How Two Bros Turned $100 into Thousands at the 2018 Governor’s Ball

Life is all about decisions, decisions that shape you, create you, make you, or break you. It’s a compilation of choices, experiences, bone-crushing lows, and unbelievable highs.

So here’s my point; if your friend asks you to go to the Governor’s Ball at 8:12 PM the night before, where the headliner is none other than the Real Slim Shady, Eminem (the very man behind the music that’s helped me get through life’s most difficult moments), after two nights of sleep deprivation and pounding sunrise headaches – YOU SAY F*CK YES.

I’m a firm believer that if there is a door of opportunity open to you, always walk through and give the room a once-over…you’ll never know what you’ll find and it’s always worth the risk. Sure, the door of opportunity was behind a shady Craiglist ad asking for $100 for vendor passes, but in that room we found treasure. Shout out to my boy Kareem for pulling gold out of a wooden floor board because the experience I had at #GovBall2018 is something I will never forget.

How’d it all go down? I was at a Lakewood Blueclaws game, one that included my lil sis being commemorated on the field pre-game (congrats Grace), and got a text from my fellow New York Rangers Blue Crew asking to go to Governor’s Ball. It was late, the deal was shady, but I figured why not blindly Venmo him $100 in hopes that I’d get some sort of return? Normally, I’m very cautious but I had this gut feeling, and those of you who know me…I always go with it.

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Fast Forward: It’s Sunday morning (GovBall day), I’m in Astoria, chuggin chicken fingers at 5 am (best chicken fingers I’ve ever had) trying to figure out how to loosen a godless festival band to fit on my wrist with a combination of scissors, a nail, a knife, and my teeth.

Took an hour, hundreds of YouTube videos, but Success! Just like that, Kareem and I beat the gods (& impossible odds). Goodnight.

1:00PM: We wake up at 1pm, grab some Yoo-hoos & overly buttered bagels, and (after a nice talk with a stranger) begin our journey over a beautiful bridge, through a prison, and past shamelessly intoxicated festival-dwellers.

Once inside (after a few seconds of complete anxiety in hopes our passes lit green…which they did), we began our journey through the jungle of Randall’s Island.

Journey Through the Jungle:

4:00PM: We get ballsy deciding to test our vendor wristbands. Heading to the back entrance for employees, we are met with two security guards. In a moment of quick intellect, Kareem proceeded to ask security where catering was…and they let us through and directed us to a huge white tent behind the stage…BEHIND THE STAGE.

Backstage, we walked around a bit, making sure to look confident and act as though we run the show. After sizing up the place, we eventually decide to test the VIP lounge. Success! We get in, task two complete.

At the VIP lounge, we watch my boy Khalid perform, where he absolutely kills it!!!!

5:00PM: But hold up, hold up…Vic Mensa is performing elsewhere so we decided to move from our cozy couches. We go once again backstage to make our way to him. As we leave, Khalid begins to perform “Young, Dumb, & Broke”, I see MY FAVORITE COMEDIAN OF ALL-TIME, CHRIS ROCK. (Video aint’ posting, but here’s the link: IMG_7965)

5:30PM: Vic Mensa is slaying it on stage. I remember he performed at Rutgers a few years back (shout out to my 3D-artist Murt) and it was the best live performance I’ve ever seen….and he did it again – Shredding bars while crowd surfing a wave of hyped up #GovBallers! It’s over and we head to see Pharrell Williams.

6:00PM: Vic Mensa arrives next to us. Doned in all his performance gear, he shows up unannounced to watch Pharrell too. The crazy part was no one came up to him, so I figured why not?! What do I say? What do I do? I don’t want to be lame and ask for a selfie cause I wanted to treat him with respect, I wanted to be present in this special moment.

So, I figured I’d ask him a few questions he’s never heard from a fan…I straight up asked, “Hey Vic, I’m a huge fan of your music. I saw you perform at Rutgers a few years back and it was one of the greatest performances I’ve ever seen. I just wanted to ask, ‘What inspires you?’”

The man was floored, said he wasn’t expecting that with a surprised “woah” slipping his lip. He took a few seconds to gather his thoughts, and gave a beautiful answer: His inspiration comes from inspiring others.

Right there Kareem and I began to chill with him, asking about his life, trying to learn. I told him about my career, my blog. He said it was an awesome idea, and filmed a promo for me, hinting that maybe one day I’d have something big on my hands. Be it in music, tv, film, journalism…the man was real, the man was raw. I just want to say thank you Vic for all your kind words, I appreciate you.

6:30-8:30PM: Kareem and I head to a few other bands, but we were too mind blown by what had happened with Vic Mensa that I feel we skipped 2 hours of our lives due to utter shock. Now on to Eminem.

9:00PM: Eminem goes on stage, the entire crowd worried he’d play all the songs from his new album. “We want to hear the old shit.” Eminem absolutely delivered. Later, to add greatness to greatness, 50 Cent came up on stage at random. The night came to an amazingly ironic and memorable close during Eminem’s performance of “Not Afraid.” The rain held out the entire day, but as Marshall Matthers threw up the verse “We’ll walk this road together, through the storm, whatever weather, cold or warm” it began to pour following a huge uproar from the inspired crowd.

Wow, what a day.

So here’s my point; if your friend asks you to go to the Governor’s Ball at 8:12 PM the night before, where the headliner is none other than the Real Slim Shady, Eminem (the very man behind the music that’s helped me get through life’s most difficult moments), after two nights of sleep deprivation and pounding sunrise headaches – YOU SAY F*CK YES.

By the way be sure to follow our future SNL star Kareem, here: Big Sexy Kerm