It's way too hot for Iggy Pop

Sooooooo I was totally pumped for NXNE this year, the schedule was pretty awesome. The last few years, I had seen lots of people bar hopping on those little razor scooters with the rollerblade wheels, so this year, I vowed to use mine.

I brought it along, took it on the bus until I got to Yonge and Eglinton and then started pushing my merry way along.

Ding!

What did I just hear? Oh great, the washer fell off. Awesome. The scooter starts to collapse upon itself and slowly come to a halt while I'm blissfully gliding down the sidewalk, scraping its underbelly on the hard cement. Simultaneously, the heavens open up and I'm starting to get really wet. OMG what else could go wrong?

I'll tell you what, a little later.

I decide to walk down Yonge St. until I find someone who can help me out.

I hoist the scooter up on my shoulder. A smart ass waiting for the light to turn red behind me says: "Don't you think it'd be easier just to ride the thing?"

I don't even turn around to look at him and I grumble "NO, it's broken!"

"What's wrong with it?"

"It's broken!"

And I walk a lot faster than him and get away as quick as I can, grumbling under my breath.

I begin my search for a friendly sports or hardware store. This is indeed exactly what I find.

A nice little geek-boy named Dan allen keys my scooter apart at the Trek bicycle shop and tells me he's going to NXNE too, but he's going tomorrow to see De La Soul. Oh pity, I saw them 12 years ago when they were still cool and opening for 311 on their crazy Transistor tour. Nyah.

Anyway, he manages to find a washer and replaces it for me for free.

Owen would call this the "pretty girl discount". I call it the "Louise is the coolest and impresses everyone with her musical knowledge discount".

Anywho, thanks to Dan, I make my way to Yonge and Dundas, my yearly pilgrimage to the altar of Canadian indie music. Sigh.

It is still raining a bit, so I break out the umbrella and dance around like an idiot to a bunch of fun bands. Soon, the sun comes out and here is another crappy thing. Just as I was beginning to feel really awesome and happy about overcoming the broken scooter, it gets REALLY HOT. Like so hot I don't want to move. UGH!

I go and share some shade with a lonely photographer in the Bacardi lounge area place. They are handing out free pink lemonade for a while, it was pretty nice. Compared to the reaction I got two years ago. (See NXNE 2008, when Louise gets kicked out of the Virgin Mobile lounge)

OK, so things start majorly sucking when I look down at my poor arm. I had badly burned it in the sun on the drive down yesterday, forgetting to put sunscreen on. This time, I put sunscreen on, but apparently it wasn't good enough. I am a TOTAL lobster, and in lots of pain, probably also on the edge of sunstroke. I didn't think of wearing a hat, when I left the house it was grey and rainy, I was lucky I brought the little sunscreen stick that I had.

I decide just to totally forget the whole thing, go and hang out in the park with some pink wine and chocolate covered cashews. Literally, yes, that is what I did.

I found a beautiful little sanctuary called the "Bell Trinity Square" or something to that effect, there was a labyrinth in the centre of it and people hanging out all around.

I decide I'm not going to go see Iggy Pop after all, so I ask this nice young lady if I can use her phone to text Damita to tell him not to meet me at 11 p.m. I'll be back at Craig's place by 2, I told him instead.

She and her friends turn out to be a journalism students, just graduating. So we hang out for a bit and it is nice. They are also getting hammered in the park, but I think they are a lot more drunk than I am. We end up splitting up at the concert later.

Daniel Wesley is playing a show at the Supermarket and I decide he is more important than the Mr. king of punk. I know I know, maybe it was foolish in hindsight, but whatever, as it turned out, the crowd at Iggy Pop was completely insane.

If I had not been lugging around a scooter AND an umbrella, I might have had fun. The mosh pit was insane, normally I love this stuff, but people were tripping over the scooter one after the other and everyone else was yelling at me to leave. So I dragged my crap out of there and headed off to see Mr. Wesley.

I think it was the right decision. Daniel Wesley is like, the next Sublime, I danced and I danced and there was a 5 foot radius of empty space around me probably because I was being such an idiot.

After the show, these two drunk guys buy my scooter for $5. Wow, really? Yes, please, take this cursed instrument.

Then, I hop the subway back to Craig's house and promptly pass out on the sofa. Damita calls me about a half hour later and I buzz him up.