On Monday Elizabeth and I caught a late movie in Merrillville, "One Night With the King." A film based on the Book of Esther, it was really good. Anyway, we walked over to Barnes and Noble and in the vestiblue, where they have the discounted books, one caught our eye. It was called "80 Horrible Fashions That We Used To Love, But Shouldn't Have." Or something like that. There were things in there that were horrible, yes. Batman sleeves, male sarongs, shoulder pads. But there were thing in there that I like, now. Like my parka - a very specific kind of parka - orange lining, fuzzy hood etc. It bothered me, but only to induce me to thought.
I wondered, what else do I like now like that I will cringe to think I owned and wore all the time when I look back in five, ten years? It is fascinating to think about how blind fashion makes us, in the heat of the moment - we want to make the right impression, we want to fit in, etc.
Here we are with some of Abi and Sam's friends. They were really funny. Abi kept wanting me to make her "fly." I'd hold her as she jumped off of stairs and such. After seeing some "scary" kids, Sam declared he was a "mean race car driver."
Let's skip ahead to Friday. Bottle Rocket Blue came out of our October hiatus by playing an original music showcase in the tiny town of Kouts Indiana. A place where 90s metal lives. Here take a look at this:
The man with the ZZ-top beard's name was Eric. He was nice, he liked us. He said we sounded like the 60s. He bought our EP. Before we played some guy in an AC/DC t-shirt put his Marshall stack on the stage and for about 15 minutes striaght blasted out all his favorite riffs, like over the regular canned music and people talking. I hated it. No one stopped him. I thought, "he's opening for us opening for ourselves." Since the first band had to cancel we went on early. So we were our own opening band.
I leaned over to elizabrth and asked "Are we out of our element?" "Yes," she said quickly. "What is our element then?" She said "Mm...Artsy." That made may be true, but from time to time is fun to storm the castles, as it were.
Phil Freschete our one time keyboard collaborator came to the show with some Valpo crew. He was out from LA for a visit back home. (He's touring and playing with Beck, and recorded an album for Beck's cousin.) It was weird, my knowledge of his recent sucess in the music seemed to draw the best out in me while I was playing.
The next day was spent entirely with Elizabeth and I count it to be a great day in our life together. We went to a wedding of her distant relation and we were so silly sitting there in the back of the church, people watching and having fun at people's expense. We were so bad, so bad, but it felt so right. The first part of the priest's meditation was like a stand up routine. He said, I quote, "Women love military men...they already know how to take orders." I was waiting for the "But seriously ladies and germs," A few sentences later he said "They say love is blind...but marriage is a real eye opener." groan. The guy missed his calling.
After that we made a stop a starbucks for a latte and some change for train parking. We hopped on the metra to took it downtown for Elizabeth's 10 year high school reunion. We took the metra and shared my iPod ear buds. I took a video of us listening to it (the song was "Gigantic" bt the Pixies.) We were on the upper deck and across the way from us were four black girls, teenagers. They all had great shoes. E and I were jelous.
Her reunion was nothing like mine. It was in a place called "Dave and Busters", a Chuck E. Cheese's for grown ups and corporate parties. The food was good, but the people, by and large left a little to be desired. I felt really bad for Elizabeth. She had changed quite a bit, a lot of people didn't recognize her and the real heart breaking thing was that no one came up to her first to talk. Everyone we talked to, we approached. But we did have some cool conversations, but it was not the life affirming smile fest that my reunion was for me and I think that made E feel down. None of the old cliques allowed themselves to be penetrated or dissolved like at mine. It was stuffy. During the awards, I felt like saying "Let's have some teamsmenship." I mean no one seemed to care. Ok, I'll be frank - big city, private religous school, lots of kids born into priviledge - stayed snotty and grew into spoiled suburbanites. At one point, right before we left, I looked at Elizabeth squarely in the eye and I said "You know, I took you away from all this." She almost cried and we walked out.
The walks to and from the train were euphoric. It was warm and calm, which is odd for the "windy city." If you ever get to Millenium park, go see the "bean" a massive, mirror in the shape of a kdney bean the size of a house. The refelctions it makes, especially when you are under it are dizzying.
My eyes look sadder than I actually felt. They say, "I'm doing today on four hours sleep."
When we got off the train, we rolled over to Becky and Lizzy's house in Hammond. I spun the "Street" mix and played London Bridge really loud in honor of Elizabeth's hat. The party was such a breath of fresh air. All the crew was there - Adam, Mike and Jillian, Sara, these guys John and Steve and some people I didn't know. On the back patio I made the metaphor that human secrets are like the ocean and the internet is like a submarine.
"What happened to Jacquline?" "She..didn't really love me."
I got a little silly, Elizbeth fell asleep. We danced to some Belle and Sebastian. Made fun of Lizzy's soggy crackers. We crashed it late, so we weren't there long. But it was fun.
The drive home was slow and sleepy, but the sleep was quick and happy.I need to get over myself.