Yesterday was really, really awful. It started off really awful and only every really got better for my open mic. Last Monday when we got home from Teavolve we’d noticed that water was pushing up from the sidewalk in front of our house and Tuesday I called in a work order to the city. I was assured a team would check it out within 24 hours, but the next day water was still pushing up, by Friday I’d placed another call since water was now pushing the sidewalk apart and still jetting up. Fortunately this was happening within 10 feet of and uphill from a storm drain, so at least water wasn’t pooling anywhere…
In any case, THIS Monday – 6 days after the initial call – our water is shut off without warning. The bright side: though I was in the bathroom at the time, I was NOT in the shower – and I managed to get one last flush out of my beleaguered toilet. Still – I really don’t function very well without a shower. All the women in my Life look fine…. Even GREAT dirty… I do NOT. People ask me why I’m wet. It’s gross. My hair doesn’t fare well, my brain doesn’t function, I feel hot and sticky and sometimes even nauseous. I’m generally a very clean human! And yet the guys outside couldn’t give me an answer as to when the water would come back on – or even give me a hint. I was grumpy because I was the guy who placed the call, it’d taken them a week to get here, they had my email and my phone number and yet they couldn’t give me any warning! THEY were grumpy because apparently they’d only gotten 10 calls all of last week and got 26 this morning. Everyone was grumpy.
Kristen and I gave up, piled into the Weaselmobile and battled traffic down to House of Musical Traditions where they day went downhill from there. Let’s not discuss the construction crew at Flower and Carroll. Let’s not chat about how the three different flagpeeps sometimes look at one another across the empty intersection and shrug at one another until one of them realizes THEY’RE supposed to let traffic go. Let’s not worry about how sometimes through inattention they gridlock the busiest intersection in historic Takoma Park. Let’s just assume it was a typical morning and these inept humans caused more problems than they solved (it was, they did) and move on.
Jocelyn Faro! Wally Dyer! Heather wrapping up her featured artist set at the Old Bowie Town Grille in Bowie, MD.
At the store a UPS guy wanders in and hands me a piece of paper. It states that he’s bringing me a bunch of Mackie gear. I look at him and say “okay” – I wonder – is this COD? Does he want me to sniff the label and approve? There’s nothing to sign – that’s cool – just bring it in! “Well, are you coming to get it?” UPS has brought an 18-wheeler too big to bring up the hill to the shop and when I get down to the truck, the guy offloads a pallet filled with 275 pounds of subwoofers and tells me he doesn’t know what MY problem is, he’s called the daily guy and he ALWAYS drops stuff down here (if you haven’t been to HMT, you don’t understand about the horrible hill). Speaking as someone who regularly signs for deliveries that are brought INTO the store by the everyday UPS guy I know that that’s not true – he tells me he can get on the phone with my regular guy and he’ll tell me he always drops things off at the bottom of the hill – I inform him that I don’t care WHO he calls, that’s not where our deliveries get left. He props the pallet up against the fire hydrant and tells me that if I don’t give a fuck, he’ll just leave it here.
And he leaves it. 275lbs of subwoofers strapped together. The next half hour or so sees me and my friend Paul struggling to break down the pallet and haul 75 pound subwoofers up the hill one by one. They are also HUGE. We’re exhausted and this hasn’t solved my showering issue and somehow makes all following issues in the shop worse.
Whatever. We leave the shop early to race home and shower before running the open mic…. This actually goes smoothly. We make good enough time that I get to stop by Appalachian Bluegrass and pickup fingerpicks. We make good enough time that I get to take an awesome shower with my new shampoo and my even newer conditioner. It’s delicious.
Hop in the car, off to Teavolve to run my open mic! The traffic on the way is AWFUL but we get a great parking space and the place is packed! Wait… the place is packed because Miss Baltimore’s birthday party is happening right where I normally run my open mic. Load-in is dicey, set-up is crowded. I thought Sharif wasn’t coming so I set up one way… it turns out it was ROWAN who wasn’t coming so I have to reset in ANOTHER way. Miss Baltimore’s crowd of giggly screechy girls is everything you’d expect them to be AND the list fills FAST. Arguably this is a good thing, but it means that by 7.30 I’ve got 19 people on the list, no SEATING left even and I’m turning people away!
Eventually I turn to the tried-and-true method of running of beautiful young women and start chatting with them. Sure enough, betwixt that and the music, Miss Baltimore and her dozen ladies jet within 25 minutes of the music starting. MY people flood their tables and the night starts in earnest….
The open mic was amazing. A full list, a full house – and the list was full of people that were so good they OWNED that full house – it was marvelous. Because I was smart about cutting people off we didn’t even have to drop to one song. We had a lot of new people, including Bizarro Koye Berry and Bizarro Charm City Social Club… PLUS Koye Berry and Charm City Social Club! We had singers and players and tapdancers to boot. All in all, it was exactly what I needed to deal with what was an overly Monday Monday. Thank you Teavolve!
Holy crap – Justin Myles!
