Strange Format - Saturday Show
6/28/09
Ladies Night Last Night.
Ride home, exploding tire(not bridge),
have to walk with sore,
swollen,
on-my-toe,
spider bite.
I call Graham, "Is anyone there," I foolishly pause and resume, "that ca-"
"There are a few people.
Not many yet."
It's 8:50, and I say this:
"No. Is anyone there
that can me a ride?"
"No man."
"Who is there?"
"Kim(who breaks her elbow and gets hydrocodone), Ben(the bouncer and unnecessay regreter). Ladies Night is here!"
he says, barks the last line.
"Well my wheel just exploded on the Nickle Bridge like ten seconds ago."
"Shit"
"Yeah it was really loud. All the air just evacuated at once in a single note-- Boohch!
Are you there? Hello? Goddamnit"
My
Phone
Is
Dead.
I march
from the
bridge and
someone, and
I don't know who,
but someone, with a
huge fucking [SUV], they
slow down, and throw a full,
super-sized McDonald's cup
at me, and say, "FUCK YOU!"
This is Richmond, and I didn't
get hit. But my fortune was off.
Way off.
I hope for a rescue team that I don't believe will arrive. I get to the intersection of Boulevard and Cary, see a silhouette and squint.
"George?" I question to myself out loud. "George!"
I yell.
He rolls down the pedestrian acclivity on his Nishiki.
A car flies past him as he falters,
screams,
"FUCKIN' RED-
LIGHT!" punctuated with an index to the stop light.
Mr. Ramsey, it's good to see you.
Are you the rescue team?
Heh, the one man unit.
I walk across the street with him, his working bike and my malfunction, as a car begins to turn, stops, accelerates.
We halt to look past the reflective windshield but continue walking.
I tell George I am walking because
the electronic, 2D-white-man said it was okay.
We get to George's room on Floyd and he asks me "Do you want the road bike, or the girly bike?" The girly bike? I ask.
The Mongoose, he says.
I ask him if it is the one that survived Graham's usage at Slaughterama, the one with the awesome breaks. He confirms this and I stand in defense of this glorious piece of man-operated machinery, proclaming,
"That is not a girly bike. That is God's bike"
I keep up with George, who rides as fast as he can on his very light, well maintained roadbike because, clearly, God's bike can keep up with anything if it wants to. And it wants to. So we stop at the Subway a block away from my house, where the show could be going on as George watches the bikes.
As I order,
with the stomach rot(the kind accompanied by the taste of metal, priming for blood) from a poor, one meal in the morning / nibbling during work diet
(I fall asleep many nights with a hunger knot), I catch my breath.
The lanky slavic girl is mopping the floor. I look at her in a way, with a feeling I am unfamiliar with. I cannot place pity or regret in any of my storage. I remember my one attempt to talk to her. Swaying, chuckling, I ask her where she's from. I noticed the accent, I tell her.
"Uh-Russia," she says, leaving it at that.
But I won't leave it.
I am fed but disapointed,
many of my friends did
not
show up. (This is not to
say
that many people did
not
show. There were
many.)
I am disapointed.
No stomach
rot, but disapointed.
Disapointed
until Ladies
Night plays.
They do a sound check, and we reinforce pre-existing sound-proofing.
I hammer nails through soft pillows. My skin bleeds salt water,
I breathe heavily,
and decide that I need a shower.
Especially "if".
But "if" never happens.
Cole Sulivan, the lead singer from Ladies Night, does his accoustic bit. Most of the 35 to 50 people are outside on the sidewalk or stoop. Or street. Most of the 35 to 50 people inside are on the opposite side of the room. Loudly talking over the music! After a song, I look at Cole and ask him,
"Hey man, do you want me to tell these people to shut the fuck up?"
He sighs, shakes his head, and says,
"If they're not into it, I'm not going to force them to listen."
I understand him and nod,
Alright.
He eventuallys says,
Let us
just go
ahead and
move on.
The band sets up while I drink a beer outside with Ben, the doorman, who I will pay for being so. Some day.
I go inside and announce, my dirty beater shoes atop a recently cleaned coffee table, "Hey, whoa whoa, eey, alright!" Loud and tall, I silence the crowd, continue, "Ladies Night is going to play now, if you want to see them, go to the basement. If not, that SUCKS!"
I step down and a meager few laugh.
Ladies Night plays.
I am no longer disapointed with my
night/
week/
year career/
life.
I dance and sweat.
I sing along and drink someone else's beer. A contribution to me, the host. And thank [insert univeral source] for the guy who gives it to me. I cannot even remember his name, or the label on the bottle. The bottle under pressure-- my lighter turned bottle opener
"pops the cork."
The cap hits the band's friend.
In the head.
The majority of people dancing live
@ 1100:
Adrian,
Graham,
myself.
Tyler and Kim dance. Two girls dance in the corner.
Tyler takes video with his blackberry-style Nokia. I tell him to record the crowd singing with the band. He doesn't and later tells me, "Yeah, it's almost like they're playing by themselves."
They play with a crowd, however. Pales in comparison to the night I saw them for the first time, but it doesn't matter.
The band quits, despite cheers and "encores," whistling and claps.
Everyone is outside as the next band(Sweet Jesus and the Good God Almighties) sets up. Kim and Ben are talking.
Kim tilts, says something loud and indistinct through the sultry summer airspace. I turn to Cole, who is on the neighbor, Moreese's wider stoop.
"Hey man, sorry about earlier"
He says it's cool and that there is a show the next night at the Camel. I tell him I am working.
Oh well,
"What's your last name?" I ask, "I'm gonna add you on Facebook so I can keep up with you guys' shows."
Before he finishes "Sullivan," we briefly glance to Ben, who is now carrying Kim on his shoulders. Kim, drunk and stoned, loses
balance under a tree branch.
Leaning forward, she falls,
Smack! Into uneven brick.
She lays there for minutes as
Ben crouches. Others gather.
She lays flat,
quiet she lays.
