Well, my friend was sober tonight, so we had a really good conversation on the telephone. We were bouncing around topics and I mentioned something that her boyfriend had said the last time we all hung out that really made me mad. And, seeing as he had gone out to the store to buy cigarettes and she was alone, we shared our thoughts on how he can be.

Eventually, the conversation led to a moment of tasteless drooling, which also led into our feelings of what caused it.

This past April 18 (2001), me, my friend, her boyfriend, and another mutual friend went to see the first show on the Misfits 25th Anniversary Tour at the Roseland Ballroom in NY. This was the show that spawned her boyfriend's tasteless drooling, and caused me to lose a good deal of respect for the Misfits.

They had an opening band that came on right before they did called the Impotent Sea Snakes. The band was, basically, a flamboyant, traveling S&M act. Both me and my friend were uncomfortable with this act for several reasons:

1. The show was mostly done too women. One man came out for a few moments, but nothing was really down to him except for when he was stripped naked. But all the acts were done mostly to women.
2. The show was by no means "light S&M." We're talking a dildo on a drill shoved into an upside-down girl and turned on, hot wax dripped on the girl's nipples that was re-melted on her skin with a torch, clothes pins on every sensitve area of the girl's body while she jumped up and down and was tossed around, ect. It was very painful to watch.
3. This was an all ages show. Yes, there were little kids there, and there was full frontal nudity plus all the acts and then some mentioned above. And we were not warned about any of this prior to the show.

Now, what gets people off is their own thing, no matter how disgusting I find it. But the fact that we were basically forced to watch this was in poor taste.

Why didn't we just go elsewhere during the show? Where was there to go?! We couldn't get away, and believe me, we tried. We were very close to the stage and dead center, so we basically couldn't move to even turn away. And being 5'9" tall, I have no choice. It's not like I could hide my head behind the guy in front of me, since he was way shorter than me.

But this goes again back to my belief that people have rights. I have the right to choose if I wanted to see that crap, and I didn't want to. But I couldn't get away, and I was not given any knowledge of what was going to go on. I wouldn't have bought tickets had I known that was going to happen, and I figured nothing like that would happen seeing as it was an all ages show. But S&M is something I don't exactly find comfortable. Guys cringe when you say something about injuring their penis in any way...it's the same reaction I get when someone shows me a girl getting a drill shoved up her and turned on!

But this leads to a whole other side. Girls like this music, too. Girls like Metal, Punk, Industrial, Alternative, Rap, whatever it is, a girl is into it. So why is it that rock bands seem to cator only to their male fans? Sure, a lot of the guys there got a kick out of seeing these totally naked women walking all over the stage, but give us some kudos here...give us some naked men! If the women have to be there, then so do the men. It's not only men who like that music, I hate to tell you.

And for anyone thinking I am just being anal retentive, I have spoken to many people who were at that show, and most of them held the same opinion as me. And most of them were guys. The whole hardcore S&M thing makes us very uncomfortable. I know, on my part at least, that I bought tickets to hear and watch the Misfits perform and to have a good time with my friends. I didn't buy tickets to watch a cheap peep show and feel uncomfortable, and I felt odd the rest of the night because of it. We didn't have as much fun as we had hoped to.

Now, why did I lose respect for the Misfits that night? Because they hired them to open for them. And mostly because we were not warned and the show was also advertised as all ages. And while I would never bring a small child to a punk show, many people do, and many people did. After all, we weren't expecting the dungeon master to come out and tell us that we are all "sexual beings" and that this "is part of our nature." Gee, dressing up in a nurses outfit, ripping it off, and sticking hypodermic needles into my genitals and then allowing some guy to bang me with them in is not part of my nature!