Toilet Beej Weekend

So I was about to be on my ride home from work today, and I was thinking of what tunes I wanted to have playing to keep me awake on my drive. I was scrollin' through the ol' iPod and I landed on The Future Kings of Nowhere. I hadn't listened to them in awhile, so I was all about busting that out, because their self-titled album is just the best. Needless to say, it was a pretty great ride home. Lots of singalongs by myself. Cut to about 45 minutes ago. I was browsing the internet, and decided to take a peak at the Future Kings of Nowhere site. What's the first thing I see when I get on the page? Shayne, the brain behind the music, was diagnosed with cancer a little over a week ago. What a huge bummer that was. But after reading up on the blog him and his brand new wife set up to document the process of becoming healthy again, I saw that they were remaining very positive about the whole situation, and that everything was going well so far. They even put a short video up of their last minute wedding they held at the hospital. It's still a scary thing, though. And that was the last thing I expected to read when checking up on one of my favorite bands. But I do plan on keeping up with that blog to make sure things keep going well, and that Shayne makes a full recovery. If any of my readers would like a link to that blog, the URL is http://thismachinekillscancer.tumblr.com Reading their optimistic outlook on the whole situation really helped soften the blow of hearing the bad news. And I know I've never even seen The Future Kings of Nowhere, much less met Shayne, but the news and blog really had an impact on me.

But in more personal news, I think I may have joined a band on Wednesday morning. I'm not sure, but I was woken up by a text from my friend Chris asking if I wanted to join his band Swear Jar. I told him that I'd love to, but being that I already have to drive to Meriden frequently for my job, a practice schedule in Windsor might be pretty rough on me. So he offered me the position of the guy who only plays for shows. He said he'd send me the songs, and I could learn them on bass at home, and just play with the band whenever they had a show. Now that sounded like something that I could handle. I'm sure I could fit in a real practice here and there too. So I told Chris I'd be more than happy to fulfill that position in the band. I never got a response from that text, but it sounds like I'm in the band. I guess I'll know for sure soon enough. But either way, it was a nice way to wake up on Wednesday.

As for the rest of Wednesday, I didn't do too much until around 8, when Anthony came over and we headed out to the world's greatest diner, Elmer's! This was to be our pre-show meal even though I had already eaten dinner only about an hour before that. So I ordered myself a grilled cheese with tomato, because I didn't want to just watch Anthony eat. Especially considering he got a turkey club without the lettuce and tomato, and with a side of extra mayo for dipping. Now I'm not one of those irrational people who hates mayo. Sure, the idea of it is revolting, but it's really great in moderation. But watching Anthony dip his sandwich into a cup of mayonnaise always makes me want to blow chunks. But I survived that meal without losing my last one. And from there we took a ride down to Main Street, parked in a parking garage, and then took a lovely walk to one of the many bars you can find up and down Main Street. Well, I guess this one is just off Main Street, but close enough. Yes, we went to Cousin Larry's. Were we there to get smashed? Not a chance! We were there to see the band Fake Problems play! So we pay the $5 cover, and walk into the mostly empty bar. Anthony walks over to the arcade bowling machine, and plays ten frames. He did very... eh. Better than he ever could have done with a real bowling ball. That's for sure. So after that, we just shot the shit for awhile. Some guy who worked there told me that my band should play on Open Mic Night. I told him I'd look into it. (Get ready, Easy Chowder!) But mostly, that guy just wanted us to get off the pool table so that he could play some pool with his pal. Pool Pals. Soon after all that the band Play It Faster took the stage. They were Fake Problems' opening act. I had seen them before at Chris' (The same Chris from before. You know, asking me to be in bands and whatnot) house. And they're definitely not bad, but they just write really long songs that tend to get boring fairly quickly. But they put on a pretty solid set, regardless. Then Fake Problems went on. Now by this point, there weren't very many people present. Aside from Anthony and me, the other band and two other people were the only ones there for the show. There were some people who were just there to take advantage of the bar, but even those were not so plenty. This didn't stop Fake Problems from putting on a killer set, though. They've got some great stage presence, and very witty stage banter. In between each song, the bassist would tell us about these kids in their hometown. These kids would go to all of the local shows, and they created a club around it. They call themselves Dudes Night Out. They have a club leader and everything. It's completely legit. But the bassist would talk about the members by their names, as if that was supposed to mean anything to us. But it was completely hilarious. (Just so you know, I just took a break from writing to have a cream puff and some milk.) At one point, the bassist started talking about how his girlfriend came from CT, and how we grow our girls well here or whatever. Then one of the bar patrons took it upon himself to yell "Connecticut sucks! Nothing good comes out of Connecticut!" When I heard that I rolled my eyes and gave a nice big groan, but it didn't compare to him following it up with "Except Hatebreed!" Really? If you had to pick one thing to be proud of Connecticut for, you'd pick Hatebreed? To each his own, I guess, but damn. It must really suck to be that dude. Either way, I think the heckling was all in good humor, because the band had a good laugh, and the guy wasn't heckling during songs or anything. But anyway, Fake Problems played a really great set. I talked to the singer a little bit after they finished up, and just made sure that he knew that Hatebreed was far from the best thing that Connecticut had to offer, and he seemed relieved to hear that. I know I would be. Then Anthony took a walk through the rain back to the parking garage. Then he drove me home and I went to sleep very soon after that. But it was a pretty great time, overall. The bands were nice, the people running the bar were nice, and it was just a nice time. I'd definitely go see a show there again, even if it was pretty empty.

Well that's all I have for you today. If I had to grade this entry, I'd give myself an A+. I'm pretty damn great. I think what makes this entry so great is that some of my readers are really jealous of the fact that I saw Fake Problems. Suck it, pals! Alright. Well I have been yawning heavily throughout my whole time typing this, so I think it would be prudent if I headed to bed. I've got World Music tomorrow. My second to last one. That probably means I'm going to have to piece together and present my project next week. I can handle that. No problem at all. So I'm going to go to bed now and dream of palm wine music from Sierra Leone and Liberia. Of course, that makes me wonder if it's possible to fall asleep within a dream, because that's a really boring thing to dream about. I hope I don't have some sort of endless cycle of boring dreams and never wake up. Oh well. Wish me luck with that! Bye, chums!