Please allow me to interrupt myself

Totally bizarre and wonderful evening last night and as it’s gonna be my grand hurrah of traipsing about for awhile I guess that’s appropriate. The better half trundled me out the door with a heartfelt wish of “don’t do anything too retarded” and a kiss good-bye and off I zipped out to the old stomping and living grounds in Arlington to meet up with bosom chum and drinking partner Jamie. After getting by a 3-lane closed six car accident and miraculously finding a sweet parking spot on the street I sashayed into one of my preferred spots on the face of the planet, the Galaxy Hut (if you’ve never been I would encourage you to go and get shitfacingly happy there but only if you’re not a horrid douche because if you are everyone there will hate you including me).

Anyhoo, I’m drinking away with Jamie and his new roommate Josh (cool Josh he is) and some lady that was sitting next to us who seemed to think Jamie was kinda stupid because of something conversationally related to either his understanding or lack of understanding of cartography….it was hard to follow as I was pretty well on the way to lit-land at that point.

A band started playing who were kinda cool in the indie-rock, “not being tight and having crappy amps is part of our appeal” kind of way. There was something charming about them and I will say their bass player was VERY good, He’s in another band called the Hurricane Lamps that I have heard of but never seen but will know make a concerted effort to do so based on his playing. I was a bass player for a long time and get really geeked by seeing bassists that just get it, talented but not overwhelming and fully of the understanding that solos are intended for guitarists and discreet activities like masturbation. I have no idea what that is supposed to mean but the word masturbation always makes me laugh….sue me. Then go masturbate.

So we’re drinking and listening and drinking and my uncle walks into the bar. You know in movies where the kid has the black sheep uncle that drinks and is a loser but has a heart of gold and imparts insight into the whole meaning of family at the end of the film and everyone hugs to the Simple Minds song playing in the background? Well this ain’t that uncle. He’s a good guy, a great guy actually, but not the going out to a bar in Arlington by himself on a Saturday night kind of guy. More of a “hit the sack early so I can get to filling up those pesky birdfeeders before the birds wake up” kind of guy. Needless to say I was a tad perplexed to see him in this setting and for a brief moment wondered if Josh or the cartographer had slipped me a roofie.

I grabbed me uncle and we headed outside where he told me that he was trying to find my cousin (his kid) and so on and so forth because they needed to talk about some crap right away. It was very surreal, talking to my uncle outside of a bar half-drunk on a Saturday night in a very pleasant conversational way just like we do at my mom’s house during holiday dinners. I walked around with him a bit and after failing to locate the cuz sent him home with the promise that I would keep my antennae up and make sure everybody was hale and hearty.

So back to the bar I went in a total state of brain flummox and tried to explain all of this to Jamie when the headlining band started up and totally took my mind off everything else. The band, the Alice Despard Group, is fronted by one Alice Despard (hence the clever band name) who happens to own the Galaxy Hut and is one of the coolest most gracious people you could ever hope to meet. I have one of her CD’s but had never seen her live before. She was awesome, truly a great performer, singer, writer, whatever…the whole thing. Everything that I love about the Galaxy Hut, the quirkiness, the coolness, the warmth was embodied in the songs she was playing. I wish that I could take the gaggle of shitty musicians from shitty bands that I constantly subject myself to and make them sit Romper Room circle style and watch this band. In a small space with no stage they rocked not by overwhelming volume or stupid gimmickry but simply by being a tight, talented and really just plain old great 3 piece rock and roll band. If nothing else happened last night seeing Alice and her band would have made it a total wonderful successful outing but by the grace of God and stars and garters and beavers and kittens there was even more to come!

Sidenote - I did run into the cuz and made sure all was well (which it is) but we didn’t talk long because Alice was playing and I can talk to his dumb-ass anytime I want since we’re family and he can’t ignore me or I won’t give him shit for Christmas.

After Alice’s band was done playing and my hands ached from clapping we paid the tab and wandered up the street to Iota where a band called the Twinemen were playing. The Twinemen have the sax player and drummer from Morphine along with a bass player and a woman that sings and plays guitar. I was never a big (or little) Morphine fan so wasn’t really going in with any expectation. I did note on entering Iota that they had really cool t-shirts and I made a note to get one if I liked the band…guess what. I’m wearing it right now!

Seeing two bands in one night in cool, small settings that completely and totally kick my ass in the loveliest of ways is pretty fucking rare but it happened last night. The Twinemen were GODDAMN FUCKING EXCELLENT AND GO BUY THEIR SHIT RIGHT THIS GODDAMN MINUTE!!!! Laid back but not boring, danceable (of course no one dances in this town unless you’re a shit-head cover band playing Blink-182 and other such deserving of painful fiery death nonsense), but not overly funky they had me hooked the second I started listening to them. The singer had an excellent voice and was playing one of the most beautiful Telecasters I have ever seen. Again like Alice (I think you knooooooowwwww), nothing flashy just talented performers playing great songs and connecting with the crowd in a way that only live music can. The whole band hung out after the set and I made sure to tell them how awesomely awesome I thought they were and we’re now totally best friends for life, at least until they get the restraining order.

Seeing as how I couldn’t drink anymore and make it home without getting pummeled at an “Operation StrikeForce” checkpoint I headed home. I love hanging out with Jamie and all but sitting in a bar drinking cranberry juice just isn’t my thing. I go to bars to drink. If I want to chit-chat over tea I’ll move to England and join Parliament. So I wandered the streets back to my sweet parking space with my Twinemen t-shirt and head full of good happy thoughts and pondered how sad it is that moronic Pro Tooled shitheads like Hoobastank and Evanesence are millionaires while the Twinemen and Alice Despard are playing in bars. Selfishly I love that I can see such amazing musicians in settings like that but really if there were a loving and merciful God Hoobastank would be filling my drive-thru order, Evansesence would be doing the Goth hour on Cable Access where they belong and Alice and the Twinemen would be telling George Bush to go fuck himself in the ass with an embryonic stem cell along with Springsteen and the Dixie Chicks for $1,000.00 a ticket on Monday night. I would be a lot taller and have killer abs as well. Thanks a lot mean God, you’re a real fucker.

So here’s to you all you excellent people out there that make me happy. I thank you for you wonderfulness.

The Travels with Russell Part 2 that I promised is coming. Please be patient and feel free to paint a picture or masturbate or something to take the edge off the waiting.

Masturbate.

Ha Ha.