Entries this day: astroworld_with_g jungle_party

astroworld with g

11 September 1999

On Friday night around 9pm, my brother Fred left Slidell, Louisiana for Houston to say HI to family and friends before going to Stanford for school. He drove for a few hours, slept 5 hours, got to my apartment at 8am Saturday.

A few hours later, we were at Astroworld. I'll omit the detail about crappy traffic due to some sporting event at the Astrodome.

We both have Six Flags season passes, and we've both attended several different parks this season. He's attended more than I, but I did see Six Flags Great America in Chicago while he did not.

I had great fun bantering with him in line, talking about coasters and similarities, cool variations, the best, oldest, fastest, newest, most inversions... We cracked each other up with old and new jokes and fairly entertained or maybe annoyed the people around us.

Started at Serial Thriller, which I've ridden about 6 times, but he had not yet. I put him in a right hand seat (we didn't wait for front seat) so he could experience the thrill of thinking his leg might get wacked at a particularly close-looking encounter with another part of the track.

It was cool, but the line too long for us to wanna ride it again, so we headed to Viper. Rode Viper about 5 times in a row, usually without waiting for a train, just off then run around and back on same train, or not even have to leave the station and just change seats.

Viper begins its descent through a tunnel, and Fred noticed that just outside the tunnel, there is a track that is really close and maybe he could hit it on the way down!

He asked one of the ride ops if he could do it (not asking for permission, but if someone could possibly reach the other track). The ride op didn't know but said, "try it!"

Around that moment, I got a call on my cell phone. It was Kristen. I was all practically yelling, "yeah we're at Astroworld and Fred is about to try something cool on Viper!"

While still talking to Kristen, the ride started and I narrated while we rode and described Fred's endeavors. Down through the tunnel zoom whap! he got it! "Whoo hoo!!" we shouted with glee through most of the rest of the ride. He showed me his hand all greasy smeared and a bit red. We hopped triumphantly off the ride and Fred showed off the grease. "Don't try it; it hurts a lot."

As we walked to the next ride, I explained to Kristen everything that had happened, then hung up with her as we skipped Texas Tornado which was out of service probably until Fright Fest in October. Doh.

Then we also skipped XLR8, which was the first suspended ride of its kind when built, but now it's so outdated that I've heard this is its last season. I'm greatly looking forward to some HUGE and INCREDIBLE coaster in 2000!!!

To Greezed Lightnin' where we rode it about 8 times in a row, in various seats, in various apparent moods: "Poker Face!" and we would sit upright and blank stare straight ahead the entire ride. "Sleep!" and we would feign sleep the entire ride. It's a shuttle loop coaster; the entire ride is only like 35 seconds.

While on that ride, we met some woman and her kid, for both of whom this was their first time to ride. We were all, "you gotta put up your hands!!!" and we demonstrated for them, waving to the small crowd that often gathers below the loop. They (new riders) were fun.

Then to Batman the Escape, where the line was pretty darn short, but Fred wasn't super impressed with the ride so we only did it once. Funny thing was Marcel called me and I almost got to talk to him while on the ride but the ride ops wouldn't let me. Oh well. One coaster-phone-call is good for a day.

Then Ultra Twister, which was ho hum; I'm still kinda upset they wasted such an amazing design potential on an essentially 2D track. Fred tried to be all, "well it's the first of its kind blah blah blah" but I'm not really buying it.

Then to Texas Cyclone, which we rode once in the front seat of the back car and once in the front seat of the front car.

Coolest thing about that is when we got off, they have pictures available that were taken while we were on the ride. Some kid in the very back seat spray-spat some kind of water just at that moment; it was a very cool effect to see captured on film. Good timing, man!

Then we were pretty much hot and bored, so we left.

This time the traffic was even worse, as the same sporting event was now finished and flooded the streets with cars again! Augh!!

We made it out though, and joined Wende for lunch at Taco Bell. Yay!

jungle party

11 September 1999

About a week ago, Jennifer and I planned to go to Numbers last night. "Let's go to Numbers!" "Yeah!"

Numbers is a dance club in Houston that plays loud tunes to a crowd of 500 to 1000 per night, and sometimes has bands perform. Music is always wonderfully dance-inducing. In my case it induces Rob's Crazy Dance.

Rob's Crazy Dance

I don't know how to Swing, or Tango, any country line dances (except The Chicken Dance), or Two Step, or um, any of those dances that I don't know, I can't do. And I don't really want to.

But I can do Rob's Crazy Dance. It's not good, or even cutting edge stylish; I just let my appendages flail to the beat. The faster the music the better; the fuller the sound the better; the louder the better.

KTRU has exposed me to lots of different music besides just rock. I no longer enjoy just plain ol' rock, and especially not grunge, or glam rock or even rock rock. I love Jungle, Techno, House, Breakbeat, turntablism.. stuff one may hear at raves or parties.

En route to Numbers, I had KTRU on. It was Friday between 10pm to 1am, so KTRU broadcast the specialty show called MK Ultra. That means that Tejus is in charge of the radio part of the radio, and a rave DJ spins vinyl on turntables. I tried to call and say whassup to Tejus but the line was busy. Then he came on the air: "Hey I just got a phone call from ______; there's a Jungle Party going on at 2020 Commerce, featuring DJ something and DJ something else. Call 713-917-4984 for details."

I said, "whoah."

Jen said, "what's that?"

I thought it was a rave. So I described what a rave is like, basically ten times better than Numbers, so we're like forget Numbers, let's go.

We arrived, and I soon learned the fine distinction between rave and party. (I haven't had much experience with either one, but I certainly noticed this distinction.) This party was at someone's home. I won't say house; it was one half of a warehouse space. We walked in and the first room was bare with plywood floor and two big stacks of speakers bumping out beats. The DJ overlooked this room through an opening that looked like a wet bar, but was too high to be that. From this room we walked up steps and found a kitchen sink and cabinets built into the hallway, another bare room with exactly one couch and big TV with something Sega being played, and a bathroom. There was no carpet anywhere, but only plywood nailed firmly as the floor.

Jennifer recognized it first, "this is someone's house."

Ahh I thought. Party. I'm quick sometimes. Sometimes not.

After our quick tour I was like, forget Sega, I came here to dance. Several people were standing around the edge of the dance floor entry thing, but no one was dancing. So I danced Rob's Crazy Dance at a moderate level, which is still crazier than most people. People continued to stream in, and most of them streamed toward the back to talk in the kitchen or watch Sega or whatever. I commented to Jennifer, who was in the corner watching the whole scene, that it felt pretty odd to be the only one dancing, but oh well.

After a while, people slowly collected in the front area and a few began to dance. This DJ was good, mixing the vinyl well. I was dancing a higher level of Rob's Crazy Dance. I was excited though, to see the next DJs come in; I hoped they would pump up the beats.

The two who had arrived, indicating their DJ status by carrying a big metal case the right shape to hold a lot of vinyl, were both women. One had dreads right out of Jamaica, the other had straight black hair that reminded me of Cleopatra or some generic Egyptian queen. Turns out Egyptian girl was the DJ; I never heard her voice. Jamaican girl was on mic with her English (British)-Jamaican accent encouraging us to party on the dance floor.

I didn't need much encouragement from her; this new DJs beats were a million times better than the previous. Absolutely kickin' huge heavy mongo beats with layers and layers of music and high hats tweaked beyond recognition. Incredible. I loved it. Rob's Crazy Dance to the max.

The dance floor became relatively packed, compared to what had been there when I started. Only one other girl had her own crazy dance, which I watched on occasion. Most people were just kinda wigglin', looking up toward the DJ window booth thing. I mostly stayed in my own dance world, only looking up when the beats faded into just music for a brief break. At these points I usually started bouncing with both hands in the air toward the DJ booth, "PumpItUp!! PumpItUp!! PumpItUp!! PumpItUp!!"

And the beats got even better. Still the Egyptian hair DJ, with whom by then I had thoroughly fallen in love, and she was spinning some huge beats, with so much bass I could feel my legs vibrating as the bass hit, through the floor and even through the air, blowing my leg hairs around, vibrating my flesh. Incredible!

I actually reached a meditative state, where I literally didn't care/think about what my arms and legs were doing, where I no longer counted beats, anticipating changes. I was truly in the flow. Rob's Crazy Dance Trance, or Rob's Crazy beyond-the-max-look-out-you-might-get-hit Dance.

Finally, I was tired.

Jennifer had been dancing some (I was glad she had moved out of the corner), and was up watching the DJ when I determined I was tired.

I caught her attention and asked what time it was. She had no idea. I went up the steps to say I was ready to go, and to give my new DJ love a hug for playing such incredible stuff. I waited for her to put new vinyl on, then tapped her shoulder. She looked up and I mouthed, "thank you," and gave her a quick A-frame hug. It was too loud for me to possibly learn her name, and she was obviously busy. Jennifer too was ready to go so we went.

Outside, "do you hear that ringing noise?" I joked. We were both astonished to find it was 1:30am. It felt like midnight.

Jennifer said she had a good time; I had an incredible wonderful time.. a thousand times better than Numbers. permalink