single friday, triple flashback!

“i’m thoroughly enjoying myself; but don’t worry, you’re not alone…there’s not a SINGLE guy who’s here, and HAPPY he’s here.”

so sayeth my “sister” kathi about mid-way through the song that launched the career of the woman on the stage. the song is, “you oughta know” and the woman is alanis morissette. true ’nuff call; except for the one guy we saw after the last trip down off the vip balcony before we left (and this guy was the reason we went RIGHT back up to the balcony) he was FRIGHTENINGLY into it. almost more than the women folk were. certainly a LOT more than me. but i promised kathi the show, she got the show, and was a happy woman. this is what it took to rupture HER funk bubble of late, and helping out your “sister” in those type of situations is a good thing.

i almost didn’t start off with the kathi quote; my ORIGINAL intro was supposed to be:

“women in tears everywhere, and every guy has the same look in his eye; the look of “help me”. i MUST be at an alanis morissette show”….

the backyard has always kept an odd schedule for a concert venue….typically, if a show starts at 8:00, the doors will open at 7:00. but since the ‘yard is WAY out west of austin, they open the doors at 6:30 to help the inevitable slam they’d get if they only allowed an hour, so those who do beat the wash of traffic can get in and get situated. NOW, they start letting people into the “corrals” (the area that’s in the venue, but NOT in the venue) even earlier; so that way you start drinking and snacking before you’re actually inside. your ticket’s torn, so you can’t leave; but you can’t even SEE the stage yet, and they’ve already gotten some more of your money.

add to that now, as the ‘yard celebrates it’s 10th anniversary, that they’ve decided to do so as the hall of the women. alanis morissette, jewel, natalie merchant, melissa ethridge, and bonnie raitt are already scheduled; and rumors of indigo girls and more are on the way. all a bunch of shows where the women WILL go, and WILL drag along their man, who won’t wanna be there, so they’ll drink plenty to cushion the experience, and then the girl will hear that “one” song by the artist, think about things a bit too much, and decide that she, too, needs a drink or three.

more money, more money, more money…BRILLIANT!!!

after the show, some alcohol absorption was needed (it’s the bright guy who cushions his femm shows with HAPPY HOUR priced booze, ya know – man, those windy roads in the middle of nowhere out to the ‘yard are DAMN fun at about 70mph hour when you’re buzzing) so off to katz’s we went; which was when i made an uncool discovery…i hadn’t run the ticket stock to waterloo i meant to because the show ran later than i’d planned and waterloo was now closed anyway.

shit.

so now, when i crawl out of bed saturday morning, i have to remember to call waterloo and make sure they’re cool on supplies, since saturday IS on-sale day and all in ticket land. but they weren’t, and nobody could go from the office, so i had to do it.

63 miles round trip. two-and-a-half hours out of my saturday. and all ’cause i screwed up; i basically worked about FOUR minutes of that two-and-whatever hours. damn, that sucks.

05/19/2002: “the weekend, part ii”

okay, so i FINALLY had a decent girl show experience last night; don’t get me wrong, the others haven’t been BAD, per say; just not as good as last night; first off, unlike no doubt, the crowd did not make me feel prematurely geriatric; which is always a good thing with the ol’ 3-1 approaching in exactly one month (that’s right, kids – only 30 more shopping days till my birthday).

and unlike alanis morissette, not every other woman in the room was looking at me with a combo meal of emotions stemming from rage (because i had a dick and therefore had an unspoken, unknown sort of male bond with the man who did “that” to them, whatever “that” may have been) and sadness (same dick-possession…bond…”that” scenario).

last night was just a damn good show, with great lights, brown-noise quality bass, and a lot of VERY hot women, most of which seemed to end up in the rather cozy vip balcony where i retired after i got done working, so life was all good; or at least had a VERY good view. now i’m ready for the other summer grrrrl shows i’m working this summer – natalie, jewel, melissa, et al. at least the nat show will kinda balance with chris isaak co-headlining and at the end, we get to blow shit up (it’s on fourth of july…don’t send the atf to my house for that one….that’s the one day saying such a thing is legal)

the only problem with music hall shows for me is i never think to make after show plans; i always chalk up the night as some sort of social loss because i’m WORKING; never mind the fact that i’ll be done around 10:00 or so and therefore have a good bit of night ahead of me; THAT part never crosses my mind. so now, i end up with nothing to do; but hey, at least it was 11:30 or so, so i can head home, just grab a six pack of skyy on the way, and not feel like a total loser.

speaking of skyy (for which i got CARDED, btw…TOO funny; always seems to happen when i’ve just shaved my head and the goatee is DAMN close cropped) does anyone know the alcohol content on this stuff?

i thought it was some kind of federal law that alcohol content had to be printed on the bottle or something; but when i first tried this stuff at a graduation party last week, i didn’t see it on the bottle; and since i’d bought a bucket of five, and therefore had no six-pack carton, i figured it would be on the six-pack packaging.

but it’s NOT.

so, i sit, i drink, and i notice that a six can make me sleep a LONG time (went to bed around 2:00 and didn’t BUDGE till half past noon…how on EARTH am i gonna sleep tonight? do the math…start drinking more of it around what? 6:45 or so?) but all the lemon-flavored malt stuff does that to me; and this stuff has VODKA in it to boot; smirnoff ice doesn’t. the only thing vodka like in that is the name.

okay, so “painting day” didn’t quite live up to it’s name. YES, painting got done. it did. really. but let’s look at how, or more accurately WHEN painting day ended. let’s put it this way; it’s 2:30 am (on monday; only five and a half hours before i have to leave for work, and i haven’t slept yet) , and i JUST emptied the ashtray with the butts of benita’s visit earlier, which ended at 7:00 (right after the season finale for the simpsons, which we were both a bit disappointed with) and right before my somewhat ill-fated trip to the alamo city.

flash back a half hour, to straight up 2:00 am, and i was washing my car at the astro-brite car wash in san marcos. what level of automotive vanity would prompt someone to wash their car about five hours before they’re supposed to be rolling out of bed, you might ask? the same level of automotive vanity achieved by those who don’t want to start their work week rolling into the company parking garage with what can best be described as a “tequila tag” splattered across the passenger side of their vehicle (not to be confused with the “dude, i SWEAR it says ‘latin kings’ up there” scalp tag that had been privately discussed earlier in the evening, but i digress…)

yes, it seems that while kimberly, the porn star in training, can swallow loads of fluid that most women can’t handle, the one load she CAN’T hang with is round numero tres of frozen top-shelf margaritas at chacho’s. which is a damn shame.

see, i WAS gonna do a nice, normal little bit about the varying levels of brown that were ending up in my house as i was painting, and how i was one of the few straight guys who could tell the difference between beige, tan, and khaki; or as their known in the paint world, “sesame”, wheat”, and “adobe”. but NO, kimberly and i had to go to chacho’s on a sunday night, you know what happens at chacho’s on a sunday night? some lame-ass local sa band? oh no…much, much worse. lets just say that they need a sign i feel a few austin places need, too; one that reads:

“WARNING: It’s KARAOKE NIGHT. Plan your drinking accordingly”