I had a boy's night out on Thursday. I don't get many of these. In fact, I even slept at my man C-dogg's (I never call him that) house and it was the first time I've slept separately from my wife in over seven years. Weird. It's taken us a little while to realize that, now we have two cars, we don't both have to be in the same place at the same time. So while Donna went off to celebrate lady-time with a hot girl-on-girl pillowfight (or maybe they were doing craft projects and watching one of those celebrity chef shows), and C-dogg's wife was off canoeing in the Adirondacks or making White Mountain chairs or something, C-dogg and me got it on with a total sausage party.
We ate at Redbones and sat at the counter by the kitchen, where you can watch the cooks stack rack after rack of ribs up in a macabre pile of deliciousness. I had a friend once (and still do, I hope) who couldn't stand to eat any meat that resembled the animal it came from. A chicken breast was fine, or a steak. Ribs or chicken wings were marginal. But those supermarket rotisseries with the thirty rotating chicken carcasses would send her over the edge. She wouldn't like Redbones, but I do. I couldn't decide on which animal to consume so I got the BBQ hash where they just chop up a bunch of them and lay them on top of some beans and collard greens. (I was reminded of Monty Python's Meaning of Life, where the fat guy orders everything on the menu and has them throw it into a blender.) The cooks surprised me by handing our meals to us directly across the counter, about 30 seconds after we ordered. Delicious, and straddling that line between spicy and painful that rewards just as it punishes.
We rode the subway, which I do rarely enough to absolutely love it. I am starved for faces, in this mostly-rural life I lead, and most of the faces I do see are mediated by cathode ray tubes or glossy magazine pages. But there are faces on the subway that would never make it onto TV. These faces are rich with hope, pain, dirt, and wrinkles - details that would also never make it onto TV. They are faces full of stories which cannot be summarized in half an hour or 500 words. It's a little overwhelming. It would take me a year to work through what all these people have done and what they hope to do, and we're only on the train for four stops.
We went to the Middle East club to hear Bishop Allen play, which was the whole point. We like this band. They're unique in that they sing about more than love ("I love love") or Rage ("Stick it to the Man"). They have a song about a battleship, for example, and one about an iron-works, and one about restoring a discarded piano. They tell stories, like Nick Drake or Harry Chapin. I dunno. I don't know much about popular music. But these guys are local, clever, fun. I felt like seeing what they looked like, watching how they do what they do, showing some support for the new guys. And it all would have been great if they hadn't turned the volume up to painful levels. I mean, I might be getting to old for clubbing, but come on, 85% (and that is an exact measurement) of the music was lost to distortion, to the point that the heating ducts gave off a dry rattle like massive locusts' wings and threatened to drown out the music. I guess there is some pleasure to be had in the chest-cavity rattling, bowel-loostening vibration of it all, but this sort of music wasn't really meant to be cranked. IMHO, listening on the CDs is more pleasurable.
Bishop Allen was followed by B.L.O.W.W., which as 30something aging bohemians we had some reservations about. "I just hope that nobody gets hurt," C-dogg tells me, and that's when I realize that the name C-dogg is never going to stick. Anyway though I couldn't help but get a little excited about watching women wrestle, and watching women pretend to wrestle actually was kind of fun. It was like a cross between those old WWF shows that my stepdad used to get drunk to (are they still on?) and a high school play, plus a lot of cussing. I'd have to say Malicious Mile Heidi was my favorite, although that you had to hand it to Tammy Tagalong for grit and determination. I mean, she showed up to wrestle and she wasn't even invited! Cute. Cute stuff.
We skipped out on the last band and passed midnight somewhere on the subway. C-dogg has a thesis to get to in the morning, and I have to save my strength for...you know, all that stuff that I do. Aging, I guess. Then the next day I read that Pretty Girls Make Graves are playing the same club, one week later. Now there's a band that can stand up to some cranking. I may have to go back. The wife may have to come. I'll buy some earplugs before we do.
Glad to hear you enjoyed the Wrestling show! it's tough being the referee and keeping those broads in line. Lemme tell you, they're crazy! I mean, they practically kill each other in the dressing room but we gotta say, "no, no, you're supposed to save it for the stage!!"
Posted by: Vinnie Benedetto | May 12, 2006 at 07:25 PM