I play cards every Wednesday night with a bunch of degenerates I call my friends. We used to be in a softball league together, but now I suspect we tolerate the softball in order to pursue our favorite pastime: poker. Our evening ended last week the same way that it always did, except for one crucial fact: the carpool driver was lonely. Instead of driving back across the bay bridge and dropping every off like every other week, Rob decided he was going to some show called Guitar-O-Rama or something in the city. Everyone else had been doing drugs earlier in the evening, so they readily agreed. I of course was thinking how difficult my day with Malcolm would be if I stayed out late and drank. The plan was to go to the club, and I would walk to BART and get home my own way. That plan evaporated when the “club” they were looking for was closed, and they suddenly remembered the Guitarapalooza was at a different club. By the time we got to the second club, it was too late to catch BART, so I was effectively taken hostage by some stoned losers I used to think were my friends. I hoped that there would be a huge cover charge at the club, and my friends being unemployed, unemployable and just cheap would decide that this was not such a good idea after all.
Sadly, there was no cover. Not only did this mean that we would have to go in, but also that I would be stuck watching a band that could not charge people to attend. Sweet. I walked in and was immediately slapped in the face by the smell of really, really bad body odor. It was like a moose farted on some old cheese and wiped it on an old sponge. I guess the kind of person who is going to free concerts on Wednesday evening at 11:30 p.m. is not the kind of person who showers before they go.
I got the lay of the land from my friends who told me that the “band” was actually a mix of the best guitarists from bay area bands, mixed in with two women of color to provide the drums and bass. At least, I thought they were women of color. Sometimes in the bay area its hard to tell (especially with bad lighting). The resulting sound was something in between Emmett Otter’s Jug Band Christmas and Lynyrd Skynyrd. You know you are sad when your frame of reference for a rock concert is a kids Christmas show. I relish my parenthood, so when my friend told me that one of the guitarists played in ALO (it was loud, I think he said it stood for Angry Lithuanian Oxfuckers), who used to open for Jack Johnson, I was proud to reply, “Jack Johnson sang the soundtrack to Curious George!” Well, it was very, very loud, so i actually said, “JACK JOHNSON SANG THE SOUNTRACK TO CURIOUS GEORGE!!!” So proud, I was, of my musical appreciation, that I actually tried that line on every skanky looking girl in the joint, and not a single one of them replied. Looks like I got some boning up to do on the art of wooing young females.
After a while, I remembered that I had been to a grand total of three concerts in my life, so I should take the opportunity to enjoy myself a little. Granted, the quality of music put out by the furry white guys on stage who were all a little too fat, a little too old, and a little too uncomfortable looking on stage was somewhat below Metallica/Guns and Roses and Alannis Morissette, but hey, I can relate to being a fat sweaty mess. I nodded my head up and down like the other people who had no clue how to keep a beat, and briefly considered moving my feet, until I realized moving my feet constitutes “dancing” and I sure as shit wasn’t gonna get caught doing that. I opted instead to tap my toe every once in a while and sway casually to the twine of the guitars, while trying my best to avoid making eye contact with any of the kids there. I would have been more social had I not been wearing shorts, a polo shirt and athletic tennis shoes, which totally clashed with the jeans, clever tee shirts, and skate shoes everyone else was wearing. Also, I did not stink to high heaven. What’s wrong with these people? I was young once, and do not remember making a point to smell like a ape when going out on the town. I guess things have changed.
The band finally wrapped up after a 20 minute long final song that was the musical equivalent of an alzheimers patient rambling on about head of lettuce that was nice to them once. I was struck though about how into it my friends were. I know part of it was the drugs talking, but they were really into dropping the names of the guitarists and chronicling of their history with various bands they played with. I could care less, but I think they were actually tried to impress me with the fact that one of my friends went camping with the members of Tea Leaf Green. Some of them actually danced (gasp!) and even went so far as to hold one arm in the air as if they were receiving the holy spirit. I guess living with the burden of looking like Brad Pitt has numbed me to allure of fame, to the point that brushes with fame are not all that exciting.
I thought that the music was just OK, barely worth enduring the smell, but the other members of the car pool seemed to think that we had just witnessed an “epic” show. I have argued with them, but i didn’t want to seem lame and was too busy fending off the allegation from the back seat that i was from “San Mateo.” We finally went home and I was glad that the group’s plan to go do more drugs until 4 in the morning meant that I got dropped off first. I drifted off to sleep, actually glad I had braved it out and played with the (smelly) cool kids for the night.
Tags: paul in public
Loading ...
Go see a Snoop Show and then you'd be 'wit it!