Work today - way too much christmas candy/cookies/complex carbohydrates around the office right now. I finally wrote 'No More Chocolate!' on my hand as a reminder to myself everytime I went to grab a fistful of festive colored m&ms. Problem though is that I am right handed so I had to write this little mantra on my left hand and apparently I grab very few fistfuls of festive colored m&m's with my left hand, while I grab quite a few with my right.
And the few times I did use my left hand and caught a glimpse of my memo, I took a pen and crossed out the 'no' only to retrace it later and then cross it out again.
I think writing on hands is good for errands, grocery lists, phone numbers you only need for a half a day - but as far as methods of self discipline, it blows.
Anyway, lots of sugar and lots of caffeine and not a lot else meant that I was pretty wired come evening.
After work scrabble game - our first - with ze coverkers tonight at....you may have guessed from the title line.....karma coffee on cahuenga. (I valet-fucking-parked my car for a scrabble game.) Anyway, it was a silly semi-nerdy (ok fine, totally nerdy) thing to do but don't judge because it was fuckin' fun and intellectually stimulating...ish.
That said - the place is an indierock ...no more like acoustic-indie-emo haven for the blemished and granola-eating and in addition to their featured free-trade coffee beans, they also feature an open mic night on Wednesdays.
Needless to say, Karma on a Wednesday will no longer be our locale du choise for scrabbling.
A painfully insecure guy in a beret and bifocals got up and gave all of us the remarkably long list of 'rules' for witnessing such an event....he was the stalin of open mic nights...between him and the cacophony of 20 somethings tuning their guitars (at least that's what it looked like they were doing....it sounded like they were torturing cats and based on the fact that when they later on took their turns to play, it still sounded thus leads me to believe they were deliberately de-tuning them...damn the man! the oppressive oppressive man who likes melody! and harmony! and ears that don't bleed! damn him to hell!).....i digress, between him and that, I wanted to strangle myself with the mic cord. It made concentrating very very difficult and I blame my limited triple word scoring on this.
First up was a guy who was, he claimed, performing reggae. I don't particularly like good reggae - presumably because I don't smoke pot - but bad reggae is a whole other level of terrible. The guy....sang? chanted? a mix of the two? rocked back and forth a lot while mumbling things punctuated by 'ya mon'? for what seemed like an eternity but which was probably more like 8 minutes....(one of his lines was something like 'youre my girl, my chicken, my boo, my queen')
Up next was a guy who was so stereotypical that I had to consider the possibility that the whole thing was a christopher guest film and that michael mckean would give the final performance of the evening. But, alas - it wasn't and he didn't.
This guy - a doughy, unassuming 25-30 something who calls his parents' basement home - gave a meaningful intro to his first song, beginning with the fateful words
'This is a song about a really weird time in my life...' He attempted to emotionally manipulate his audience (including we unwitting scrabblers-turned-reluctant observers of a train wreck you can't help but watch) by saying 'you know what I'm talking about....when everything is great and you're going along all happy and then its like the bottom just drops out from under you'. I looked to see if anyone nodded in commiseration - they didnt. Surely they could see that this pain he experienced was due to a loss more profound than they could fathom, than had ever been experienced before. What could it be? Who died and how? Tell me songster, weave your tragic tale and - oh...a girl dumped you...huh. Why would she do that? You are obviously such a catch...but wait, that's unfair. Let's first hear your magnificent lyricism and....huh. You rhymed arms and charms....how....original. she wants you, youre her husband, but she doesnt....what a complex juxtaposition of emotions...she has your heart? inside of her? what will you do, how can you live without your heart.....yeah thats right man, it would be like living without art. Good simile. Move over Bob Dylan, move right the fuck over.
I am rambling - I realize. At any rate, sufficed to say I was having a really hard time keeping it together and seated across from me was Adam who managed, with tears of laughter in his eyes, to squeek out that 'bad music makes him really uncomfortable'. I couldn't keep it together and obviously this guy took his pain very seriously so I really didn't want to begrudge him his cathartic moment of public self indulgence (after all that would be downright hypocritical of me, wouldn't it....given this soapbox of mine) so I buried my face in my sweatshirt.
Have you ever seen that Mary Tyler Moore bit where they go to the funeral for Chuckles the Clown and she's cracking up the whole time while everyone else sits around solemnly and respectfully? Yeah, that was me. I was Mary and open-mic night at Karma was Chuckles' funeral.
There were a million other moments like that (two Tunisian brothers rapped in english and then in french, and unbeknownst to them channeled the 'What Am I' youtube classic as they asked over and over 'Who Am I' 'Who Am I' 'Who Am I'.....that was pretty much the end of Adam, Meg, and I; there was also the obligatory defensive guy who tells jokes that seem to have no punchline and then gets mad when his audience doesn't laugh...he was also pissed that our energy was low and that no one got up to 'dance and look stupid' while he did just that and lipsynched a michael jackson song).
All in all though, it was a pretty priceless evening and while I don't think I need to witness anymore public mediocrity, it was certainly entertaining at the time. And we made it through our Scrabble game....Stephen beating me by a sneaky three points...but that's ok. All wrongs will be righted next time. moohaha.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment