids home from the hospital and babies. I also found all the vacation slides of theirs I digitized for a Christmas present 12 or so years ago, from all the vacations they took with their kids (my mom and aunt and uncle) as kids. It worked out great.

Now for the start of everything. My girlfriend mskate came in for the party and she arrived Wednesday to stay in town with her parents (about an hour away from where I live). I also had a doctors appointment out that way, so we were going to have a little date night after the appointment. Well, I got caught in really bad traffic, and had to reschedule. I happened to be stuck about where we were going to meet up afterwards, so that just meant that we were able to spend a little more time together. We went out to dinner, and then walked around our little down town area for some fun. We went to the salvation army, and a jewelry store that was downsizing and had stuff that was 80% off, and a gamestop. We went to the jewelry store just for fun, and maybe I would find something deeply discounted that I could either flip in some years or make for a really nice gift, but it was all still out of our price ranges. The gamestop was mainly for me because she knows I like videogames, but she doesn't really care for them. We did find something we would both enjoy, a Wreck it Ralph 2 mystery figure. We decided to get one and depending on which character it was would determine who got it. She wanted a Vanellope, and I would have been happy with Ralph, Felix, or anyone else. It ended up being YES! and she decided she liked it for the in-joke and would rename her "yep." (I say "yep" when I want to acknowledge that I heard you but don't have anything to add to the current topic). As we were walking around, some kids decided to play the penis game as they drove by while we waited to cross the street. For those of you who don't know, the penis game is when you yell "PENIS" in a public area and/or at a complete stranger, commonly played by middle schoolers and immature high schoolers. We were just standing there minding our own business when this car drives by and this kid sticks his head out the window and yells "penis" at us. My girlfriend didn't know what the penis game was, and so I had to explain it to her, and how I didn't know those kids, and how it's kind of like a dare, and how he's probably not going to get in trouble with his mom because the driver was probably his friend, and how it was a game that some kids used to play back when we were in middle school and it's still around 13 years later. After our little date we went to my parents house so mom could fill us in on what we needed to do for the party. I'll save those details for when they come.

Now for Thursday night. All my family came in that Thursday, and so my grandparents hosted a dinner at their house. It was basically just at their house, because my aunt made the food and my mom organized the rest. With all the traffic and construction, it took me 2 hours to get to their house (it normally would take about an hour). When I got there PepperBC was already there, which was really fun catching up with her. My brother Vikingpolak was also there, but I see him far more often then all my cousins. My aunts and uncles were there, but I enjoy generation 3 (my generation). Not much longer before turtlegirl and her friend show up, which was more fun. An hour or so later MMT and R showed up, and we had fun catching up and making fun of each other. I might as well say this now so some of the events make sense; with this side of the family we make fun of each other to show we love each other. Light teasing and comebacks that are all based on personality traits and past stories is how we let each other know we remember things about each other and that we are close enough to have a little fun at each other's expense. It's not just limited to gen 3; gen 2 (my parent's generation) does that amongst themselves, and all the generations will engage in some light teasing across the generational gaps (gen 3 will poke fun at gen 2 and vice versa sort of thing). It's all healthy, we know when it's appropriate and when it's not, and is just something my family does.

Anyways, not long after MMT and R showed up we had dinner. Because it's my grandparents party, generation 1 ate first. After gen 1 got their food, gen 3 got their food. Someone in gen 2 asked "why is generation 3 eating after generation 1?" and I said "because gen 1 likes the grandkids more than the kids." That got a "savage" from my brother and my mom overheard the reaction but not what I said. Then in her own little teasing but could be scolding manner she asked if I was using "kind words." I repeated what I said and she thought it was funny and true. After dinner gen 3 decided to walk down to the liquor store and get some drinks. I remember back when it was a video rental store, back when I was like 4. We visited some more, and then I went home at like 8 PM, because I live an hour away from their house.

Now for Friday. This was our "fun day" where the different generations do what they want. Gen 1 and 2 went to visit with Aunt K, and gen 3 hung out around my parents area (except for turtlegirl and her friend, they went to a museum I think). Mskate joined us and got to get a little acclimated to my crazy family. Trying to find something to do was REALLY challenging. Here's how it went down, mskate, brother, and pepperBC said "I'll go with whatever everyone else wants to do," I'm suggesting all sorts of things (laser tag, zoo, barcade down town, my condo, bowling, minigolf, museums, other sight seeing, thrifting, etc.), and then R was being poopy all "I don't want to do that, I just want to check in at my hotel and get a good shower, and play fortnight while I wait" (he and MMT were staying in a hotel Friday and Saturday, but stayed with my parents Thursday night, and check-in wasn't until 3PM), and MMT was like "I'll do whatever R says, though I do want to do something." Looking back at past times, I guess it's normally Turtlegirl and I that break the tie of everyone else not having strong opinions on what we do. Eventually we decided to go bowling. I think I managed to convince my brother to vote hard yes on "lets go bowling" to break the tie, or maybe I convinced R to stop saying hard no, but regardless I got a single vote to break the deadlock. Mskate and I were both wearing sockless footwear, so we had to borrow socks from my family members; her from my mom and myself from brother.

This is where things get a little silly. Soooo, there are like 4 different bowling alleys in a 5 mile radius of my parents house, buuuuuutttt, only 1 was open. We first tried the one that is just down main street, but they apparently open at 6PM on Fridays. Bro, MMT, R, and pepperBC were driving together and Mskate and I were driving separately. We pull into the parking lot, I get out and start talking to them while they're in the car. Next we wanted to go to an alley that's close to their grocery store, but they've been out of business for over a decade (you wouldn't know it though, the place still has the sign and no notice of "for lease"). So then we called the combination bowling alley-movie theater 1 town over, and they thankfully were open. I haven't been there in a while, so I didn't know that they renovated and removed the lanes on the 1st floor, and neither did bro. So we get there, walk over to where the bowling alley was, and are all "where's the bowling, we want to bowl?" We were ready to give up, but then an employee overheard us and told us they're upstairs and we needed to pay at customer service. It was a great deal, $6 for an hour each. Mskate, pepperBC, and I played on 1 lane, and MMT, R, and Bro played on another. Apparently R was on his high school bowling team, and he wanted to show his skill to everyone. Well, this was the 2nd time I've been bowling in like 10 years, and I was never really good, but I found I'm pretty good when I go marathon. R was getting really competitive, and I'm like "oh whatever, I'm just here for fun." Well...I ended up winning. I scored something like 400 points over 3 games, and R only got like 380 or something. After our hour, he was lying down on the chairs saying "I can't believe I lost to [pokematic]."

After bowling we went to the Mexican restaurant that's close to the theater-alley. This was another one of those "indecisive things." I wanted to go to the noodles restaurant that was down the road, bro wanted to go to the Mexican restaurant, R was saying "I don't want to go there," and everyone else was "I don't care." Because I didn't want another hour of deadlock, I changed my vote to the Mexican place just to make it 2 against 1 against 3 no opinion, because my hunger was greater than "I don't really care for Mexican food." I had a burrito, without much of the fixings that they include; "you can have 2 different proteins" just beef, "what 2 sauces do you want?" none, "what kind of beans do you want?" none, "you get up to 3 different vegie things" just lettuce, "you sure, I mean it's all included in the price?" yes. I basically had a $5 burrito for the price of $8, but that was worth the price of not having deadlock. We all got a table and visited while eating. After lunch MMT and R left us to go check into their hotel, so then bro, pepperBC, Mskate, and I hung out at my parents house for a while. We watched the 1980 Popeye movie on plutotv. Well, I watched Popeye, PepperBC and Mskate and bro took naps, though PepperBC and Mskate at least started watching the movie with me and then fell asleep where they were sitting. After the movie we walked down to the ice cream parlor, and then we walked down to the card and game shop my brother frequents. Bro was really in his element, and since pepperBC and I are both geeks we didn't feel too out of place (even though table top isn't our thing), but mskate felt very out of place since she isn't really into any of this stuff (though I'm slowly introducing her to things, and she enjoys some of it). We were there for a little bit, but thankfully bro realized we weren't that into it and so we left. After that we went to the minigolf place by my parents. MMT and R caught up with us, and I think turtlegirl and her friend joined us. I don't quite remember, but it was a fun time. Nothing really exciting happened, except that I did pretty well and I think beat R again, and he's really into minigolf. I guess because I spent so much time at that course I know the holes really well, even though I can't remember the last time I played that course. After the mini-golf I took mskate home and went home myself.

OK, now for the main event. And ho boy, this was something else. I picked up mskate and we headed over to the hall. We got there an hour early, so we drove around a little to find something to do, and we decided to go to Meijer. I found a smash bros Daisy amiibo, which was great. We went back to the hall, and mom exclaimed "please tell me you brought a change of clothes!" I was wearing my cargo shorts and a polo shirt, because it was a hot summer's day and the weekend (I have to wear long pants for work), so I figured I'd wear my cargo shorts. Apparently that went against mom's dress code of looking nice (even though all the pictures would be from the waist up). So mskate and I went back to Meijer and I bought a pair of kaki long pants. A lot of other men at the party wore shorts, and I was a little pouty about it, but not to the point that I was causing problems (because I'm better than that).

OK, so now for the 2nd crazy situation. Remember how I said I made a video presentation to project against the wall? So there was some miscommunication with that. I was under the impression that the hall had a projector we could borrow. I asked mom if they had a projector, and I guess she asked "would we be able to project a video," and the hall took that to mean "is there an open space to project an image on." I go to the office and ask for a projector, and they said they will give us a projection cart. 10 or so minutes later and I'm like "uhhhh, where's the projector? You were giving me the projection cart." Then they were like "yes, here is your cart, you can put a projector on it and project on the wall." And I'm like "no, I need a projector." "Oh we don't have that." I go over to mom and, let me just write out the script.
Pokematic: Mom, they don't have a projector. You said they had a projector.
Mom: What? Wait, you said you were bringing a projector.
Pokematic: No, I didn't; I said I'm bringing both of my computers so I'm covered no matter what inputs the projector has. I don't have a projector.
I know my mom thinks of me as a tech guy, and for the most part I am, but I wouldn't have asked "do they have a projector" if I had a projector. So now we have basically all my aunts trying to figure out where we can get a projector. Thankfully someone remembered mom works for a library and maybe we could borrow one of theirs. She called up her people at the library and she had z-man pick it up on his way over. Crisis averted.

So now the party is going. All the guests are showing up, and it was fun. MMT enjoyed hanging out with AG again. So fun story time. When I was a senior in high school and she was a sophomore, she came up for some event, and she said "hey [pokematic], invite all your friends over and we'll have a party," with the plan being "I'm going to meet some cute senior boys." Well, when zeldamaster93 and mbinski showed up, she quickly realized "oh yeah, Pokematic's a geek, of course his friends are also going to be geeks," and she was definitely one of the more popular girls at her school. Well, AG showed up and since he's a hockey player he was able to fill the "cute boy" desire, even if it was just for 10 minutes. So it was a fun little reunion for them, though he kind of stopped being a "cute older boy" in the 8 or so years since then. There were also a lot of picture taking, and my grandparents were so happy to finally be able to spend some time with mskate. The lunch was good, and I piled on the food. I played the video and everyone loved it; they told me how much they loved it and that I did a really good job on it. Some people shared some stories, and my grandpa said some that were a little inappropriate (because he doesn't understand the concept of "appropriate for mixed company" anymore).

OK, now for my little "I told you so" story. Because it has been a while since my grandpa last wore his suit and gained a lot of weight since then, his pants and belt didn't fit well anymore, and he really needed suspenders. Meijer didn't have suspenders in his size. AG had a pair of drinking suspenders in his truck (it holds shots), but those were too small on him. Mom is freaking out "how can we make it so his pants don't fall down at church?" Let me once again write out the exchange.
Pokematic: I have the necessary stuff to make a makeshift pair of suspenders.
Mom: Really, you have suspenders that will fit grandpa?
Pokematic: I have 2 straps that are 3 feet in length, and about 15 feet of elastic cord, I can make a pair of suspenders out of that.
Mom: Really? Where do you have that?
Pokematic: In my shorts. ARE YOU GLAD I BROUGHT MY SHORTS!? Be prepared. That's why I wear cargo shorts with all sorts of random things in it.
Mom: OK MacGyver, you and bro take grandpa to the bathroom and make him some suspenders.
After that, I rubbed it in a little. "See mom, it's a good thing I brought my shorts. We would be in trouble if I didn't wear shorts." Nothing too serious, but enough to let her know "I was right." I was, at church when they were renewing their vows his pants didn't fall down.

After church we had the after party at my parents house. It was pretty simple, but still kind of crazy. We had birthday decorations, a birthday tiara, and birthday brownies. Since my mom is into brownies, she frosted some brownies and stuck candles in it. We all just continued to visit, and enjoy just the family, and remembered the old days. There was some "musical chairs" because everyone kept taking "the good seats," and I remember one time there was just enough room on the couch for me to sit down, and so I did. It was a pretty chill night. After some time I took mskate home and went back to my place.

Now for Sunday. Sunday was basically "whoever's left, hang out at my grandparent's house." Well, first I stopped at my parents house. It was like the aftermath of a college party, with so many people sleeping in chairs, on couches, and the air mattress in the middle of the living room. In "my family likes to tease each other" fashion, my mom and aunt planned to make today the "surprise birthday party for my uncle even though it's in 5 months." The plan was to reuse the birthday girl banner and balloons from Saturday night, and put the birthday tiara on him. As they were plotting, saying things like "oh man, he's either going to laugh at this or hate it, either way it's going to be great," I told them "yeahhhh, I warned [mskate] that we like to tease each other kind of hard, and we do it to show we love each other," and they were like "yeah, it can come off as kind of harsh, but we all know it's in good fun." We packed up everything and went over to my grandparents house.

Everyone had what I call a sleep hangover (didn't sleep much the night before after tiring themselves out), all except me. I went to bed at around 11 or so, whereas everyone else was out until like 2. They went to some bars and did karaoke or something. Oh well. I wanted to do some things, but they didn't feel like it, so we basically just lounged around all day. My uncle thought the princess birthday was funny, so that was good. One thing I did manage to do was pick up the CRTs from pepperBC's parents. I took my uncle back up to his place and drove back with 2 CRTs for my future video wall (that way my aunt and pepperBC still had the car and could drive back). My great uncle didn't realize what I was doing with them and thought I was going to scrap them.
Great Uncle: I find people throwing them out all the time, I'll save them for you.
Pokematic: no, please don't, when people throw them out that normally means they don't work.
Great Uncle: well of course they don't work. Why do you want them working? Ain't you just going to take them apart and scrap them?
Pokematic: No, I'm going to use them to make a video wall.
Everyone was asking where mskate was, but she had to drive back home. I was telling everyone "she had enough of our family for a while," and they understood perfectly well.

So that was basically the weekend. It was great being able to see everyone again, and even if things didn't go completely according to plan, it all worked out. I also enjoyed introducing mskate to everyone. Well, this has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

The Mike and Micky Show, I see The Monkees Live

Hey everyone. When I was a kid The Monkees were my favorite music group. I liked their music, and so did my parents, I enjoyed the TV show, and one of my pine wood derby cars was the monkee mobile. However, I hadn't listened to them in a really long time, like at least 5 years. But when the opportunity presented itself to see them live, I had to. I remember losing Davey, and recently losing Peter, and this being their farewell tour, and Mike being sour on The Monkees, and this being not too far away, this was a once in a lifetime chance, and I wasn't about to miss it. And so on a whim, drove a couple hours away on a Tuesday night to see The Mike and Micky Show.

So here's where the story starts. I found out about it the day of the event, and I wasn't sure if I could get tickets. I went to the box office 2 hours before the doors opened and they had tickets (yes, I drove out there without knowing if I would get a ticket; if I couldn't get a ticket there were other things I could do in the area). The ticket lady asked if I wanted a $65 ticket or $120 ticket. Well that wasn't the $45 I saw on the site, but I figured those must have been the obstructed view that went fast. I got the $65 ticket. After that I went out to dinner because I hadn't eaten yet. After dinner I got in line. Just like with Tommy Wiseau, the line was crazy long. It stretched all the way around the block.

One thing I noticed while walking to the back of the line, and with people walking to the back of the line, is that I was one of the youngest people there. Pretty much everyone else either had grays or wrinkles. While I was waiting in line, one of the security guys came around giving out drinking wrist bands (letting everyone know you are allowed to drink if you want to drink). Now, I'm not one to say "I need a drink to have fun," but I am one to say "after 2 long and stressful days, I need a drink." Also, I wasn't sure if I wanted a drink or not, so I decided "better safe than sorry." And now I have 2 paper wrist bands to test how long they will last, and if I can make Guinness World Record. Well after waiting in line for like 1 hour, I got up to the door, and I got this picture.

I had to step through metal detectors, and empty my pockets into a little TSA bowl. Well, in the interest of time, I started emptying my pockets into my fedora. I was ready to put the stuff in the little bowl, but the guy said "oh that's fine, but where's your phone?" Since I have a windows phone, the guy didn't recognize it. I pointed it out and he thought it was my wallet. Whatever. After getting in I see the merch table. I had some decisions to make. Now, I already have a years supply of t-shirts, so I don't really need another t-shirt; I don't really drink "mug beverages" like coffee or tea, so I don't need another mug; I'm not someone who wears pins, so I don't need a pin set, so on and so forth. I eventually decided on a tour poster, because I like posters and need some more for my nerd cave. It's on some really high quality poster stock, and probably silk screened. Check it out.

After getting my poster, I decided to use my drink band to buy a drink. Now, when I go to a bar I like getting a mixed drink. Why? Because I don't really like beer and I can just get wine at home, but a good house cocktail or long island is not something I can get at home very easily. Unfortunately they didn't have liquor, so I got a spiked seltzer. It was...extra expensive, but after some long days and driving, I needed something, plus I don't have spiked seltzer at home (mainly because I don't look for it). Now, seeing that I bought my ticket late and being the "cheap ticket," (and the fact that the chairs weren't permanent and didn't have signs saying where everything was), I figured I was in the nose bleed seats. I went up to the balcony and asked the usher to help me find my seat. He told me "oh section A, you're up front." Oh, OK, that's awesome and unexpected. I go back downstairs, and start walking up towards the stage. D...C...hey I'm getting pretty close...B...wow, I'm really close...A. I was in the 6th row, right there with the action where the performers can see me. Check out what my view was.

I don't think I've ever sat this close at a concert or entertainment event. The only thing that comes close was when I was front row at some comedy shows, but that's because I wanted to be called on by the comedians and be the butt of their jokes (because that's what front row at a comedy show is), and thus those seats aren't exactly coveted by the general viewing public. Apparently I wasn't the only person that bought tickets last minute that got the great seats; the people next to me had the same story of "I bought these 2 hours ago, and here I am so close." They told me about that after I started glowing under the black light, because it's a 70s band and of course they're going to say "5 minutes until showtime" with a black light.

OK, now it's show time. There's a slide show of past events of The Monkees in their 70s youth, and some clips of the TV show, and that was pretty cool. The audience really enjoyed seeing everything. Then the band comes out, and we're getting pumped, and then Mike and Micky walk out. Mike looked pretty rough, but Micky with his cowboy hat and overcoat looked like he was holding his age pretty well. I won't go into every detail of the show, but man was it something. Mike had to sit out like every 4th song, probably just because he's old and hasn't performed much in years (he basically quit being a Monkee after they broke up, and only recently started back at it once Davey died), but Micky kept at it and really put on a show, only sitting like 2 songs out. He was also "dancing" for us to some of the songs (he just kind of walked around, but again, old). As I heard one comedian say "they don't move like they used to, but they're still trying." Here are some pictures I got.

What was really fun is the songs. They played their hits, and some of the lesser songs. When they played the hits, the entire audience sang along, either just the chorus/back-up, or the whole song; but it wasn't overpowering above the musicians on stage. It was like a low bass line that you didn't hear but felt. Here are some of the major highlights. With Stepping Stones, Micky got really into it and when it came to the drum solo he walked over to the drummer and pointed to them. With Daydream Believer, at near the end Micky walked to the end of the stage and said "now it's your turn" and it was the entire venue singing "cheer up sleepy Gene, oh what can it mean, to aaaa daydream believer and a home coming queen." That was REALLY cool. With Going Down, Micky pulled someone from the audience and she sang one of the verses, which was cool. Micky introduced Randy Scouse Git and gave the background as to why it's called "Alternate Title" in the UK. Pleasant Valley Sunday was really fun with everyone singing along, and I think this was when Micky introduced the band which was pretty cool (and Mike had to sit out, so Micky joked about that). And I think this was the big finale, they ended on I'm a Believer and everyone got up and danced. So SOOO much fun. They also played some songs that didn't get a lot of air time, and there was one or two that were never released that had Davey and Peter, so they just played along with those. Though I will say, it was kind of weird hearing Davey or Peter songs sung by Mike or Micky.

Now it wasn't just music. They also had some banter back and forth, because The Monkees were originally just a comedy show. Mike was usually the strait man to Micky, but Mike also had some funny man moments. They said some things about the show, and Micky played up how Mike had to take breaks, and there was one time where Mike's ipad stopped showing his music and one of the stage hands had to come reset it and all the while Mike is joking about "my music is gone, I still have MSN and google, and I think I have an Instagram notification..." because "the show must go on," and I think it was after intermission there was a rowdy group of audience members that were yelling songs and Mike came out and said "raaaahabla, tigbula, megrible, I can't hear you" which was a great way to deal with the "hecklers," and a lot of other fun things. The band was also pretty impressive. Yes, they were good, but Mike's son was one of the guitarists, which was cool, and the back-up singers looked like they were from the 70s, especially the woman with the waist long hair.

Now they didn't do a standard encore, because they're old, but they did do one of sorts. Mike was out on stage talking while everyone else got up and left. He was like "hey, where'd everyone go? Don't worry we still have a couple more songs." But eventually it did end. Now for some funny stuff at the end. Since I was right at the front, I decided to get a little closer to the stage as the roadies were packing everything up. I just wanted to get as close as I could.

Then there was this. Micky had his set list taped to the floor, and one woman snuck on stage and grabbed half of it. The guy she was with wanted the other half and tried to get it, but then a roadie saw him and chased him off stage. Not much longer after that the head of security came over and shewed everyone out to the lobby. Not wanting to cause a scene, and because it was getting late, I decided it was time to go. I got in my car and drove home, got home at around midnight, went to bed, and woke up 6 hours later to go to work. Oh man, was it worth it. So so SO much fun. So glad I got to see my favorite band from my childhood live in person, and so close to the stage. Well, this has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.