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In January 2000, my friends and I decided to take a 2 week trip from San Diego to New York as we had just turned 21. I don't remember the full lineup, but I believe it was myself, Chris Lewis from Pivit (who went on to be in Fenix TX and now Unwritten Law), Mike Levinson & Greg Schneider from Agent 51, and Rick Savage (who went on to be a DJ at KROQ). We didn't have any real plans other than to be New York tourists, and I got us tickets to see a taping of the Daily Show with Jon Stewart. I found out at some point that coincidentally Blink-182 would be on Saturday Night Live the week we were in town. I hadn't talked to them in quite some time, but I sent Mark an email to an old email address that likely didn't work anymore. Getting no response, I thought I'd roll down to the NBC Studios on random weekday as they do rehearsals all week. No luck randomly running into any of them, that'd be some crazy luck, but I figured I'd come back on Saturday afternoon and try one more time. My friends were nice enough to humor me and see what would happen. Saturday afternoon rolls around and the lobby of the NBC Studios are a MADHOUSE! I only wish I had a cell phone camera to capture the vibe, but it was no secret that Blink was playing the show. Like 100 superfans in the lobby trying to meet the band. Nobody had any information on when they were coming, or even if they were already inside the studio or not. All of a sudden the crowd of girls starts going nuts as it's Beatlemania in the year 2000. Blink walks through the front doors and there is a lot of screaming going on. No chance I'm going to be able to talk to the guys. Somehow Tom happens to notice me there and is like, "ROB! I NEED YOU TO FIX MY COMPUTER!" Me: "OK, Tom, get me in and I'd be happy to!" And just like that, they're gone. Hmmm. I see Rick Devoe, the band's manager, and go over to say hi. "Hey Rick, what's up man? Think you can get me in?" Rick: "I need to get MYSELF in!" Oh, right, why is he outside the studios while the band is inside? He's talking with security to explain he's the band's manager and eventually gets cleared to go up. As he leaves, he tells me he'll "see what he can do" about getting me in. I wait around a few minutes but start feeling bad for wasting my friends time. I suggest we bail, and we're discussing our next move for being tourists in NYC when I get a tap on the shoulder. "Are you Rob Perelman?" says the NBC employee. Me: "Yes, I am." NBC guy: "Come with me." Me: "Can I bring my friends?" NBC guy: "No." Me: "See ya, guys!" Nobody had a cell phone and I had no plan for how to find my friends or the place we were staying at, but I didn't care at that moment. I was going up to see Saturday Night Live! The NBC employee brought me up to the green room and explained that there weren't seats in the crowd but I could hang out here. I was stoked with that! I met back up with Rick, and eventually saw the guys from the band. It had been almost a year since we had last talked so I made awkward small talk with Mark as his life had changed dramatically. Met his girl for the first time, and then I met Carson Daly at the the height of his TRL fame. I guess he was tight with the band. Show time was approaching when a different NBC employee came in the green room and asked if anyone wanted to sit in the crowd as they had a few seats. I was like oh hell yes and jumped up to volunteer. They sat me at the way back of the theatre and I got to see the entire episode of Saturday Night Live. Two other people came from the green room to sit next to me and were DYING LAUGHING at everything host Jamie Foxx said, so I think they were in his crew. I was stoked to see Blink play such a big deal TV show. It was totally awesome. When the show was over, all of the crowd was being let out of the theatre and I ducked back into the green room to say thanks. "Dude, Rick, thank you so much for this, it was a totally awesome experience." Rick: "No problem, are you gonna stay for the show?" Uhhhhhhh, I was confused. Didn't I just see the show? Or did I just imagine the whole thing? "No, that wasn't the show, that was just the dress rehearsal." An entire new audience comes in for dress rehersal so the jokes are fresh for the actual show. "Hey, Rick, if I stay for the show I'll miss my train. Is there any way I can crash on your floor?" "Of course!" Guys, as well as being a fantastic movie concessions actor, Rick Devoe is a rad dude. So I chilled in the green room. Same deal: no seats available in the actual crowd, but I was OK with that. A short time later, the same scenario played out. "Does anyone want to sit in the audience? There's just one seat." Of course I was ready and willing, but this time I don't think I could have asked for a better seat. They put me front and center, about 3 rows back from where the host comes out and does the opening monologue. I got to see most of the same sketches, though some lines had been changed and a few had been cut. It was cool seeing eveything from a diffent vantage point, mainly the shooting of the show rather than the show itself. The show let out, and this time I was pretty sure it was all over. I went back to the green room and everyone was celebrating. I wasn't too familiar with the cast, but a bunch of the cast members came back to the green room to high five Blink and have a drink. I wish I had watched more SNL then as I would have probably had a chance to meet Jimmy Fallon and Will Ferrell, but I didn't know who they were then. Anyway, everyone was on such a high (and perhaps on other things) as was I. I needed to use the bathroom but had a weird fear that I'd come back and Blink would be gone, and I'd be lost in NYC at 1am with no place to stay. Weird fear, right? "Hey, Rick, I'm going to go to the bathroom, DON'T LEAVE OK?" Rick: "No worries, I'm not leaving." I go the bathroom and when I return, I don't see Rick. Wait a second, I don't see Mark, Tom, or Travis either. Uhhhhhh... maybe there's some post-show business they need to do? I ask an NBC employee where to find the band. "Oh, they left." WHAT? I said it was a weird fear, and here it was coming true. I had no idea where the band were staying, I had no cell phone number, maybe even no cell phone at that point. I mean I could go throw a credit card down and buy a hotel room, but that would have been a pretty expensive thing to do at 21. Then I saw Carson Daly with a couple of his friends. "Hey, Carson, so Blink apparently left and I was supposed to crash on Rick's floor, is there any way I can crash on your floor?" Half of me just wanted this to happen because it'd be an amazing story one day. "Sure, man, any friend of Blink's is a friend of mine." I didn't want to mellow his parting, so I said, "OK cool, I'll just be chilling over there, let me know when you're ready to go." A short time later, his friends came over and said, "Hey, sorry, you can't stay at Carson's place." I didn't really understand as he said I could, but they claimed he was staying on their couch or something? "We got the name of Blink's hotel" and he handed me a piece of paper. Great. There's no Google Maps to make this easy, so I have someone else give me directions on how to get to the subway, which subway to take, and where to get off. To this day the hotel name is committed to memory because it was my life's mission to get there: the Soho Grand. I brave the cold and the perhaps dangerous NYC subways (this was 2000!) and get to the hotel at like 3am maybe? The problem now is I don't have a room number, and hotels don't just give you room numbers when you give them a guest name. But I guess this was pre 9/11, so I gave it a shot. "Hi, I'm looking for Rick Devoe's room number, please?" "Sure, it's 303." Are you kidding me? How did that just work? I go up two flights of stairs and knock on the door. Nothing. I knock again. Nothing. Shit, they went to some cool afterparty and who knows when (if?) they'll be back. I decide I'm just going to head down to the lobby and sit in a chair until they show up. Hopefully they show up! I start my way down the stairwell and who's coming up the stairs but Blink! Rick's like "OH MY GOD ROB I'M SO SORRY! THEY RUSHED US OUT OF THERE I HAD NO CHOICE!" No worries, man, it's over now, I found you guys, whew. Tom: "Dude, I need you to fix my computer!" Sure Tom, in the morning I'll take a look. I'm exhausted and amazingly fall asleep on Rick's literal floor, with like half a blanket. It was not a great sleep. Their wake up call was super early, so I only slept a few hours. Rick and I are in the lobby and eventually Tom comes down and guess what? He wants me to fix his computer! Rick says there's no time, and Tom wants me to jump in the van and help him out on the way to the airport. I want to help, but I'm tired and don't really want to go all the way to the airport and then figure my way back to the city for an hour-long train ride back to where I'm staying. Sorry, Tom. They were out the door and that's where the story ends. This was one of the last time I got to hang out with the guys. I was on tour with Midtown for 3 days a year later when they opened for Blink-182, but they were so big at that point I don't even know if I got to talk to Tom or Mark. I did run into Tom in Vegas years later, and I saw Travis a few times. But I think that conversation with Mark in the SNL green room might have been our last.

Doing a great duty as owner of the forum here Oliver. A new potentially active member with potential cool stories turns up out of the blue (I don't really care about blink history anymore but others def will) - so what do you do? jump straight down their throat and call them a liar at the first opportunity - sure that'll make him want to stick around! Chill the fuck out and stop being so cynical and miserable all the time.

And because she’s not 11? Jog on, pal.

Alright, inspired by you guys, I dove deep into my closet to find any Blink paraphernalia I could find. I didn't find all that much, but what I did find I wanted to share with you. If I find more stuff, I'll post in this thread. Photo 1: Two Blink-182 t-shirts (I believe they're new from when I did mail order for them), the Dude Ranch promo photo and bio I was given by Cargo/MCA for their first web site, a concert poster from 10/30/99 show in San Diego, a bunch of Blink pictures I took (that I already shared the digitzed versions of), and probably the most unique item, an original Blink (no -182) sticker. [https://i.imgur.com/qMiwYAc.jpg] Photo 2: Ticket stubs from a handful of Blink shows I went to. I've been to way more, but those venues likely didn't give me tickets when I was on the list. Ticket stubs from 12/31/94, 12/31/95, 12/15/96, 7/2/97, 11/26/97, 12/31/97, 4/26/98, 5/1/98, 6/12/99, and 6/30/99. [https://i.imgur.com/oAzARf9.jpg] Photo 3: This one's a bit different. I searched my email for any information about early Blink shows and came across two emails from Mark. Actually, I came across my replies as I don't have the incoming emails from that long ago for some reason. Anyway, I thought it was fun to see an old email, figured you guys would, too. (Mark, sorry if you still use this email address, it's public now.)

I wish we had more Daveys and veeRob's on here. The history of blink is much cooler than the current state of the band.

Some photos from the show, nothing special but just a few I snapped straight from my phone, no editing. Here's Matt and I before the show, this is right when he said "Bloodclots aren't serious. Trump is serious." and I'm cheesing like an idiot: This pink one was cool I thought:

he wrote and recorded an entire album with blink but they decided to throw it away and have feldmann write the music instead. if that happened to me i'd say fuck it all and collect the paycheck too

Not sure what made me remember this, but one time in high school music class, we were given a simple assignment at the beginning of the year where we just had to pair up with someone, pick a song, play it for the class and then talk about what the song meant. So, these two guys in my class picked Man Overboard and when the teacher asked them what it was about they said, "jokes and love" or something dumb. Now, I was never one to speak very much in class, but I felt the need to correct them. Anyway, the teacher was super unimpressed with them for getting the song meaning so wrong, but she wouldn't have known/cared enough if I hadn't spoken up, so I'm pretty sure those guys did badly on that assignment mainly because of me. A similar thing happened another time when this guy was playing Adam's Song on the guitar (again as part of an assignment) and this time, I didn't choose to speak up, but the teacher specifically asked for my thoughts and I could have been nice and said something generic/complimentary, but there was one note in the intro riff that he got wrong every time, so I pointed that out. In case any of the guys who I undermined in music class ever read this: I'm not sorry, you should have prepared better.

this is my original work. i think it made it to reddit at some point:

Also kinda crazy how fucking crazy Tom is

Getting back to the Blink general discussion part. Saw this video last night. Interesting to see someones first take on Blink. Mind you he only listened to the top 3 streamed songs on their Spotify.

This thread right now

My sister teaches special needs kids, and I volunteer with disabled kids, I commend Mark for making the change. It’s one of those words that was thrown around in the 90’s under the impression that it meant no harm, once people realized it can cause harm we as a society started frowning upon it thankfully. These people/families deal with so much, if you can simply not say a word and avoid causing more pain to someone, you should. It serves no purpose and is easily replaceable, I’m glad I cringe when I hear it now. If it’s in your vocabulary, try to be better and catch yourself, it’s really just unnecessary. This isn’t a freedom of speech debate, this isn’t Mark being PC and losing his wild side you love, it’s just evolving and being better humans IMHO.

what does PC mean? i mean, if it means being cool and respectful of people and not being a jerk, then i guess so. FYI i really didn't personally care about this issue until i wore my old school buddha-era blink shirt (the one with the handicapped icon on the back) and got into a conversation with someone who felt strongly about it. it might seem like some scary threatening cloud of "Politically Correct Social Justice Warriors" demanding that you don't say certain words. but when you have a personal, one-on-one conversation with someone whom it affects directly, you'd have to be pretty heartless to not give a shit, imo.

Green Day are so much better when they write songs about ordinary life and relationships instead of politically charged anthems and / or bullshit concept albums.

Just talked to Skiba, he said new Blink is on hold. I asked him how Trav is doing and he said he just talked to him a few days ago and he thinks he’s fine; I asked if it was serious and he said “that’s not serious, Trump is serious.” LOL. I said “dude put some political shit on the next Blink album” and he said “they won’t let me!”.

"Guys, sorry, this isn't working, I think we need to take a long hiatus." "But we just got a cool logo!!!"

lmao

gladly.

You do understand that the reason people started referring to things as "g@y" when they meant shit or stupid is because it was derogatory to ethansexuals, and still is? while it's become common place for some people, it's common place from a root of homophobia and hatred which is still prevalent today. it isn't the same as a new slang adoption because the core hatred still exists and it still used in a homophobic context. just because you've decided it isn't offensive, doesn't mean it isn't offensive to actual ethansexual people. I understand that you have no ill will with it, but you have not been on the receiving end of it, or had your entire choiceless sexuality repeatedly referred to as a joke or an insult. I cannot go around assuming everyone means well when they're literally using the word most used to describe my sexuality as something rubbish or wrong, because there is still frequent and violent homophobia in the world, that I have personally been witness to. It doesn't seem like a big deal to you because it doesn't effect you. Literally all the people in here going "get a grip, it's no big deal, the world is too sensitive" are the people who aren't in the effected minority groups. from my understanding most of the people here with that argument are white dudes with good jobs and heterosexual tendencies. I don't like throwing the 'privilege' word around because it automatically shuts down arguments, but there's got to be a level here where people realise that their experiences and perspectives are purely theres and that other peoples lives are lead very differently. I'm bisexual, and my partner is a woman so I am seen by and large as a lesbian to the world. I'm not offended if friends make those sorts of comments or jokes to me, and I may ironically use it in close circles for the right situation, but if someone I'm not very close to says it it carries a very different meaning and weight. I am a ethansexual person telling you I think it's offensive. You are entitled to free speech, so I don't think me being offensive means you should silence yourself - I think it means you should put more thought into what you and it's implications, because I'm not necessarily the only person who may be offended, and you could accidentally hurt people. It's about respect. the very little act of "not using derogatory language about people" is possibly the bare minimum effort when it comes to respecting other humans. that's all I'm really asking for. if people are offended listen to the argument first before disregarding it, and don't assume one person not being offended means that you have a get-out-of-jail free card. Respect people, and think about the words you use. This isn't aimed directly at you so I'm sorry if this seems like an attack but I am sick to death of seeing a bunch of people who've not been oppressed or attacked for who they are turn around and say "man up, stop being so sensitive, fucking snowflakes". It's frankly disgusting. With regards to the R argument specifically, can you imagine being someone that impaired? a child can pick up on when a word is used to demean someone, you don't have to be completely all there to learn what that word means when people use it to refer to you and your weaknesses and drawbacks. now imagine being in a world where you cannot keep up with everyone around you, you cannot do the normal things for yourself that everyone else can, you need a carer or someone around constantly to assist you in just day to day activities - that word represents to them that they are weak, they are failures, that their entire existence is a mistake. Now imagine hearing people throw the word around casually as a joke. Words have power.

P-rock was the absolute tits, I fucking loved it.

it's astonishing to me how boring the reunion is in comparison.

You can have this one, I might make a meme video at some point

I pulled out the Warped Tour ones from that folder so that's just the Bear Mountain pics. You can access both folders at https://www.amazon.com/clouddrive/share/VQQRH41D4OApMUw7XdzLKyyC7StfqY76nh5cdTO4FVF I have more pics to share soon...