Uncle!

last night was a new experience.  i played a gig with the blues band that was an after christmas Christmas Party.  we set it up as a fundraiser where the door money went to a food bank, and we played it at a local fire company so the bar sales go to a good cause.  it’s not exactly my local fire company, but it’s the closest one with social quarters.

at 1am the singer calls it quits.  and i know he had more in him, and i’m thinking “take a look at this crowd.  if we just make noise for the next half hour the bar could ring in a bundle!”  what happened was that the guy who was in charge had said to the singer “look dude, it’s 1 o’clock.  look at this place.  enough is enough man.” 

they couldn’t keep up at the bar and handle the crowd, and were all out of gas for the trying.  basically, they cried uncle.  i’ve never played a place so packed that the people shoveling the cash into the registers were overrun to the point of pulling the plug.

it was a GREAT time that turned into an unexpectedly BIG Great Time.

and i’m gonna tell you that at this place the band sets up in the shape of an “L”, with the drumkit as the bottom horizontal line, and the rest of the team as the vertical line.  i couldn’t see past the bass player to the singer/guitarist #1/guitarist #2/harp player because the crowd pushed into the way.  now, the crowd that did the pushing was mostly hot young chicks who were asking “does this pose make my ass look hot?” the answers were “yes”, “yes” and “yes”.  the peeks at the tramp stamp/whale tail combos were nice as well. 

i set the drums up in the front room, and put the cases in the back before i started.   i waited until twenty of two to start breaking down because there was no way i could make my way through the crowd to the stage with drum cases.  that’s completely insane. 

College Football – there are two local products in the major NCAA ranks right now.  the fullback for the Pitt Panthers went to school with my daughter, and the quarterback for the B.C. Eagles lives down the block from the bar.  they both played yesterday.  the panthers won their game, and Hyno did fine.  Shinski took on the USC trojans and made a game of it (although to be honest i didn’t get too see the better part of the game.  still, he didn’t make a goober of himself, ahem, Notre Dame, ahem, interception, cough, cough.  i know, i’m an ass.)

Sunday Football – today was probably a great day in the NFL with lots of close games, playoff implications galore, yadda, yadda, yadda.  i spent it watching hockey.  i stumbled onto the World Juniors (under 20?) Championships.  AWESOME hockey!  the announcers were fantastic!  they didn’t simply tell you what was happening in the game, as if my eyes weren’t working or something.  they announced mistakes, analyzed coaching, talked about match ups between players and styles of play, and just tons of insightful stuff. 

it was like watching a good poker video. 

i can’t tell all of what’s going on in a hockey game.  i get to see what One television camera shows me.  that’s it.  they filled in a lot of the blanks. 

plus, the players played a style that looked like the street ball that i play, on ice.  i was mesmerized.  (btw, the U.S. is 2-0 so far).  i followed that up with a Flyers game.   

Hope everyone had a great Christmas!

December 27, 2009   Posted in: Uncategorized

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