The Fat Asses of Metal Social Club: The Graf Orlock installment

It’s not too often that you hear from the staff at BMA. I decided it was time to write a blog entry because I labor under the illusion that you give enough of a shit about me actually read this.

So Sheena and I - the only other two people who actually work for BMA - decided to form a social club: The Fat Asses of Metal Social Club. For those of you unfamiliar with social clubs, it’s kind of like the Buena Vista Social Club, except we aren’t a large group of middle-aged men who gather to make sweet jazz music. We are two (yes, only two) twenty-something broads who get together to eat like lumberjacks before wandering into the B.O. and stale beer stench of a club or bar to get punched in the gut by sweaty 19-year-old dudes.

The first and quite impromptu meeting of the Fat Asses of Metal took place at an establishment that sits in the shadow of my house and right next to an audio book rental store (yes!): D.Z. Atkins. This palace of pastries and pastrami features all the best of what Jew food has to offer and Sheena and I were ready to indulge like we hadn’t eaten in weeks. Our first mission was to empty the crock of dill pickles that sits on the table. Less than 10 minutes later, mission fucking accomplished. A heaping mound of tuna salad, a mountain of fries, a mile-high pastrami sandwich and enough challah bread to feed a Sudanese family for a month, Sheena and I were onto bigger an better things (the bakery). We loaded up a box with $20 worth of enough chocolate and sugar to give us both diabetes.

Not wanting to make anyone jealous of our gastronomical potential, we headed back to the house to polish off this box of treats. The fistfight that ensued over the last chocolate covered macaroon was hardly the end of this night. We still had a show to attend. So, we rolled ourselves out to the car and advanced into the rain and the dark to the night’s event: a Graf Orlock house show in Escondido.

Now, as we waddled out the door, my roommate (always playing the mom) warned us of the presence of “party gangs”, groups of hooligans who travel to house parties only to start fights and fuck up unsuspecting and highly intoxicated partygoers. If only she understood where Sheena and I were headed, she would have known the worst thing that could have happened to us was that we were would be subjected to the minuscule anatomy of boys making a tiny bump in the crotch of their three sizes too small jeans, and maybe, getting a stinky armpit to the face.

We arrive and our lowest of expectations were met. No more than three-dozen people, including the performing bands, cram into a two-car garage in the middle of Esco’s oldest and trashiest suburban piece of heaven. With the hum of amps and the drone of a movie sample, the garage door closes. Immediately, the few kids there launch into a mechanical response so predictable it can hardly be seen as subversive anymore. You know what I’m talking about. Moshing, dancing, aerobics, whatever. As predictable as the pushing and shoving was the 17-year-old elitist heckling, the verbatim mouthing of the movie samples, the girls with straw hair and shitty haircuts, the tight pants and the shouting of inside jokes among the friends of the crowd.

Remaining on the outskirts of the shoving match, I try my best to stand still, arms crossed to prevent the occasional elbow, foot and butt from pushing into my gut and causing me to vomit $30 worth of cookies and pastrami onto the unsuspecting victim in front of me. I look over to see Sheena standing victoriously on top of an errant coffee table that had attempted to amputate her at the shins. By the end of the show I was overcome with nostalgia. I hadn’t been to a house show in probably nearly ten years. These were the kinds of shows that I miss the most.

Despite the pushing and shouting, the stupid drunk girl’s feeble (and failed) attempt to participate the conversations of four college educated metal nerds, and overwhelming sleepiness that hit us promptly at 11pm, Graf Orlock proved that even playing in mom and dad’s garage, they are still the best cinema gore has to offer.

Michelle Ferraro is the Head of Publicity for BMA and can't deny a stacked pastrami on rye with a chocolate macaroon on the side.