I ask only for the strength to defend my people.

Hip Hip Hooray For Me!
( 2005-08-10 @ 12:14 a.m. )

Wow.......so here I am. You guys want a Warped Tour update right?

No? TO F*****G BAD!

Because that's what you good and damn well get.

Ok, soooooooooooooooooooooo how do you top last year? Hanging Out with Lars. I mean REALLY? How do you top that?

Well Rachel and I had a plan....or I should say we had targets. Hers was of course her one and only, Tim Armstrong, I had been madly infatuated with Gerard Way...if you don't know who he is, I should kill you. If you do...eat your heart out. Seriously.

So, we get prepared. Friday the 5th of August. It is a looooooooooooooooooooong drive to St. Petersburg. A good 3 hours. We load ourselves in and get prepared. We had no idea how to manage what we wanted to do, but hey we had pulled off miracles last year right?

We got in, and instantly I made my way to the My Chemical Romance merch table, I spent a ridiculously disgusting amount of money there.....you name it, I bought it. Sadly there was no scheduled band signing. I think my heart broke at that point.

At that point however giggling and just happy to be there we went and watched Dropkick Murphys, including a great rendition of Amazing Grace, some strange kid kept hitting on me the entire set, Rach and I laughed about that and promptly wandered off.

After that came The Transplants Now this was important. It was a quasi-religious experience. Rachel and I seeing Tim together was like a magic moment. Great set, I just grinned watching Rachel's face as Tim ran around with his beautiful self. She was thrilled and to share that with her was amazing. The Transplants kicked much ass by the way. Seriously, I was impressed.

MCR had a late set, so we sat under a tree in front of their merch tent. We met This guy under said tree. Him and his Dropkick Murphys obsessed friend stopped and just randomly chatted with us. They were drunk, and the DKM obsessed guy kept asking everyone wearing a DKM shirt if they were from Boston. This amused me. Also, some random 50 year old guy danced around shirtless, that was even more amusing. Must be Creepy Joel's Dad {see last year's warped tour entry for info}. Some random cute guy had a merch tent next to us with his band. Neither one of us could say a word though, so much for balls.

MCR's set was a disaster. I am a pit VETERAN people, I have had more bruises and shit in one DAY at warped than most people amass in a year. Sadly, it was a billion degrees out and all of the MCR fans were kids with NO PIT ETIQUETTE, that's right....I got TRAMPLED to death and had to haul my ass out of there with the kick-ass security guards picking me up off the ground and shit. It was awful. I was pissed and brokenhearted. It flat out SUCKED.

After that we left, dejected, pissed and dissapointed...three hour drive home. That also sucked...seriously....we nearly got killed. People here CANNOT fucking drive.

We got home, ate and crashed...muttering abotu redeeming ourselves.

Saturday came and went, we BARLEY had gas money but we were determined. So Then Sunday, part two in Orlando. We get up and mutter yet AGAIN about redeeming ourselves. I mean come on, we sat UNDER a tree....I had Rachel with me, I KNEW we were more bad-ass than that. Something had to give.

Seriously now, just standing in line...waiting to get in we nearly died. I was just hoppign around trying to see stuff, waiting impatiently, getting pissed at the ticket people for keeping me from seeing MCR and so on. We got inside and "made our rounds" as I call it, walking about as if we owned the place. We talked to this random band called Lorene Drive, they were pretty decent and we chatted with them for a bit.

At this point things seemed to be oging well. Hey, we were walkign around, talking to random bands. Ok, so no one KNEW the bands but whatever. At this point Rach and I had sunburn on top of sunburn and we were hurting. The sun was g**damn relentless. We watched the Transplants again then ran back to Lorene Drive's merch tent to hide from the sun, they fanned us, gave us water and let us crowd in with them.

The WHAM! It was time for MCR to play. We went and stood, and waited...and waited...and waited.........

The suspense was killing me, and I was on Gerard watch. I could see Ray, I could see Frank and Mikey.......then they came out and I made theOh fuck THERE'S GERARD face I was happy, I screamed my heart out. There was Gerard indeed. They kicked ass, MCR is by FAR one of the most amazing live bands I have ever seen. Gerard came out in black layered on long sleeves, layered on black and he went insane. He had us all going with "Hallelujah's" and "Amen's" let me tell you, that boy is a preacher.....I giggled, pointing out that he had the cute chubby thing going on to Rachel who looked and laughed as well. So we screamed our hearts out, and I was seriously I-M-P-R-E-S-S-E-D by them.

Rach and I then wandered away to have a smoke. We had positioned ourselves by the backstage area by the fence. I glanced over and saw Ray walk by, I then realized Gerard was under a tent, trying to hide from rabid fangirls...admittedly myself included. I fet bad for him, but then I sort of shoved past the fifteen year olds to have a look-see. Ok, so he's chubby and pasty-faced and all that shit...but good God I'm sorry people...he is incredibly hot. Well, I grabbed Rache's ticket cause mine was destroyed and I decided to brave the fangirls. It paid off, suddenly he was in front of me. I smiled and extended said ticket and I calmly say "You guys were fuxking amazing, thanks for the show you were seriously amazing." He grins and takes the ticket and goes "No thank YOU, your fucking amazing." He then signs it and some 15 year old girl tries to snatch it from him. He glares at her and goes "Uh, hey NO!" and then calmly reaches over said fence, takes my hand, places said ticket in it, closes my hand over it and goes "There you go hun...." he then squeezed my hand and wandered off.

Ok so I told Rachel all of this with shaking hands liek a rabid fangirl, I am twenty four and I work in politics and a chubby goth boy had reduced me to goo.

Then it started raining, but God I was on a high. We managed to get under a tree to hide from the rain. Said tree was by the backstage area. said tree was actually making things worse by DRIPPING on us. Irritated we watched people go in and out of backstage area. Rachel got pissed and turned into like fucking Wonder Woman.

She goes up to the Security Guard and goes "Can I get back there?"

"No" he says.

"Why NOT?" she queries.

"Cause you need a wrist-band" he says matter-of-factly.

"Can you GET me one?" she queries?

He shakes his head. "I'd get fired."

"No one will find out." she says.

At this point, calmly smoking I meander over and go "PLEASE? Look, no one will find out, if we get caught we will say we snuck in, there's ONLY TWO OF US...we aren't going to KILL anyone" I add, hoping to make a point.

"Ok fine, hurry up....go" he whispers in a conspiratorial tone, ushering us back. We hug said security guard and then WHAM.

Rachel and I are backstage at the warped tour.

We hung out at Kamp Krusty, grinning like we owned the joint, just smiling at random people from bands as they walked by. Mind you we have NO WRISTBANDS on, no NOTHING....but we were so calm and cool no one questioned us. Rachel kicked my and pointed out Mikey from MCR as he walked past, we jonkingly stalked him..........then...well I had to pee.

We calmly wandered to where the bathrooms were, high security...still we arent busted. Then we realize THIS is where everyoen was so we just sat...and waited. After I peed of course.

On my way out of the bathroom I nearly RAN INTO Mikey I stopped, he then stopped, he looked at me, I looked at him and then promptly walked AROUND him. He looked at me as if to say "Do I SMELL that bad?" really I was just terrified.

So back where Rach and I are sitting, we see someone we think we know.

"Um Julie, isn't that Brett REED?" Rach asks.

"I was thinking the same" I reply, of course RANCID wasn't there, the Transplants were, so I doubted myself for a minute.

Then he walked by again, and I decided that we would follow him, where he was...Tim was.....logically. Then I glanced over in the opposite direction form which Brett had came. Some idiot in a black hoodie was bouncing up and down and waving his hands manically.

"What the FUCK?" I thought and looked away. I then looked back again and saw the hood had fallen back and a black and blonde head was now bouncing around.

"OHMYGOD" I say to Rachel, grabbing her by the arm. "There HE is" I say. Now Rach though I meant Brett, so she looked over wondering how in the HELL he oculd have gotten to the opposite direction so fast. She then realized it wasn't Brett.

I ran to him as if my life depended on it, then stopped a full five feet from him. HIM being Gerard. I swear, I was hauling ASS then I just STOPPED. His back was to us and I could say nothing. Rachel stood there confused when I said nothing. So she did.

"HEY Gerard!"

"Hey what? Yeah?" he says, pivoting on one heel rather cheerfully.

"Can you liek take a picture with her?" Rachel queries, pointing at me.

"Sure" he says, slipping his arms around me and yanking me as close as he possibly can. Seriously people all I can think of is how bad I want to squeeze his adorable, chubby little hips so I do, and he's squeezing me back and it was just this estatic moment. He was happy, I was happy. I chatted with him for a minute and then as we went to walk away, not even thinking I remove the bracelet I'm wearing. It's a black leather thing with a islver padlock, I grab his arm and he turns 'round and I just gush...."HerethishasalwaysbroughtmegoodluckohfuckIwantyoutohaveit".

He GRINS and rolls up his sleeve and puts it on, then looks right at me and goes "Awwwwwww! THANKS! I will wear it ALWAYS" shaking the bracelet for emphasis.

Later on he walked past, proudly displaying my bracelet, jingling the padlock and giggling madly. I died. So if you see him wearing that, it's mine...YEA EAT YER FUCKIN' HEARTS OUT!

After that, we saw Brett Reed again, he was carrying his food, barbecue chicken and a muffin. This is me, Rach and Brett Reed's dinner and yet again

We chatted, I showed him my Rancid tattoo, he was thrilled.

"Met Tim yet?" he asked. I had of ocurse but Rachel had not. I told him so.

"He's around somewhere" he replies. "You guys stickign around?"

We nod and wander back to where we had been seated.

Did I mention Gerard SMELLS AMAZING? No? Well he DOES...sorry....lol

Mikey then wandered by again. Ok, I felt BAD that I had avoided him liek the plauge out of fear of Gerard just apparating over there so Rachel just goes....

"HEY MIKEY!"

He pivots on one heel, now for one HORRIFYING moment we thought his eyes were oging to turn red and he was going to go "LEAVE ME ALONEEEEEEE" instead he goes....

"HEY! What?"

He was on a mission, but took the picture anyway. I thanked him and he goes "Noooo fucking thank YOU!"

We then walked up soem stairs and saw Brett playing football with one of the Transplants roadies. We watched him and giggled, I mean come ON...we are watching Brett Reed play football.

Then I just decided to go down and ASK Brett where Tim was, for Rachels sake, before I can however Rachel starts pointing and just looking generally flabbergasted. I look over and there's tim getting on the bus. Like me with Gerard Rachel froze so I just go "HEY TIM!" and call him over, after all I have hung out with him before. He nods and holds up one finger like "I'll be there in a second."

And so he does. He wanders over, and then I realize, HE IS CHECKING RACHEL OUT! I mean like CHECKING HER OUT. I'm SERIOUS. I FINALLY show him my tattoo, he grins and gushes about how great it is and how "Absolutley fucking PUNK" me and Rachel are. He is his usual sweet self and invites me and Rachel to "Hang out with him" when Racnid comes back to Orlando. Meanwhile he's still checking Rachel out, but I cant blame him, she's gorgeous here people. SERIOUSLY.

So here's Mrs. Armstrong and her future husband. Awwwwww

And Me and Tim

And me and Rachel putting the lovin' on Tim. Hee-Hee and yes that matches the me, rach and Lars pi above, funny thing being Rachel and I are wearing the same pants from when we kissed Lars there when we kissed Tim...those are LUCKY pants.

Here's me. Just a random shot from St. Peteersburg.I look crappy

And ah yes, here's me and my future brother-in-law Mikey

I saved best for last. Eat your hearts out ladies, here's me and my future husband.

I AM SO IN LOVE

So um, that's what I did this weekend. And if you DONT comment on these pictures after how LONG it took me to do this entry I will KILL YOU! Man Rachel has SO GOT Tim in the bag, he was checking her out so bad! BWHAHAHAHAH! But seriously LOOK AT me and Gerard!

So SIGN THE BOOK PEOPLE!

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