Mike's Hard Raspberry Lemonade, The Black Eyed Peas, and Me

I don't see a lot of live music (and I am using the term "live music" rather loosely, as you will discover later). There are a few bands that I enjoy and would consider seeing, although some of them would have unacceptably large (by my count; not their accountants') crowds and some of them would have almost no crowds outside of the UK. So I'm reduced to seeing music of bands that I know people from (which, interestingly, are rather sparse even here in Seattle) or that I don't know or like.

To me, there is rarely a point in seeing live music just to see live music. I know that Flowers and many others will disagree, but... if I don't know the words (or at least the melody) to a song, then it doesn't make me want to sing along and without me wanting to sing along, I tend to find music boring.

An exception is when I want to go out and flop my appendages about, roughly in time with the music. This "dancing," as some call it, is usually greatly improved (in terms of enjoyment, not objective performance) by alcohol.

On Saturday night, I somehow maneuvered myself into going to two shows. The first one, with Flowers and TM2000, was at Neumos to see Rogue Wave--a band that I had never heard of. The second one, at Trinity, was more of an after-hours affair with the Black Eyed Peas. My friend Cinebarre had offered to put me on a list to see them, and while I am no particular fan of the BEP, I do enjoy being put on lists. I also enjoy hanging with her, so Neumos-Trinity was the plan.

But first? To Raftmate's place for the soccer game/prefunk.

Prefunk / Mike's Hard Hell

I got a ride from TM2000 and we stopped for some teriyaki first, and picked up some alcohol to consume before the show. He got beer and I, not being a fan of beer, got a six-pack of Mike's Hard Lemonade. Actually, I got a seasonal (limited-time, allegedly) version of it: Raspberry Lemonade.

Somewhere along the line in the prefunk, I decided to consume the entire six-pack as quickly as reason would allow. Why? I don't know. Why did I eat 13 bananas in one sitting in college? I don't know.

What I do know is that the human body is not built to withstand the rigors of a six-pack of Mike's Hard Raspberry Lemonade consumed in just over an hour. The alcohol was not really a problem, but the amount of sugars and volume of liquid (more than a two liter) gave me intense stomach pain and I ended up vomiting it out in Raftmate's toilet. (I struggle with whether to discuss the particulars, so I'll go part-way: it was the longest continuous stream of liquid I've ever seen in a puke, I had lettuce in my nose at the end, and I felt like a man reborn after the pressure was relieved.)

Rogue Wave / Dinosaur Talk

We wandered down to Neumos a bit before 10:00, and I got a txt from Cinebarre telling me that Trinity was filling up, and that we should meet there at 11:00... of course, Rogue Wave didn't come onstage until 11:00, so I was going to miss them entirely.

Given that I had just been to Mike's Hard Hell and back, I wasn't going to let it bother me.

TM2000, Flowers, F-Bomb and I arrived and caught the final 10 or 15 minutes of the opening act, and then I had about 30 minutes to kill. I had a PBR stuck in my hand (and, after the drinking I'd done earlier in the night, the less-than-sweet taste of something I'd normally not consume was welcome) and we stood there, looking around and waiting.

There was also some minor jostling. People were arriving and trying to procure good views (it was standing room only on the floor where we were) and I was rather roughly bumped into someone at some point.

My natural inclination is not to be quick to anger, and so when I turned to see who it was I wasn't going to punch the person. When it was a woman who was about five feet tall who smiled and apologized, the likelihood of violence was even farther removed. She was with a female friend and they were just trying to be able to see the stage. There was no easy progress, though, so they appeared happy to stay where they were. Which was to my left, with F-Bomb in front of me and TM2000 to my right.

There is often a point when a woman enters your personal space where you need to decide what, if anything, is going to be said. I am often quite willing to be quiet in situations, but I am also often quite willing to talk to women, so this situation could have gone either way.

After about 12 words of small talk between the chick, F-Bomb, and me, F-Bomb turned back to the stage and silence fell. And I decided to throw a curveball.

"Hey, F-bomb," I mused. "What kind of dinosaur is that, up on stage?"

There was, I had just noticed, a plastic dinosaur sitting on a speaker at the back of the stage. I asked not because I gave a crap, but because I knew that the woman was waiting for me to say SOMETHING, and by (a) not talking directly to her, (b) not talking about her, and (c) referencing something that she could not see, I knew she would be hooked.

And, indeed, for whatever it's worth, it worked. F-Bomb looked and said he didn't know. TM2000 chimed in, discussing whether it was a brontosaurus or not.

The chick, for her part, was positively busting with frustrating, since she was too short to see. Her friend, who was a bit more of a sourpuss, was poo-poohing my tactic, but she remained engaged and was delighted when I was able to capture the dinosaur with my Nexus One's camera.

It proved such an interesting topic that it worked as an opening for TM2000 with another chick.

Alas, I was not long for that show, and I caught a cab to Trinity.

Trinity / Women

A short cab ride later and it was 11:00 and I was standing outside of Trinity. There were two lines for entry, and fortunately I was one of the lucky ones on the list that allowed me to go through the significantly shorter one.

I walked in and it wasn't quite as busy as I'd feared. The main room (which has the largest dance floor) didn't get really busy until a bit before 1:00, which is when the BEP were scheduled to go on.

Most of the time between my arrival and that point I spent in a secondary dance area ("The Blue Room", as it may be called, although I might have just called it that myself) with Cinebarre.

She is an old pro at the place... she knows everyone and has spent innumerable hours patrolling the ins and outs of the establishment. She showed me around and we got a drink or two and we talked and danced/flopped around (I'll let you guess who did which).

Sometime around midnight, I was merrily flopping away in the Blue Room when a chick approached me on the dance floor. Our conversation/interaction went something like this:

Thigh-Grappler (walking up to me): Hi.
Me (merrily flopping away): Hey.
Thigh-Grappler (wrapping her legs around my thigh and grabbing my sides): ...
Me (looking over at Cinebarre, who remained unaware of my predicament, and then over at Thigh-Grappler's friend, who was giggling embarrassedly): Uh... hi!
Thigh-Grappler: Are you gay?
Me: Do I look gay?
Thigh-Grappler: Yes.
Me: Ah. Well, gay in a good way?
Thigh-Grappler: ??
Me: Never mind.
Thigh-Grappler: Are you drunk?
Me (considering telling her about the Mike's Hard Hell incident): Not really.
Thigh-Grappler (almost falling over, only partly due to my lack of dancing ability): OK.

At that point I disengaged. Wandered back over to Cinebarre, who was laughing. I felt bad... I didn't want to laugh within viewing range of Thigh-Grappler, but... yeah. It was interesting. :)

A bit later I was in the main room and saw a chick that I recognized... a rarity in Trinity, given the difference in the social circles that I normally spend time in. It turned out she used to work at Tini Bigs and I was pleased that she remembered me.

I was particularly pleased because she was in a larger group of women--four others, in fact. Two of the women were blond and very attractive, and I was looking forward to meeting them.

Oddly enough, while she did introduce me to some of her friends, she introduced me to the other two, which included a married woman and a much less attractive woman than the other two. While I'm not sure that being introduced to either of the others would have led to anything, of course, I am occasionally startled at how the Universe conspires against me.

Time marched on. 1:00 approached. And I wandered back to the Blue Room and danced a bit.

Cinebarre is a fun person and, since she knows the scene, was being a nice mixture of informative and protective. She and I have had many conversations so she knows a bit of who I am, and she has seen me dance enough to know I suck at it, but she hasn't seen me dance with women around enough to know whether I will be one of those morons that grinds up on any female thang that moves.

I am, of course, just about the opposite: I end up playing a type of modified vertical limbo most of the night, avoiding bumping into chicks who (presumably) accidentally wander into my personal space.

There were three different times, though, where Cinebarre went out of her way to inform me that different women had boyfriends. Maybe I was looking at them differently, or maybe she knew they were attractive and there was a CHANCE I'd make a fool of myself, or maybe she was just letting me know to let me know. It sort of amused me, though, and gave me the impression that every woman there had a boyfriend.

Black Eyed Peas / Ludacris

I know a BEP song or two, I think. I don't know them well enough to recite many lyrics. I don't know the bridges (or, indeed, if there are bridges).

I know that Ludacris is a performer. I don't know what he looks like or if he's an actor, as well. (I guess I know what he looks like NOW... since I just did an image search... and his pic is now in this blog.)

I knew that Ludacris was performing with BEP in Tacoma earlier Saturday night, but I didn't recognize him when he stood on the little stage by the laptops that were being manned by guys who may or may not have been members of the Black Eyed Peas. A microphone was used, occasionally, to sing. But not often.

That, ladies and gentlemen, was the "live music". It was a combination of mediocre DJ'ing, passable karaoke, and dancing by black guys I'd no knowledge of.

Maybe if I knew their music, I would have found it more interesting. Maybe if I'd known what to expect, I would have seen it differently. But I don't and I didn't, so I didn't.

Not complaining, of course, I had fun and it was worth going to. Cinebarre and I left at about 3:00 and by the time I fell asleep about 18 minutes later I was able to look back at Mike's Hard Hell and the Dinosaur Tactic and Thigh-Grabber and smile... or at least keep it to minor wincing.