new york state of mind

Last night, downtown was a total scene, and not a good one. It made me happy that I was hanging out at a friend's house on the other side of town. We watched Wild Zero, and I think Guitar Wolf are my new heroes. Wild Zero is a jerky zombie movie with tons of explosions, fire, rock 'n' roll and cool hairdos. I hung out with a bunch of punk rockers, which is usually fine by me, but some of the people were getting on my nerves. They would talk shit to people walking by and get all pissy for being "conformists"; meanwhile, everyone at the house looked like they were wearing the same uniform. These weren't the studded belt fashion punks you'd see at the mall, mind you. The people I were hanging out with would probably fall more into the crusty vegan category, which I guess has more merit behind it, but still. That just infuriates me sometimes. People like that just come off like they're trying to fit in, and since they don't fit in with what's widely accepted, they niche themselves into a whole group of people who don't fit in, but fit in with each other. I don't know if that makes any sense. And this isn't to say that everyone at the house were like that, and even the ones who were were friendly to me, but it still got on my nerves.

We were playing the Wild Zero drinking game which comes with the DVD, but my stomach was kinda bothering me--I get nervous in new environments--so I kinda just sipped the beers so I wouldn't drink too much. I was more interested in hanging out and watching the movie anyway.

Still, I left the house about 1am with a nice buzz and ventured on the long walk home. I had to pass through downtown, and I figured I'd swing by the local watering hole on the way--by the time I got there the bars would be closing anyway--just to see if my roommate was there, so I'd have someone to walk home with. I was about a block away when I noticed a commotion on the corner near the bar. It caused me to slow down, because I've seen that shit before. I heard three or four pops...They were probably gunshots. I heard sirens immediately after, so I altered my course.

I figured there would be a gun by the way the idiots were posturing themselves, and I wanted to swing by the bar to see what happened--only because I have friends who usually end up there late at night--but there was such a scene down there, I just went on my way. That's probably the New Yorker in me. If it doesn't concern you, keep walking. You can only make things worse. In this case, the cops were already there, and whoever fired the gun was long gone. Even if someone I knew was hurt, there was really nothing I could do about it.

It kinda weirded me out that I didn't even bat an eyelash, just changed my course and calmly went a different way. Later along the walk, I walked past a group of local assholes picking a fight with this one guy who was alone with his girlfriend. I didn't know what led up to the incident, but the one guy was standing in front of his girlfriend on his cellphone while this group of testosterone mongers circled around him. There were more cops in the area than usual--the cops in this town usually have nothing better to do than make downtown look like it's under marshall law (99.9 percent of the time, no matter how rowdy it gets, people usually are just having a good time)--so the testosterone mongers backed off. I kept walking. Didn't even give them a second look.

People usually freak out around here when I tell them I walk home alone all the time. Sure I take precautions, but I'm never scared, and that's not to say I'm a tough guy, because I'm really not. Maybe it's because I come from a place that's far rougher than this, or maybe it's because I'm an idiot, but this is my home, and a few morons aren't going to keep me from doing what I want to do.

Last night really pissed me off. I hate watching people act that way. On the way home, I watched an ambulance speed by, heading from downtown to the hospital, which is about two blocks from my house. There was someone on a stretcher in the back, and a paramedic looking over him/her. I'll still walk home alone whenever I want.