It’s 9pm and it hasn’t rained. It’s been brutally hot and humid, like stepping into a dog’s mouth – but the wind is picking up and it never rained.
We’ve canceled the Thursday night open mic three weeks in a row. Rain has generally failed to materialize. Heat has been pervasive. Blanketing. Suffocating.
But manageable. We would have played through it last year. People would’ve come out and sweated it out and borne it out. It only took one embarrassing cancelation for weather that never materialized for us to play that game far more daringly. But this year… this year, frankly, we’ve got options. I don’t need to play in hundred-plus degree weather. I don’t need to risk my gear on the edge of dark, brooding clouds.
But it HAS gotten old, and so Jeni’s decided to open up one of her other venues to us for Thursday nights. It’s a dive bar in Catonsville that I honestly kind of worry about. And I worry about worrying about it. I know I’m a bit prissy about things like pin-ups pinned up on the ceiling, and being associated with a venue that’s got a packed bar on a weekday mid-afternoon and opens at 11am. It caters to the worst sort of all-day alcoholic.
Or that’s just what I see cause… as above. We’ll see how it plays out. We’ll see how it feels. We’ll see if it’s warm and welcoming or if the regulars will feel like I’m bringing in people that are too different. Or my friends will feel too different to bother coming.
I hope to be pleasantly surprised. I usually am. Places are better than I think they are. I’m just a suspicious, prissy, kiiiinda pretentious rob, that I am.