odd future wolf gang kill them all

real quick back in the day type beat

a young earl sweatshirt in a supreme snap back and Microsoft clip art cloud printed short sleeve button down on my MacBook screen surrounded by the grinning members of odd future. it triggers a proustian memory of my youth.

i was sixteen years old in brandy melville high waisted shorts. the first time i saw tyler the creator. my friend chose to wear open toed sandals. poor shawty got her dogs trampled that night. cherry bomb tour. the crowd mostly men. i was drunk and rowdier than they were. a guy in the crowd offered tyler a joint and he declared that he loved it here. my first time in a mosh pit, a proper homoerotic mosh. i was feeling feral. images flash before my eyes soviet montage style. a guy i knew vaguely from school asking me if i wanted to crowd surf, hoisting me up, the vague feeling of flying and then of falling. alcohol in my system, all my shyness gone so im getting some guys number, his alcohol breath in my ear, sweaty arms around my waist. hell yeah, i am so fucking cool.

i was crossed and nineteen, . same venue, flower bomb tour. tyler makes pop music harbors homoerotic fantasies, everyone listens to him now. my friends and i rapping along to yamborghini high in the parking lot waiting for our uber. blood on my friends wife beater from where her nose started bleeding in the pit. too drunk to remember the fragments of rap songs taco played to get the crowd warmed up before tyler came out, . every song was the best song i had ever heard in my life. pregaming in a dirty frat house with this depressing cuban jewish drug addict from miami. smoking and drinking in his room while he freestyled over a backbeat in between dabs. we would get so ridiculously faded in that guys bedroom. he was a nice guy, but he needed serious help. my friends would sometimes to do their homework there, using his lifestyle as motivation to grind and using him for free drugs. i genuinely hope he is ok.

i’m twenty one and we are taking molly in the uber xl on the way to the igor tour. tyler’s doing a stadium tour. he can sell out MSG, but this arena is half empty. we use one vip wristband to sneak nine people into the floor section. blood orange is the opener and no one really cares. no moshing this time, everyone in a trance. the drugs are hitting, soul leaves body during earfquake. peaking, filled with love and light. hugging my friends and laughing. rolling literally rolling down a grassy hill outside the venue, we walk in lock step to the gas station chanting kanye west. big gulps full of ice water, the drugs make it taste like lemons, we buy alcohol for some under age boys or maybe we say no.

now tyler’s music sucks and frank is a weird recluse. earl was the chosen one anyway. the video proves it. even back then, earl was the GOAT. frank ocean feigning standoffish, tyler, the one with vision and gumption. i want to remember them like this. 2012 teenage boys. one random white guy. one stud. a tale as old as time. supreme was cool and having a good time with your friends was cool. bumping yonkers on my ipod, feeling cool as fuck for the first time in my life. my suburban teenage escapist fantasy.