How We Are (omigosh) Satiated!

For those of you not in the know this has actually been updated/proofread/spell-checked/submitted to Time Magazine 3 times now.

Turns out Monday/Tuesday is the new weekend. For serious. I'd suggest a national move to recognize this but if everyone decides to follow suit we'll lose those dynamite cheap drink specials, so I'll refrain.

On Monday I got my first trip to the Safehouse. My expectations were running pretty low, I've always heard of it as a tourist spot and a waste of time. Turns out it's like a Chuck E. Cheese for big kids. Yeah, it's touristy and I don't think I would make a habit of going nightly, but I think it's something you have to drunkenly take your friends to and abandon them there at least once. I wanted a collector's mug but I knew I wouldn't be able to carry it with me for the night. I also wanted a Spy Eye Patch, but it turned out to just be a boring old regular patch. No go.

Post Safehouse was the Jenny Lewis show. We missed Whispertown2000, which was the band I really wanted to see. With a name like that I bet they were the greatest band in existence. Ever. We did catch my buddy Jonathon Rice. I call him J-Rice because I'm prone to such things. I felt bad that his girl pants kept him from making fully-articulated movements, but them's the breaks. His music was pretty good though, but I hope he's never my camp counselor because his sing-a-long was pretty much a failure. And really I think that just equates to being a failure at life. My sing-a-longs are the best. Jenny Lewis was there too. She sang some songs. The grown-up versions of the little girls from The Shining sang backing vocals and played tamborines. Farmer Dave played keyboards and guitar. After the show Farmer Dave almost bumped into me and my friend Heather, but we're intimidating people and I don't think he knew what to say so he just kept walking. Sometimes it's hard being this cool.

At some point we went to the Casino too. And then we used the big money we pulled in to get breakfast at Pegasus. My buddy Chris wanted to complain as someone important so we decided he could be Roland Kohl, Herb Kohl's asshole grandson. I hope the real Roland Kohl doesn't get in trouble now for being drunk in Milwaukee. He could get grounded or something.

On Tuesday we got up and picked up Tucker, then jetted to Chicago. Except in a car. We went down to catch The Subways at The Empty Bottle on the North Side of the city. Turns out the show wasn't until 9:30 and we got there at 4:30. We walked south for about 4-5 blocks past sketchy bars with no names until we found one with an actual name and sign. It was like Bar Hypnotic or something along those lines. The girl bartending spoke terrible English and after an hour or so there we hit up a bar across the street she might have recommended. I say might have because we weren't sure if she was saying the bar was called Crying or if she was saying it was a bar of Crime. Turns out it was the former. There were a lot of old Polish people there. I played NOFX and Journey on the jukebox and they were probably afraid for their lives.

We walked in The Empty Bottle pre-bar hopping while The Subways were setting up and we hit it back up in between bars as well. We hung around listening to the Sound Check sets and held the doors for some people bringing in merch. Turns out Chris knew the guy carrying in stuff as a former WI DJ. This guy now works as an Executive Marketing Rep, or something like that, for Warner Brothers. His job, as he explained it, was to coordinate the "Street Teams" for different bands and also to essentially babysit the bands he's sent to. He had dealt with Deftones earlier in the day and was at this show for The Subways. Tucker and myself kind of blew off The Shys, the opening band, to hang out and talk bands and the like with this guy. His boss came in during this time who he for some reason felt compelled to introduce us to. After his boss walked away he told us that this guy was pretty much THE guy to know in the Midwest for the music business. His itinerary for the day was: Meet up with The Subways, jet over to the US Cellular Arena to meet with Deftones and other bands on the Taste of Chaos tour, go across town to meet up with Jenny Lewis doing her Chicago show, then come back for The Subways set, then fly out 4.5 hours later to LA. Rough. How can I get this guys job? I'll even make a resume, with crayon.

Post-Shys, pre-Subways we were hanging out on a couch they had at the place, chillin' with the cat. Yes, the club had a cat. I wanted to steal it. A random Chicgo Indie/Emo Girl came and sat next to me and I made a few brief conversation-like comments to her about the band and the club and Polish bars. She couldn't--for some odd reason--fathom why had driven down from Milwaukee.

Me: "Yeah, we got here like 5 hours too early... but we came from Milwaukee and wanted to get in earlier rather than cut it close.""
Girl: (baffled) "Why would you drive from Milwaukee?"
Me: "Because... that's where we're from?"
Girl: (still baffled) "So why did you come here?"
Me: "Because this is where the show... is playing?"
Girl: (baffled like your mom) "...so why did you have to drive from Milwaukee?"
Me: "I. Live. In Milwaukee."
Girl: "Uh-huh."
Me: "That's why."
Girl: "..."

Back to being in conversation with the WB guy: at one point he asked us to hold on for a moment while he stepped away to start motioning to a cute blonde girl waiting in line to get in. The show is 21-and-over and right away I was pretty sure this girl was 19-20, so I'm thinking it'll suck to be her when they turn her away. Instead she sidesteps the line and says something to WB guy, then waves and says hi to me and Tucker and walks towards the back. WB guy comes back over and leans in, says "There's the little lady herself, that's the show." Turns out it was the bassist for The Subways. I was right, she wouldn't have been let in to the show except for the fact that, you know, she's in the band. I wish I would've been aware of this beforehand, I would've clung to WB guy's side a bit more when he went over to greet her. Show-wise itself The Subways were fucking amazing. Tucker was convinced they were singing but that their parts were pre-recorded. I'm not as prone to conspiracy-theory but I've got to say they were possibly the best-sounding live band I have ever seen. No feedback of any kind (except when they used it as part of the song), flawless execution, seamless synchronicity, perfect volume levels for the mic's, guitars and drums... I can see where he'd make that leap.

And then after the show we stopped at The Oasis. Remember those? They're fucking awesome.