At the request of my best friend, confidant, and attorney, Otto Hanson, here's a thread on the badass roadie Jeff (Jobber8742) and I went on yesterday.
For those of you who weren't at campout, let me go through the background real quick.
Anyone who's watched the Rock-afire Explosion documentary knows who Chris Thrash is. If not, check out the documentary because it's AWESOME! I'm a big fan of the dude, as well as the other enthusiasts in that movie who went to such massive extremes to preserve the Rock-afire. And naturally I loved the Rock-afire as a kid, too.
I got to Paul's Tues night and immediately started in on a favorite campout activity of mine: getting three sheets to the wind! Jobber had a copy of the Rock-afire documentary playing on a loop on one of the TVs. As we and some other of my favorite imaginary internet friends stood there and watched it, eventually the Great Muse of Booze posessed me and revealed an epiphany. "HEEeeeyeyyyyy.." she slurred, "Chris Thrash lives somewhere in the south. You're in the south now. Go find him."
Couldn't imagine why an idea cooked up in my booze-addled mind could possibly misfire, so finding Chris Thrash and visiting him was now my MISSION. And holy shit, did it ever turn into one! The next day I assembled a crack team of NA homies/intel specialists and we went to work. We used info and images in the documentary to find him, starting with his town. Googled "Chris Thrash Phenix City, AL" We got an address. We checked that in Google maps. Unfortunately there was no street view of the area, but when we zoomed into the house from above and compared the features in the yard to what we saw in the documentary, we got really excited because it looked like a perfect match. We were like the CIA studying satellite photos of nuclear WMD sites in Iran! We had a hell of a time trying to find a phone number and eventually had to give up, though.
So we basically had an address that MIGHT have been Thrash's... and it was six hours from Paul's house way down in Alabama. No phone number to see if the guy would even be home or not. No gaurantee he even still lived there. There was a possibilty he'd call the cops on our crazy asses. Basically everyone at the campout thought Jeff and I were ard-tarded for even considering this, but I just chalked that up to a lack of "vision" on their part. Just kidding, I know it was ard-tarded, but hell with that because I wanted to see my damn Rock-afire!
By the time we got done with our crack research on Wednesday, it was too late to set out on a twelve hour roundtrip. But we knew we'd have free time on Saturday because a lot of people were planning to leave that morning. So yesterday morning Jeff and I set out. We definitely knew there was a 95% chance that this would end in massive dissapointment, but went ahead and drove the six hours one way anyhoo.
His wife answered the door and naturally she did seem a bit, um, leery off the bat. Can't imagine why two complete strangers on her doorstep asking to see her husband would make anyone nervous. I started to explain that we were huge fans of the Rock-afire explosion and the documentary and that we were also currently hanging at a friends house down south. And plus, Jeff and I had purchased a 12-pack of Mountain Dew as an offering on the way down. She immediately got super cool and invited us in, but informed us he was working a late shift and wouldn't be home until way late. Nonetheless, she was happy to show us what they currently had.
Thrash as a friend who lives and works with him, and also helps work on the Rock-afire stuff. That guy was there, too, and explained all the things they were currently up to. Chris had sold the Rock-afire set he'd had in the documentary when the his Showbiz restaurant closed up, But eventually he got stir crazy for another one and found one that needed restoration. So the current Rock-afire is a work in progress, but it was still extremely cool to see. They took us back to the shed where it was and showed us around. They were really super cool people. Mrs. Thrash even let Jeff and me take some Showbiz tokens as souvinirs.
The last thing we did was drive to the McDonalds where Chris actually works as a manager. His friend had to go in for his shift anyway, so he and Chris' wife led the way as Jeff and I followed in our car. Chris had absolutely no problems talking to us about what's been going on with his show recently. Jeff and I sat there and talked to him for about fifteen mintutes before he had to go back to work. He was a really funny dude to talk to and we had absolutely no qualms with us coming to visit at all. After that, Jeff and I ate some McDonald's and then started on the long trek back to Paul's.
So we drove a total of about thirteen hours for an hour of activity, risked massive disappointment or getting arrested, and as Paul S informed me, I'll probably never get laid again. Was it worth all that?
...F*#K YEAH IT WAS!!!!
I don't care what Renzogu says, I can't stand Rolf, so seeing him as nothing more than a skeleton was great.
Billy Bob costume.
Jeff and I posing with the Master of Rock-afire himself!
Proud replier of post #1000 in the infamous Joel thread 
