Why I think the cops are alright now. (706 hits)
Category: Sound & MusicRating: 0.75 on 6 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Shirkinparkin (View user info) at 2004-07-11 22:15:28 EDT
First, some background info.
I live in a small midwestern town and play in a rock band. We've been playing together for several years, and gone through several line ups and what not. It's can get pretty boring in this town, so that's why we started playing. The cops in this town have been far from friendly. We all have our shares of incidents with the cops. We've been targeted for the past few years, for many things. They find our marijuana smoking to be a problem as well as our drunken shenanigans. But for the most part, we don't really give a fuck.
Last night, all my negative opinions about law enforcement were absent, in one hell of a badass night, thanks to these fine law officers.
We were set to play a wedding reception for a friend of ours. It would no doubt be a great gig, due to the big crowd and the keg beer. We set up in his backyard and began drinking and jamming. We played some cover tunes and some original shit, and I have to say, we played pretty damn good. We almost didn't play the reception. This was because the grooms brother is a police officer, and we have had confrontations with him in the past. He's not a bad guy, he's actually a drunk, but that won't stop him from giving you a DUI. So we were kind of leary of the whole thing. Surprisingly, he was very cool about it. We were drinking with him and he was shouting out songs for us to play. So far, so good.
After playing for about an hour, a patrol car pulled up to the house. This made my heart sink, as I knew nothing good could happen now. This cop, we'll call him "Dave", had pulled me over many times for bullshit reasons, and was just waiting for somebody to fuck up so he could get them. But actaully he just showed up to hear us jam. So far so good.
We decided to leave, because we had this badass drunken idea that we would go play on the roof of the building we practice in. There were several weddings going on that night, so there would be alot of people out an about, plus we wanted to be like the Beatles.
We went to leave and decided we better have some Designated drivers so the cops wouldn't fuck with us. I deciided to call a drunk friend to drive me back.
As we were loading up the vehicles, our bass player went up to the cop (Dave) and asked "Hey dude, could we get like a police escort back to town?" This made me laugh, as I thought "no way would he ever do that".
"okay" he said.
What? What the fuck? Is this guy setting us up or something. We'll it turns out he wasn't. As we rolled our vehicles back into town (a pickup crammed with gear and two cars) his patrol car was in front of us with the red and blues flashing. I thought to myself "This is so fucking weird. Here we are, a band of drunks, most under the legal drinking age, getting a police escort. This is so fucking cool!"
We get back to town and begin unloading all of our stuff. The cop stayed around to bullshit. By this time we really didn't care about getting into trouble. We were openly drinking our beers. We told him what we planned on doing, he suggested we just play out on the side walk, in front of the building. We always talked about doing just that, but ironically worries about the cops shutting us down stopped us. He said it was totally cool, but we would have to turn it down after midnight.
So we set up on the sidewalk, in the dead center of maine street, amps cranked to Eleven. By this time, all of our minds had been blown. Here is this cop, catering to all of our needs, while we are disturbing the peace, and getting drunker by the minute.
Well, we played for a while. The open space was great. Me and the other guitar played migrated to the middle of the street. We were sitting there playing and people were driving by honking. The cop had left by now, on his normal patrol. Beer bottles littered the street as people showed up to listen and drink.
Before I go on, as ironic as this is, it's even more ironic. One of our avorite songs to jam is called "the cop song". The lyrics are as follows.
He's a big cop
On his big horse
Gonna shut us down, yeah
Gonna shut us down yeah
He's a small cock
In a loose whore
Gonna shut us down yeah
Gonna shut us down yeah
He's a big cop
But he won't be no more
Gonna shut him down yeah
Gonna shut him down yeah
Now, we had played this song about 10 times by 11 o clock. We played it at the reception, in spite of the cops (they were absent at the time), but officer "Dave" heard it and said, "That's pretty good". He was right. It is a good song. Now back to the story.
About 30 minutes after leaving, the cop showed back up.
"Hey guys. I've gotten some complaints about the noise. People can hear it on the other side of town."
I knew what was coming. It's time to go home, it's over.
"If you guys want to, I can run an extension cord up at the park, and you guys can jam there."
It just keep getting better and better. After some discussion we decided to do it. We were hesitant because honestly, we were sick of loading and unloading our gear, but we figured it was a once in a lifetime opportunity. And by this time, we were pretty shitty drunk.
So again we loaded up and went to the park. The park is a public rest stop too, for truckers and travelers, so there is always people there.
We get to the park and set up out in the middle of the concrete where the cars come in and park. This is really where the party got started. Cars pulled up one after another as we played. People driving through town looked to see what the commotion was, several drove through to hear us. What was really funny was that the other guitar player and the bass player were so drunk, thay actaully laid down and played on their backs on the concrete. I tried this for a while, but it just wasn't my thing.
The cop showed up and listened for a it longer. The party began to die down, and we grew tired. It had been a good night, better than any of us expected. The cop told us that he enjoyed the music and enchouraged us to go to city council with any complaints. He told us he didn't mind us doing this, just as long as we picked up our bottles and didn't break anything. He ended his speech with "Cops are people too".
We then packed up and headed home, not believing what had just happened.
It is the day after, today and I think everyone in town could hear us. I've heard complaints and compliments. Some say it woke them up, and others said they stayed up to listen. We definitely agree, this was the best gig so far.
I was telling people about this today, telling my tale when someone told me that the cop "Dave" was getting fired. He knew he was getting fired and didn't give a fuck, and that's why he let us do all that shit. At least I think that's why. But you never know. Maybe he just liked the jams.
This story is 100% true, believe it or not.
If you would like to schedule a gig with my band, with full police escort, call 555-4201. Will take free beer for payment.
User Reviews
Submitted by Zoidberg (user info) at 2004-07-12 05:04:53 EDT (#)
Ranking: -1
this story was like a broken pencil
pointless
Submitted by gibberish (user info) at 2004-07-11 23:19:04 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
Word to the wise here..
Not to insult your intelligence by telling you that your own +2's don't count but, there are people who will give you -2's for doing it.
What a bunch of assholes.
Submitted by dakingisdead (user info) at 2004-07-11 23:18:58 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Pretty good story.
Submitted by Shirkinparkin (user info) at 2004-07-11 23:06:02 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Damn right. I thought people were just ignoring me.
Submitted by Random Joe at 2004-07-11 23:05:47 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
Yeah cops do have moments like this, they also unfortunately have moments when they decide giving kids a criminal record for smoking pot is a good idea. cops are just people and don't deserve anymore respect then anyone else. Pretty good story
Submitted by bargled (user info) at 2004-07-11 23:01:08 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
someone has to rate it.