You're a filthy, drunk Hoboken

So today I made a field trip to Hoboken to go to the Beauty Parlour for a haircut and glaze (I like the word "glaze" because it makes me think of donuts, and I really like donuts) and to see The Gay Blades play at Maxwell's with Readymade Breakup, Hero Pattern, and some soft rock band (their words, dude). This blog was originally going to be about that, but then I drove home.

Through my first ever DWI checkpoint.

Having never consumed a drop of alcohol in my life, I wasn't expecting any problems, but they came, and they came in bulk. My first issue was with simply pulling up to the stop area. The cop's foot was on the line, so I stopped short of it, which, through some masochistic tendency that I don't care to dwell on, the officer disliked.

Then he proceeded to ask me what in the world I was doing in Hoboken. I told him, "I went to see the bands playing at Maxwell's."
He asked if they were any good.
"Three out of four were wonderful. One out of four was mediocre at best."

He kept scowling with skepticism, and at this point, I didn't know what to do. So I asked him plaintively and politely, "Sir, is there anything further I have to do here?" I thought since he wasn't letting me pass, he was going to ask me to walk in a straight line. This terrified me, because my billboard-sized birthin' hips don't allow that to happen, alcohol or no; in addition, my inch worm of an attention span would probably prohibit me from reciting the alphabet backwards without long pauses to look at shiny things.

The officer then handed me a drunk driving pamphlet and told me to read it and be on my way. I told him I wouldn't read it til I got home so I could keep my [lash-batting] eyes on the road. He glared at me. I rolled off.

The moral of the story is, don't drink and drive so I won't have to go through shit like this. I don't have the patience to argue with the poh-leese at 2 AM.


*By Jess, who was instructed to blog about the show by the newly bearded Jason Kundrath, but wound up getting offtopic

Jessica's Got Her Gun Out

Just because I don't drink (for personal reasons I don't care to discuss in a public forum) doesn't mean I necessarily have a problem with other people consuming alcohol. Frankly, what others do isn't my business, nor is it my concern.

However, when you go to a show smashed out of your gourd, it becomes a problem.

Last night I went to see Rediscover at the Internet Cafe in Red Bank. Opening for them were Upper Clash Trash and Time and Distance. One of the guys in Time and Distance brought his girlfriend with him to the show. She was a cute, petite blonde, and she was polite to me when squeezing past to use the ladies' room--which, I should point out, is really inconveniently placed behind and slightly to the left of where the bands play (there's no actual stage, they're on the floor), so there's lots of amps, equipment, and musicians in the way when one has to tinkle--so I decided that I liked her and that she was a nice girl.

One of the three drunk girls--one in a green dress with a habit of sitting with her legs wide open and trying (and failing) to dance seductively with her chubby blonde friend whose bra kept coming out of her shirt--tried to kiss this particular member of Time and Distance while his girlfriend was right next to him. When he pushed her away, she became belligerent.

This all went down while I was dancing to Rediscover's killer set, and it partially interrupted it. When the girls began to argue, a big part of the crowd that was in their area moved with them towards the exit, leading frontman Wes to throw his mic down mid-song and chase them to see what was going on. When he and the drunk girl in green returned, he asked the crowd what happened. A girl who looked no more than about twelve years old yelled, "You have to be a slut to try making out with a guy when his girlfriend's right next to him!" The drunk girl in the dress began a slurred soliloquy about how it was "totally, like an accident, seriously guys." The crowd responded with a chant of "GET OUT, SLUT," leading to the ceremonious exit of the Trashed Trio, partially orchestrated by Wes himself, who called her actions "fucked up" and "nuts."

Best of all, those class acts were all captured on video by members of the bands who were clearly influenced as much by Joe Francis as they were by MxPx.

Despite the drunken distractions, Rediscover played an amazing set considering the sound system left a bit to be desired and that most keyboard-based bands aren't great live. Rediscover are an enormous exception to this rule.

And on top of it all? Wes smells really, really good.

Bravo, fellas.



*By Jess, who got serenaded with her friends Ella and Etta. If you don't understand the reference, that's the point.