Plasma, baby... Plasma

Saturday
September 30, 2006
Adair's Saloon
Deep Ellum


Joel got some sweet new flat-screen plasma thrown up all over the place now, so apparently Adair's can now be the place to be when it comes to watching the game instead of devoting full attention to the band.

Now, on with the real story...

I got a voice mail from the Professor saying, “Say, I’m already at the club and the band didn’t seem to think that they were having an opening band tonight… call me back.”

Naturally, I actually hear the message a day after the fact because I rarely have that damn cell phone glued to my hip like most, so when we arrive the word actually comes on as a surprise. Apparently the booking agent for John Evans hadn’t clued him in to the fact that we were showing up to warm the crowd for him; so we explain our situation, and he was gracious enough to go ahead and let us up to make some noise – real cool guy. I’m sure that when you’re touring the way that his band does there are many surprises like such, and I was thankful that he was cool enough to let us play…

Their bassist, Mike Ferrara, was all about letting me use his fine Ampeg set-up, so fortunately I didn’t have to lug in my heavy gear for the night. It’s always a pleasure when the band that you open for are all about letting you use their equipment that’s already set up and sound checked for the room. So thanks, Mike – what a great sounding rig…

We roll through our set and haul our axes outside for a quick escape, but ended up staying for their set, and let me tell you, if you haven’t seen these guys then you really should. They opened w/their new song Whiskey Tango, and immediately I was glad that we didn’t have to follow these guys. Saucy – very saucy…

I guess the high (or low) point of the night was when JTL and I were walking our gear out (well, I was walking mine, and Ballgame was belly surfing his through traffic – quite a sight actually…) and we ran into some kid who I couldn’t tell if he was trying to minister the “Word of God” to us, or rather just let us know that there was no possible way of escaping the confines of Hell for our evil ways. I was wondering if perhaps he had run into some better drugs than I had ever run into during my experimental years… All these random questions kept vomiting from his mouth, and ‘ol Johnny can talk theology with the best of them, so he was pretty much holding his own, but me, I couldn’t say anything right to the guy. Finally, I just had to walk away when he was in mid-babble. I can’t sit and hear some asshole fart away about what a class-A shit-bag sinner I am for too long when he doesn't know me from Adam.

I suppose I left right in time, as right before I introduced this chump to the backside of my noodle, for a split second, I feel the Violent Nerve Monster easing up my spine and then quickly building speed toward the command center for transmission, you know that warm, sticky, dark impulse that just happens in a flash, and I actually gave a moments thought to flogging his big nose to the back of his egg-head at high velocity (a rarity for me), and then once his limp bones painfully kissed the earth ask him if his God was going to keep me from cracking open his soft ribs, then pulling out his lungs and eating them if I was such a bad guy... but just ended up heading back for some Crown Royal communion with my buddy Brock instead.

Probably the best decision…

There are far too many people fighting over their version of God as it is - have been since recorded history, and I didn't need to be one of them.

You’ll always run into some kind of strangeness on the streets of Deep Ellum; much like Austin, it’s literally impossible to be the town freak there.