Saturday January 24, 2009

Had the day off today, so no alarm to wake me up from my slumber. I wake up around 10:30 AM with a decently sized hangover, which was weird because I really didn’t drink a whole lot last night. I think part of it may have been my sinuses fucking with me (just another brilliant gene passed on from my father). I get up and get a bottle of water from the fridge across from my bed. I pop a few Advil and chug almost the entire bottle of water. I throw on my slippers and it’s off to the kitchen for my daily fix (coffee).

Tool, Russell, and Shimon are already up and smoking at the table along with these two broads that my brother works with at B-Dubs. I wasn’t in the mood to talk with anyone, let alone those two airhead chicks that I have a strong hate for, so I just walk right past them and into the kitchen. I hear someone (I think it was Shimon) yell, “good morning, sunshine,” to me. I throw my hand out the doorway with my middle finger extended. My friends and I are very loving. I grab a cup of coffee and didn’t want to feel like a complete ass-bag, so I walk out to the table to say hey to everyone.

They are all sitting around smoking a blunt, so I sit down at the table to make some conversation. Tool and the two chicks are bitching about work while Shimon and Russell just kind of float around in their own little baked worlds. The blunt comes around to me and I indulge (I hardly EVER smoke, but it was my day off and I didn’t have anything to do all day). Of course, it’s been like a few months since the last time I smoked so, needless to say, I get pretty fucking silly pretty fucking quickly. I go from being the pissed off prick who woke up on the wrong side of the bed, to fuckin’ philosophical genius. I start throwing in my over-elaborate two cents into every conversation, even if it’s about something that doesn’t need to be analyzed. It was pretty fun, to say the least.

The two chicks leave and Tool and Shimon head out to pick up slurpies from 7-eleven. I didn’t find out about their slurpie run until after they left, so I was kind of let down because I was hungrier than a motherfucker and a slurpie sounded so fuckin’ dope (as did anything at that point). I go rock a smoke with Russell and we discuss political issues. I all of a sudden turn into the fuckin’ newscaster for CNN as I dive deep into the political conversation. And that’s when I realized I was stoned, because on a normal day, I couldn’t care less about politics and I do everything in my power to stay out of political conversations. I start chuckling to myself over my own stupidity, which sparks a laugh in Russell, and we both stand outside laughing like a couple of giddy school children, only we don’t really know what we’re laughing at.

Back inside, I toast up about four Eggo waffles and go to town. The shit is gone within a minute-thirty. I vegetate in front of the T.V. with Russell for awhile until Tool and Shimon get back with the slurpies. It is around that time that I’m starting to come down from my good time rollin’ and become very tired. I stroll into my room and crash for a good two hours. Just another productive day, which is pretty much the reason I don’t smoke very often anymore.

I come to just around 5:00 PM. I get a call from Ryan at Caribou confirming that my band will be there at 6:30 tonight. Obviously not confiding in him that I had just woken up as a direct cause of being blitzed out of my mind, I assure him we will be there by 6:30. I hang up, realize that I am hungrier than hell, and I cruise over to the burrito joint right up the street from my house (its authentic Mexican food, hence why I didn’t give a name of the restaurant, I can’t even properly pronounce it). I order up a steak burrito and gun it home.

Back at the house, I inhale my giant burrito, fall over onto my bed (I went into temporary paralysis after the giant burrito), regained feeling in my legs, threw on some clothes, and it was off to Caribou for the show.

On my way, I get a call from Dave (the singer/songwriter of the band) telling me that he left his bag of cords in my car from the last show. It wasn’t until after I told him I had them and hung up the phone that I realized I used my brother’s car for the last show, meaning anything that was left in “my” car, was actually left in his. And just my fucking luck, he was working at B-Dubs, which is completely out of the way. On top of all that shit, my Zune’s battery was dead and I only had one fucking CD left in my car which just so happened to be a mix that me and Tyler put together as a joke, so it was filled with a lot of terrible 80’s songs and stuff that just made us laugh. Not the ideal music I wanted as an incentive to speed to a destination and to pump myself up before a show. I rock it anyway because I can’t stand the fucking radio anymore and I don’t want to listen to the sound of the wind blowing.

I finally make it to B-Dubs, and after a good ten fucking minutes just trying to locate his car, I come across it and grab the bag. Now it’s off to Caribou for real this time. Of course, traffic sucks, because why would anything be easy on me? It’s times like these I wish I had enough money to invest in one of those police scanners for my car because I’m easily going like 30 over the speed limit, just kind of hoping I don’t drive past a cop.

I finally get there and meet up with Dave and Tim (our bass player). We set up shop in the big lounge area and, once completed, we wait for our supposed “big crowd” to show up (Ryan assured us that he had a lot of people who were going to show up). Hart and V show up, some of Dave’s friends are there, and then a few people who were there earlier who just didn’t feel like leaving. So much for Ryan’s brilliant marketing techniques. Bastard.

We start playing around 7:30 or so and the opening song goes surprisingly well (we haven’t practiced in months). The only problem was that Dave had his guitar turned way too low, so I couldn’t hear shit. I just had to simply play the beat off of memory and hope that it was fitting the rhythm of the song. Apparently it did. Go me.

It gets to be around 8:20 and we only have two songs left for a set that was supposed to go till 9:00. Dave volunteers to play a few solo songs to help fill the time slot (which was originally supposed to be shared with Chris and Dave T’s band). Me and Tim rock a smoke outside while Dave basks in his solo glory.

We get back in and Dave is just about wrapping up is solo cover of Pearl Jam’s “Black.” Tim and I assume our usual positions (not like that, you fucking perverts) and we play our last two songs. We close on a cover of Neil Young’s “Cortez the Killer” which just so happens to be the first time I see anyone in the crowd kind of turn their heads at us in pleasant surprise. Not to say our other songs are bad, I actually quite enjoy them, as did the crowd. But they were particularly surprised to hear us playing Neil Young covers, especially some of the older folk who think that we’re a bunch of “young punks” who shouldn’t know who Neil Young is because it was “before our time.” I made sure to flash an extra ass-hole smile to those sons of bitches.

After we were all finished up, we packed up our shit, shot the shit with a few of the surprised audience members, took some publicity photos for Caribou Coffee to hang up and put on flyers, and it was out the door. One more show played, one more conquered. And one more that there were less than 15 people watching.

I get home around 10:00 and Stin and Mary come over. They missed the show because of work. I curse the both of them, but then forgive them over a beer. Of course, the one beer turns into a whole case when we decide to play a game to keep Stin awake. Around 1:00 AM or so, I’m feeling hammered as shit. I can’t really go into vivid details about how the rest of the night panned out because it’s somewhat blurry. From what I can remember, Stin passed out on the couch and Mary and I decided to take a bold journey to McDonalds for some dollar menu action. We go to the one right down the street from my house, only to find out that they are only accepting cash. Neither of us have cash, so we have to ditch that idea. Fuckers.

So we bomb out of the parking lot and decide that we didn’t come out here at 2:00 AM for nothing. We head over to the next McDonalds and luckily, their shit works and we can order our food. They took the double cheeseburger off of the dollar menu and replaced it with their signature “McDouble,” so I was forced to order that. The difference you ask? One slice of cheese. The infamous “double cheeseburger” is two patties with two slices of cheese. The new and cost effective “McDouble” is two patties and one slice of cheese. I don’t ask questions at this point because I’m piss drunk and hungry as shit. I devour my burger in the car on the way home.

We get back to my house and Stin is still passed out. We shove a McChicken right in his face and he all of a sudden turns into Grandpa Joe from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory when he can finally get out of bed, except without the singing. Stin and Mary indulge in their gourmet fast food as I collapse on the couch. They bomb out of there around 3:00 AM or so, and I walk to my room and pass out. I don’t even remember what I watched as I fell asleep.