I arrive to the venue about half past twelve. From what I can infer from the number of slightly inebriated smokers mulling around the door, the place is fairly crowded for an early Tuesday morning. I don't try to eavesdrop on any particular conversation, but it is difficult not to overhear the various members of the throng. After being subjected to organ-slapping decibels, it takes a great deal of concentration to maintain an inside voice, I suppose. Moreover, the sound guy at this venue is known for making everything too loud. He’s also known to be a total dick.
A mini-van parked a few yards away from the venue is being loaded with a dismantled drum kit. Three guys in the midst of stowing it away are receiving good reviews (I would assume they must be the previous band, Freak Bear and the Yummy Makers). Honest ones, too. They lean against the van without the frustrated expressions of those who have borne too much flattery and bullshit exaltation. The postures of those surrounding them are not sycophantic; they are manifestations of admiration and respect. The consensus seems to be that the difficult portion of “Victim of a Cheese Malevolent” came off without a hitch. Ryan's solo in “I Want Pundit-Free T.V.” was perhaps the highlight of the show. One person compares it to Nels Klein's solo in “Impossibly Germany,” which Ryan gingerly denies, as this is far too generous a compliment. The Blind Melon cover, however, was not up to snuff. Danny evidently just can't hit the high notes. “Hey, I know I'm no Shannon Hoon or nothing,” he says in his defense. “Plus it's fucking tough to belt it out when you're playing the main riff, man.” Silence. “Whatever. It was the first time we played it. Probably the last. Are you coming to the Galapagos show next Thursday?”
Like most places that function as both venue and bar, there is no cover at the initial door. Getting to the stage, however, will probably require five bucks. About twenty people occupy the concourse, which leads to the venue. Most of them are young and somewhat motley in appearance. The place looks like a dive bar gone glam-rock on a budget. One could qualify said budget as conservative, but, given the Bush administration's unique brand of Daddy's-Credit-Card-Republicanism, this may convey an image of soon-to-be-repossessed opulence. It's ostentatious, gaudy to the point of almost cool.
That sour beer smell that reminds one of an old ballpark permeates the place. It is the pnuema of the past. Bottles collide like passing strangers from a nonspecific locale. The torn portions of some of the seats have been covered by duck tape; smaller wounds have been sealed by electrical tape. Stuffing the color of a manila folder overflows from the bandages that have been tampered with, probably as a consequence of several visitors' boredom as opposed to the destructive impulses of one fidgety drunk.
The bartender is comprised of tattoos, sinews, and pieces of metal intermittently applied to various pieces of flesh and cartilage. He is like the anatomy project of a third-grader with far too much imagination. Aesthetically, of course. His hair is the color of weak Kool-Aid (Grape, though, to date, I have never come across a grape that tastes quite like Grape); it is thin and shoulder-length. He knows that dull scissors have a lower register than sharp scissors. From experience. From what I can tell, he has all of his teeth. The incisors, however, have been radially stained. His canines are more gray than black.
After cracking two cans of PBR, he approaches two critics at the bar engaging in conversational Onanism, a type of interaction in which a person may indulge if he or she wishes to let everyone within earshot know that, yes, they are in the presence of the smartest motherfucker in the bar, perhaps in all of the city. What makes it Onanistic, of course, is not the conceited belief of intellectual superiority per se; rather, it is that the apparent need to contradict everything another person says with horribly banal interjections that don't often go beyond pointing out that the opposing interlocutor has constructed a proposition that is mendacious as a consequence of the use of a universal quantifier as opposed to an existential quantifier (or, in normal parlance, that said speaker has made a generalization). Truth be told, they are pointing out a semantic inaccuracy, but they fail to note that the pragmatics of colloquial speech allow such propositions when it is obvious that the inaccurate proposition either has been constructed for the sake of brevity or is meant to be taken as a hyperbole. It's unbearable when one person does it; when in concert, it's almost Yoko-Ono-does-Enya unendurable. The shorter of the two conversationalists uses the word “couple” to describe a small group as opposed to a duo. The taller one points out that “couple” and “few” are not interchangeable in that slightly effete tone utilized by those who would never use the word “effete” because they believe it to be derogatory. The hand of the bartender quickly snaps up the dollars they drop on the bar in one quick, predatory motion — like the mouth of a snake, and without a “thank you” or a “thanks” or even a nod of acknowledgment. A Steve Malkmus tune with which I am unfamiliar plays in the background. I admittedly don't get the euphemisms or references, but still enjoy the song.
On the other side of the bar, a drunkard chorus taunts three apologetic friends who claim it to be too late to stay out for another round. One of the girls by the pool table is sympathetic to the responsible few. After saying a quick goodbye to the trio, she once again focuses her attention on the table, which is occupied by two competitors separated by several decades. The older of the two laughs as he calls the pocket into which he anticipates the eight ball will soon drop. He has a saprogenic complexion that indicates a feeble circulatory system and a prolonged case of nocturnalism — probably in the presence of union workers milking Disability, previously meth-addicted barflies who tell stories that would make Jesus seriously regret abandoning carpentry, and bartenders who should be awarded honorary degrees in psychology and social work. The older man's younger, bespectacled adversary shakes his head bitterly at the sight of the older man's arrogance. This should not be happening, he says. He then solicits the few surrounding people to confirm the validity of his belief — previous victories should have entitled his opponent to nothing more than another ass-whooping. The girl from above nods hesitantly. Inductive reasoning, unfortunately, is not the older man's strong suit (that, or he just knows how to exploit it).
The black ball plummets into the pocket. The chagrined kid is already pulling a handful of twenties from his pocket. The more-than-likely girlfriend can't believe her eyes. The old man winks to her, which causes the hairs on the back of my neck to stand at attention. Her entire limbic system probably goes numb.
The woman collecting money at the door to the stage is beautiful in the way an L.A. sunset is beautiful. It's a beauty that's biting, perhaps even raw. Her expression is an almost meditative despondency — not sad exactly, but gripping in a way that is more communicative than the gray, anti-depressant torpidity or picayune angst for which people under the age of twenty-five are so infamous. It's not just intelligence or cynicism, either. It's more a weary melancholy. Because she is clearly waiting for something, something far more substantive than a better job, a better apartment, or a (better) man — either the variety who arrives on a white stallion or the confidence man all-too-familiar with the shibboleths of game: of love, of passion, of phallic narcissism.
Her condition is familiar. It has been described as a certain discomfort — not the nausea of estrangement, which has been ubiquitous since the heyday of the Greatest Generation, and probably long before that — that envelops a person in an almost viscous languor. It's something different than what the previous generations have felt, not only in its severity, but in its very form. Instead of the rejection of Panglossian faith, and the consequent assumption of romantic forms of rebellion, we feel paralyzed by our fecklessness, our own insignificance, and yet unabashedly absorbed by it. We see an unjust God in the eyes of those tormented by famine, by war, by genocide, by the dynamics of power and violence that keep half of the world in the chains of superstition and poverty, and cannot help but feel nothing. Perhaps nothing is a bit strong. It's more of a hollow pity.