there’s a ruckus on the levee

i must be maturing, because it’s much easier to get my friends organized around a simple task than it used to be.

in the past, we were flakes.

we still are in many ways …

i recall the time me and chin and paco and scotty were going to the warriors game in oakland. game started at, let’s say, 8. paco shows up at 7:50 and his first words were, ‘are we going to grab a bite before the game?’

paco. a man out of time.

but getting these tickets to matador 21 is going to be tougher than i thought. there’s 2100 tix. i think i personally could name forty people who want to go. no shit. if you start thinking about all the 90s indie rock dipshits still running around, there could be some serious sadness going on tomorrow.

i will cry.

***
but consolations are in vogue these days.

take lebronorama, for example. the poor knicks … sucked for two years, lost ten first round draft picks, and ended up with half-blind, bad-knees amar’e to show for it.

and the nets … worst record in the league last year, missed out on john wall in the draft … not even jay-z could pull the chosen one to that roster now.

but, shit, when you can’t get what you want, you take what you get.

and sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need …

***

so as a consolation, this afternoon i bought three tix to the black crowes at the pageant in st. louis in august.

the ‘say goodbye to the bad boys tour.’

supposedly, this is it.

‘infinite hiatus’ to follow …

it’ll be hard to top the last time i saw them, though.

right up front in some lovely casino theatre in biloxi w/chicago mel in tow.

i framed the trip as some sort of peace offering following what at the time was a quasi-indiscretion.

a memorable line from the evening:

‘so let me understand this … you’re apologizing to me by taking me to see your favorite band in the world?’

exactly.

(remember when they opened the encore with rich singing velvet underground’s sweet nothing after listening to that song on the drive over there? again with the coincidences … )

that was so good.

***

chris cracks me up in this clip. the outfit, the performance, everything: