HOOD GANG HALLOWEEN x MADNESS ON EVALINE

Pre-game band name: Pride of Cougar
Evaline St. pt.1 – Right Party-Place, Right Party- Time… and the Ultimate Cross Promotion plan.
On with the show, Hood Gang summons the GREAT PUMPKIN
Back to Evaline, party til the break of daylight savings time / Writing Party Songs

Where to begin is pretty obvious. It’s just that we packed so much partying into one night that it’s tough to reprocess all of this party-data in anything resembling a logical manner.

It all started at Los’s Dojo where a number of Pittsburgh Party Council meetings have been held. But this night it was a place of pasta consumption, bachelor-style, as an essential foundation in the stomachs’ of newly formed band, Pride of Cougar.
“What do they call a group of cougars?”
“You know who’d know?”
“Who?”
“Google.”
And yes my friends, Google did know. Google always knows. It was at that moment the legendary group was formed, the all time #1 Cougar Tribute Band. No not Mellencamp, you dummy. I’m talking about the by-far leading band for the women 35-50 yrs of age demographic. Pride of Cougar wins Grammys every night all around Cougartown and you better damn-well believe that’s right.
It’s Halloween, remember? I remember Halloween all right. Let’s not forget. On a rare Saturday night with an additional bonus hr of turn-back-yr-clock-style extended party time. Sneaky came strapped with two costumes for the evening’s festivities as did Drunk Monk but we’ll get to that in a minute.

First, let’s head over to that always banging, 17 yr running, featured in Spin magazine, party in Friendship, on Evaline Street. You know, the one with the push-cart rollercoaster in the yard and the circus tent and the theme this yr is Space Odyssey 2001. Perfect! Frickin’ perfect! And I believe Meeting of Important People, or someone to that effect is playing as are über-homies, and some of the banginest, most fist-pump inducing DJs period, Keebs and Cutups (dressed as the Balloon Boy and Bob from Twin Peaks). And it’s only 9:30 and I hear they have 40 kegs donated by Penn Brewery. And the Hood Gang isn’t supposed to hit @ Belvedere’s until 11:00, at the earliest. Let’s roll! Pride of Cougar, ho!

And oh boy did we get there at the right time. The party was just starting to fill up. We walked right in and there were no lines for beer. The costumes were pretty rad, across the board. I wanted to try to recognize as many peeps as possible and do or say anything that might somehow persuade them to leave a $20 party with unlimited, free beer and roll with the Pride of Cougs to the Hood Gang Halloween Special. And then it hit me like a monster truck. Yes that’s it, I’d need a monster truck and a giant fishing net. There was an alley behind the party. I’d park the fucker right back there behind the row of porta-johns, no one would notice a thing until VROOOM! SKIRT! I’d throw it into first gear and spring my… um… promotion campaign. I’d drag like 50-60 people right out of Evaline, straight down Liberty Ave. all the way down the hill to Belvie’s. That’s sure one way to fill that room.

No body ended up coming with the P-Cougs and even I couldn’t scrounge up a Big Foot with such short notice. On the way out we marveled at the line to get in, which by now had stretched for two neighborhood blocks. There wasn’t that much room left inside the party. I pitied all those poor party people. They had pre-gamed slightly too long and were paying the price. And I’ll be damned if there wasn’t five, six, of those folk dressed like Waldo. Where’s Waldo? Who cares. The Pride was fashionably on time for the next soiree, I Hear Dead People.

The theme was dead rock stars.
“Sneaky, who are you supposed to be?”
“I’m Sneaky in the future. Let’s face it, in about 100yrs even I’m going to die.”
Drunk Monkey was dressed as Pee Wee, naturally. The Good Ol’ PW was more than just a time-honored, go-to costume for him. Drunk Monk’s Pee Wee Herman is currently stronger than Paul Rubens’.
Belvedere’s was kind of bumpin’. Especially considering that there were probably just under one million people crammed or trying to get into Evaline at that point. There were some pretty decent costumes here too: lots of Mario and Luigis, a great number of Waldos and a healthy smattering of Lady Gagas. DJ rar. Kelly was dressed as Kurt Cobain, his wife Natty Boh Peep was Courtney Love. The members of the Commonwealth Family were channeling the styles of John Lennon, Hendrix, and Easy-Mutherfuckin’-E. Pittsburgh was really feeling this special Saturday night Halloween, a night celebrating the artists we have loved and lost. And the ones who are still with us, for that matter; planning crazy events, providing amazing music, and in this case, pulling mad party-stunts.

The Hood Gang, fresh off of becoming the first band to D.I.Y-fly, earlier that month @ RB5, felt compelled to follow up strong. We decided to do so, by summoning THE GREAT PUMPKIN from the Peanuts Halloween. We had Charlie Brown on bass, Snoopy on percussion, Woodstock on guitar, Pig-pen’s cat on drums, and Drunk Monk changed from Pee Wee to Linus, right down to the blanky. Sneaky was the GREAT PUMPKIN and he finally showed up this time, because the party people of Pittsburgh now, truly believe in him. Yes Linus, the GREAT PUMPKIN is real.
The set was on fire! ODB meets Jim Morrison (what would be the first drug taken?) meets Stunt Rock (look it up, ever heard of youtube…come-on!). I’ll say it again, it’s really really difficult to encapsulate the Hood Gang live. How can you truly capture a moment? Pictures? Blogging? Surveillance cameras? We’re trying all of the above, but even at stop frames every one-hundredth a second we still can’t recreate the feeling of actually being here.
The Pride of Cougar x Hood Gang crossover party-experiment was a complete success. Isn’t that right Sad Panda posing in front of hypnotic-eyed GREAT PUMPKIN?
Well, there were some monetary losses but it’s true that there’s nothing at all gained without a venture. One cannot put a price on GREATEST PARTYING. Plus, we did have to act fast to get back to Evaline even if it meant leaving our equipment unattended. After all, the night was still young according to our about-to-be-turned back clocks. And don’t forget, the Pride of Cougar still had a tremendous lust for partying on their jowls and Evaline party stamps on the back of their paws.

I busted back into a still very crowded Evaline with speed and agility, instinctually navigating between KISS, Blackula, the cast of Spaceballs, dead just about anyone, and plenty of sexy what-have-yous. I was guessing who people were Sherlock Holmes-style, left and right, snap-snap-snap. I was on fire. People like it when you recognize their costumes.

There were lines for beer now, but it wasn’t oppressive. And they must have had 40 kegs to still be pumping out drafts. It was 2AM at that point, and in Pittsburgh beer becomes so rare. Oh shit, we forgot to grab a sixer, it’s 2:01, the bartender has turned into a fascist. You gather up yr after hrs crew and poll resources. Someone has most of a bottle of Vladimir that’s been in their trunk for a couple of weeks, gross. Some weird dude yr friend knows says he has a few brews in his fridge back at his creepy apartment in the Mexican War Streets. Yeah you can find straight up booze without that much effort but it’d be so brutal to try to pile on liquor on top of all the other ungodly amounts of alcohol you’ve been consuming for the past 4 hrs. You’re in the mood for a nice beer or two while yr chilling with yr homies or perhaps going back to that cute girl, you’ve been spitting game to all night’s place. But beer is never there for you. You can score just about any drug depending on yr bag. Hell, with a little luck, I’d probably be able to find you a monster truck at that time of night. But not beer, never beer.

I was pinballing around the party, from the tent to the porch to the kitchen bottleneck, crowd surfing across the jammed dance floor. Up the stairs for no particular reason, trying to take as much in as possible. Rested for a while in the quintessential, black-light-lit, pot smoking room on the third floor. There was a blunt going around, of course, a phatty green leaf the size and general shape of a Chihuahua leg. Teen Wolf passed me the blunt. He was the OG, Michael J. Fox, Teen Wolf 1. I had a tremendous feeling of dejá vu. I became certain (and still am) that I was up in that very room at that very party smoking pot with Teen Wolf the year prior. I told Teen Wolf my revelation.
“No man, it wasn’t me. I just moved here a month ago.”

But I could have sworn. Another crazy coincidence? Had I stumbled into a neighboring multiverse? Had all of this partying given rise to the possibility of a temporal paradox? Have I finally begun to lose my mind? Was I just drunk? I decided to split an adderall with the young wolf. Why not? He seemed friendly enough.

I realized that it had been well over an hr since I saw the rest of the Cougs. I got separated from them as soon as we rolled back in. The crowd was thick. I looked for my friends spanning the boundaries of the party and back again. But I couldn’t find them. Where were my friends? I started repeating this phrase in my head as I searched. I got to the point where it turned Spanish. ¿Donde Estån Mís Amigos? ¿Donde Estån Mís Ameee-gos? And then it hit me. Aqui! Aqui! Aqui! Aqui! My friends are right here. Every single person is in it together, we humans, are capable of such amazing beauty. ¿Donde Estån Mís Amigos? Aqui, right here. Aqui presenté. That is how I wrote a song with the entire Evaline party. And it was the most amazing experience I had thus far in my song writing life. I love you all very, very much!

I finally caught up to the rest of the Pride. They were raging as hard as ever with Keebs, Ashley from Yinzerparty.com, Sully, some quasi-random babes, and Leroy who was dressed as the Hamburglar. Just then, believe it or not, a second Hamburglar entered into our real estate. Everyone froze. Someone grabbed the needle off of the record. The Hamburglars had a little, “am I looking into a mirror” moment, classic cartoon cliché-style. Someone in the peanut gallery started chanting, “fight, fight!”

“No.” I said. “We’re all friends here… I know how to settle this.” Apparently I had another song left in me.
Hamburglar Dance-off, Hamburglar Dance-off,
Hamburglar, Hamburglar, Hamburglar Dance-off.
A gnarly 4 to the floor kick drum comes in and the chorus repeats.
And the Hamburglars in question began to showdown. Damn, their moves were funky!
Hamburglar Dance-off, Hamburglar Dance-off,
Hamburglar, Hamburglar, Hamburglar Dance-off.
Take it to the bridge.
Where’s Waldo? Where’s Waldo? Where’s Waldo? Where’s Waldo?
Waldos were everywhere! That night it was impossible to go anywhere or to look in any direction without seeing at least one Waldo. In fact, there were a few loafing in my stoop when I went home and I even saw one scurry underneath my refrigerator when I turned on my kitchen light. What was up with that? When the dust settled our horse had triumphed and the Cougies celebrated with high-fives and their one-millionth round of brewskis. Pride of Cougar had scored their first number one hit!


It was super-late, four maybe five o’clock in the AM. It was impossible to be sure because different people’s cellular providers had differing TBTC policies. I think I tried to organize an impromptu bring babes back to my place plan. I probably pulled out the heavy artillery and offered a rollerskating after-after party with a side dish of flying. No dice. Instead it turned into another episode of The Untold Moments of Dudes Hanging Out. And there is nothing at all wrong with that.

EPILOGUE:

The next day I was monumentally hung-over and in a general malaise. I felt like an extra in Michael Jackson’s Thriller as I attempted to figure out how to work the produce section of The Giant Eagle Market District. The fluorescent lights were painful, the bananas wouldn’t ever be ripe. A girl walked by and smiled at me. ‘Oh yeah?’ I thought. Then I caught something strange out of the corner of my eye. What my peripherals detected hadn’t fully registered. I double and then triple taked. Holy shit! It was Teen Wolf, still in costume, the day after Halloween in a grocery store. Actually the costume was different. It was still a werewolf costume but it was a little more casual. Perhaps he was the Jason Bateman Teen Wolf now.

“Hey man, thanks for that adderall last night.”

I managed a “dude.” Was I dreaming? I often dream of parties and actual parties are often weirder than my dreams. Both are usually difficult to remember in the morning.

“You totally freaked me out right now!” I told Teen Wolf (who I’ve now come to find out calls himself “The Colonel” when he’s not wolfing it up).

“Thank you.”



(For more pics check out the full FB album):
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2370645&id=14228324&page=2#!/album.php?aid=2370645&id=14228324