Going to Hell in a Black Trans-Am

Well it was really quite something. Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue….in a shot glass.

First off my buddy Ira came into town for the show from New York. Ira is a genius and a metric assload of a good time but he is diabolical in nature of this I can assure you. His preferred method of evil involves shots of alcohol in amounts that would make Charles Bukowski roll over in his grave so he doesn’t barf on his shirt. Ira got into town and we headed up to yon local rock club to meet Dennis from Chrysalis and ostensibly pick up the bass amp for Saturday night from him. Mostly we went up there to get intoxicated and at least on Ira’s part that mission was accomplished and accomplished well.

There were some bands playing, they all sucked. The less said about them the better, Ira started running around cajoling everybody he could find into drinking with him and coming out to the velvet Lounge the next night. He is a fantastic pitch-man as lo and behold a bunch of them did indeed show up on Saturday… He has a good streak of P.T Barnum in him mixed with some Charles Manson-esque wild-eyed mania which makes an effective huckster for a rock and roll band. We drank till the bitter end with Embittered yet Witty Mr. Hyland and Dennis and that was that for Friday.

Saturday started painfully enough and I attended to familial duties for the early part of the day. I went to procure Philito later in the afternoon to eliminate the possibility of him being anywhere near the ignition switch and attached gas pedal of a death device later on in the evening. I may be an asshole but I’m a good friend like that at least once every four or eight years. We returned to the mansion on the hill (my home) and off I went to shower and primp and preen like a peacock for the rock show while Philito and Ira drank a beer or three and chatted with the Mrs. Wesley arrived soon thereafter to transport the equipment and the philistines (Me and Philito) to the show.

There must have been something in the air (well….there was DEFINITELY something in the air) because the three yahoos (Ira, Wesley, Philito) made non-stop trips to my basement bathroom for like half an hour. One after the other….very strange. I checked today and there is no porn in there so either they all had a Borgian case of shared Gastro-madness or like to wank off to really old copies of Details in someone else’s house. The fact that the window was still cracked open (thanks for the heating bill you assholes) leads me to believe they were simply crapping….thank you Baby Jesus I accept your merciful benevolence.

Anyway…

We got to the Velvet without major incident and carried the very heavy shit up the very long and steep stairs and said “HI HOW ARE YA” to the gathering throng of band members and sound people and such. Trying to make the set-up of a rock show sound interesting is pretty impossible so I’ll skip it. We drank a beer or two and chit-chatted away. I chit-chatted with a jazz drummer named Tor who stopped in to see the club and that was cool until he tried to sell me on his real estate appraisal business. I felt my soul slipping away and left his presence as quickly as possible. Some dude that grew up with my older brother just randomly showed up and started talking about the neighborhood and stuff. That was weird. Folks were filtering in and I was getting pretty antsy but did not feel the puke reflex although I was stupid enough to eat Taco Bell for lunch so trouble was definitely brewing down below.

I had to head out to Wesley’s car to warm-up a bit. We had scored a great parking space right in front of the Velvet which is A-#-1 excellente’ unless you happen to be sitting in the front seat singing to yourself. I’m sure I looked like quite the imbecile bellowing away in there. I was browsing through the selections in the CD changer and lo and behold CD #1 was a RATT album. Are you kidding me? My guitarist is listening to RATT??!?!?!?!?! Of course it was my choice of warm-up tunage and after Laying it Down and You’re in Love(ing) I was primed and ready to rock out.

While I am a total and fanatical ego-maniac I’ll save the long-winded tales of the awesomeness of our rock Goddery to others. Suffice to say the room was packed, we rocked pretty damn hard and anybody who wants to talk shit about it can take two long pulls off of my wang. There were a couple hiccups and in fact we actually had to put the brakes on a song and start over. Fuck it. It was still balls out fantastic.

Immediately post-giggage I was sitting on the stage sweating like a Bedouin fat lady in a velour tracksuit and talking to all the nice folks coming up and saying nice things and just tremendously enjoying myself. That’s the great thing about the whole band experience…you put up with so much crap and nonsense and effort for that short bout of hyper-mania and when it hits just right you think you’re the luckiest bastard on the face of the planet. I was quite happy but atrociously sober so I packed up and headed to the bar to rectify that intolerable condition. Upon successful descent of the stairs I found the biggest collection of inveterate drunken maniacs all joy to the worlding together possibly imaginable. Ira was procuring shots by the armful and handing them out to Trey, Philito, Embittered Dave, Bobo, Adam, Kreinar, Lucky Kentucky Rob, Nutt, the Defender, Loud Greg and a cast of others…the alcohol consumption capability in that room was off the charts. If only that power could be harnessed for good. So sad.

So we started getting REALLY fucked up.

And continued doing so.

For a LONG time.

I believe I told almost everyone in the Velvet Lounge that I loved them except for the guy I told I would karate kick his nuts if he stepped on my foot again. On second thought I might actually have told him as well. It was just fantastically fun and loud and debaucheries abounded and when Chrysalis started to play I marveled at their excellence and felt my head start to spin in a marvelous fashion. After drunk-dialing the Mrs. and nearly lighting myself on fire I was singing a little song along with the jukebox before I realized I was even singing along. Much to my surprise and delight it was Mark Lanegan’s “Whiskey for the Holy Ghost” album, one of my all-time favorite records and one that I was reasonably sure I was one of the only owners of. So to top off this bizarrely great evening of things I had a hand in random fate provides me with the best soundtrack FOR ME to the revelry. It was perfect. A perfect party, the kind that comes along so rarely that you remembers them forever. Madness and yelling and some of my favorite people in the world just getting sick on the fun of it all.

Eventually they trundled me off to a chariot where I muttered incomprehensibly about the loveliness of everything. I got home at 3:30, fell up the stairs and walked around my bedroom in circles for a while, drunk and elated and thoroughly exhausted. I’m still tired, my neck hurts and my throat feels like I gargled razor-blades for breakfast. It’s fucking great; I wish I could share the majesty of my fatigue. You all should give it a try.

Oh yeah, I never did puke that night. Wonders never cease.