A Denver Cabrini Green Day

Written by Cara Tuesday, 20 January 2009 17:27

I was 12 and just before my thirteenth birthday a wave of panic swept over me.  I feared leaving the comforts of childhood, the insouciant freedom, the free lunches we abandon and instead provide to children in adulthood.   Ironically, my Kurt Cobain obsessive years followed and recently I have had a minor epiphany amongst the synergies therein.  “Sun shines in the bedroom, when we play… the rain it always starts when you go away.”  “One baby to another said I’m lucky to have met you…”  “Grandma take me home, I want to be alone.”  Particularly the Insesticide years Cobain seemed to have a similar obsession with childhood and on that very first faithful year of the teen era, I had a similar obsession with the deceased man and band.  Although Kurt probably didn’t go so far as masochistic home tattoo I attempted to inscribe on my ankle in his name, and thankfully my cutting career ended here, but my faithful loyalty to the mentality of childhood remains as my immaturity will undoubtedly be reflected throughout these columns.

As puberty was set in, countless adventures unfolded, but a particular instance comes to mind.  Being 16 and having a friend with a car is ultimate freedom, and in mid nineties it was my albatross.  We were living it up, transitioning from riding the bus downtown and having bums buy us pints of McCormick’s to earning our keep through runs and rides.  The antics this evening brought us about Colfax avenue en route to its sweet intermediary, Argonaut liquor store, from the many times morphed but at the time Food Not Bombs warehouse off Arapahoe.  And the dirty gutter punk in the back seat having absolutely no regard for our young chauffeur, proceeded to do what he did best, scream amiably at exactly the wrong time.  This occurred affront The Ogden, on a day which Green Day graced the Mile High City and the profanity that happened to be uttered was a vehement “Green Day Sucks!”

After rear ending the van of Mormons in front of us and enduring the taunts of the vicious crowd jeering at our ironic turn of circumstances, we ended up in the 7 Eleven parking lot waiting for the officers’ long stay in his warm car and the neck inspections of a family of at least 8.  A BMX vagabond, or so it appeared, circled the lot, from beneath the hood of his Carhart jacket, he struck up a conversation with us.  Briefly we muttered about our circumstances and their bitter relations to the featured headliner, but mostly discussed general topics and swapped relative histories.

“I was just so glad to get my mom out of that trailer park,” he commented.

How did you do that?  We all were wondering, when he circled to depart.

“C’mon into the show, I’ll get you guys in…”

Our young driver had autographed her travel brochure, so we pull into the adjacent parking lot and follow him in.  We whisk by security, the girls deer in headlights and the boys strut as if passing through their own living room.  The stranger disappears into the crowd and we glance over our shoulders slightly baffled in light of recent events.  The show was getting underway and I believe I can stretch my memory to recall a mediocre opener and some horse play and the faithful Green Day begins.  I had long since vowed to an aversion to the band, for the most justifiable reason I could possibly fathom at the time, my sister liked them, but I admit I certainly would not have shouted the infamous phrase.  I squint to the figures on the stage and I made out our parking lot buddy, minus the BMX and plus a bass guitar.  So, that’s how he got his mom outta there…

Two songs in we were having a decent time and then it came. 

“This one goes out to those guys who got into the fender-bender out front.  Yeah! Green Day sucks!!!!”  And then they play.

In an egotistic haze that we had never experienced, we left.  We are swapping stories of mosh pit terrors as we round the corner to the parking lot where we had left the car.  We were then rudely interrupted by a barrage of Denver's finest, as a result of the boys' shaved heads and Doc Martins.  Some of us may recall the skinhead scare that swept the fair city in this era and we were being questioned about our destination.  We amiably point to the empty slot where the car was once.  So, they took one of the boys with warrants and gave us the number for impound.  Thanks guys.