Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Picture Show 1

This girl thought she was a princess. She wore a tiara. I hated her.
You can see the douchebag with the jacket/hoodie combo. I feel like he often holds elongated objects close to his mouth.
The mutual friend taking the microphone during Bon Jovi I think.
Same. I like to call him country western Jesus.
He has a beard, long lady like hair, a western shirt and pointy boots.
Look at that hair, he could be in a Loreal commercial.
Derril cozying up to his lady.
Country western Jesus avoiding a straight on picture. He's an elusive beast.
Derril is puzzled by the lack of rhythm in the rhythm section of this band.
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You can kind of see the lead singer on the floor. My favorite part is the yellow hat in the corner feeding the bass player beer. Adorable.
My arch nemesis pretending to play an instrument.
This picture was probably taken while I stared longingly at HIV girl.

Finally, I caught the beast in all it's glory.
Derril smiles because he loves Ke$ha.

Taking a picture of Derril and his awful knock off iPhone.

Thursday, March 04, 2010

The Time I Saw A Cover Band

As stated in the story directly below, I was at a bar in the armpit of the armpit of America. The reason we were there was to see a 3rd distant cousin or something that was in the band. The band was awful, I forget the name and I'm not even going to bother to look it up because they were so bad. It would be sort of a form of promotion if I said that name here, which they do not deserve.

When we first walked into the bar they were playing "Tik Tok" by Ke$ha - interesting to note because there is so much auto tune in the original song that any cover of it will instantly sound awful (not that the original doesn't sound awful, but just imagine this song being sung by a female singer who has lost her voice at least 3 songs ago and actual instruments that dont keep time.) What made this even better was that Derril doesn't know any top 40 music, so I got to explain to him what each song was as it came on. In case you were wondering, other hits of today included a second rendition of Tik Tok 30 minutes later, some Journey, I feel like Avril Lavigne was in there, and they closed with Bon Jovi (as mandated by New Jersey law).

Note: I'm actually quite angry that I can't remember each song they played, because they played a lot of recent songs and just destroyed all of them in the worst way possible. Oh wait, they also covered Sublime, where a drunk guy took the microphone and started singing as the bass player wildly waved at the "sound guy" to cut his microphone. He did this at the expense of playing his instrument.

Let's go through the band member by member:

Female Singer - I'm not sure if she lost her voice or if she just normally speaks like she's on pace to get a voice box by age 34, probably a combination of both. She tried hard, and definitely rocked, but her voice was beyond gone and she was as attractive as you expect a 20 something singer in an awful cover band to be. She was the star of the group. BY FAR.
Grade: B-

Lead Guitarist - Looks wise he was completely non-descript, kind of like his parents made him take guitar classes forever but all he wanted to do was play video games, so he never developed a love for any one type of music. Which is why he plays in a cover band in Manville. I guess he played well enough because I could always tell what song they were playing, so ummm...hooray?
Grade: B

(Here comes the fun part)

Rhythm Guitarist - This fella alternated between guitar and keyboard (sometimes in the same song!) and looked like he was the most cliche douchebag in the world. His attire included, a sweater, with a hoodie over it, with a sport coat over the top of that. His hair was perfectly/imperfectly quaffed to the correct level of messiness and he was tall enough to stick out above the rest of the band. I wanted to break his knees with a ballpeen hammer. Performance wise he was on the level of a third grader. You haven't lived until you've heard him play Ke$ha on keyboard.
Grade: F-

Bass Player - The bass player was the most audible one in the band - constantly over singing off key into the microphone and overwhelming the lead singer. He was also the dick who shut off the drunk guy's mic and he routinely just stopped playing the bass to look cool or to sing. There were several times where Derril winced at how loud and off some bass notes were. It was that bad. He also had long stringy hair if I remember. Just picture Andrew WK.
Grade: F-

Drummer - This man was the reason for the band being awful. He just could not not not not play on time (pretty sure it's the drummer's job to be on time) and so every song went from too fast to to slow and some parts just were missing drums because he forgot, I think. It was so bad, I feel bad for making fun of him, like he literally might have a handicap where he cant count to 4.
Grade: Incomplete.

Tomorrow: A picture essay of the evening.


Wednesday, March 03, 2010

The Time I Almost Got HIV

Manville New Jersey is a disgusting rat hole of a town. The only real thing you need to know about it is that it used to be the asbestos capital of the world. That sums it up, if you spend an inordinate amount of time in Manville you will contract mesothelioma (whatever that is, I've seen a lot of day time lawyer commercials about it though) and die.

On a recent trip home to New Jersey I was essentially forced to spend time at a bar in Manville because a friend of a friend's friend's cover band was playing at a bar that could've doubled as a port-a-potty (in both size and smell! To be fair, the town always smells like shit, so it has that going for it). The bar was filled with mostly twenty somethings and a few obvious Manville residents - you could tell from their surly disposition, obvious eastern european heritage and overall "aged" look. Let's just say this, if I ever get to a point in life where I'm 55 years old and sitting alone at a bar oogling 23 year old's and smoking Marlboro Red's with the filters cut off, kill me. In fact, pull off my fingernails first just to see if I still feel any pain, because at that point I may just be a leather mannequin.

So on to the story, in the midst of the Manville garbage was a girl who was beyong stunningly beautiful (although beautiful might not be the right adjective, more like porn star hot, but classy porn star.) Whatever it was about her, I was just kind of in awe of her all evening. She had a killer body and a back tattoo that took up over 85% of her shoulder and she just carried herself in a way that oozed sex appeal (yeah, she definitely had the porn star/hooker vibe). Let's just call her Ashley Dupree and hope she didn't sleep with any governors.

Anyway, my dear friend Derril and his girlfriend dragged me out after a long day where I was already cranky and the 3 pound Arby's roast beef sandwich sitting in my stomach didn't help matters. Upon seeing her I immediately told Derril how hot I thought she was. His response, "We think she has HIV." I didn't know whether I should be more horrified in the fact that she has HIV or that Derril frequents this bar or group of people regularly enough to know intimate details of their lives. Either way, it was like Magic Johnson all over again.

I asked why and how he knew this and he claimed that he knew of someone who slept with her and he DEFINITELY had HIV, so the chances were likely that she had it, but that he hadn't told her yet. (Before you gasp about how awful this is, remember it's Manville, and there is a chance that the asbestos remnants have formed antibodies that fight off other diseases. Also, everyone in Manville might have HIV, that's a possibility too.).

While this conversation was going on, our mutal friend was busy hitting on her HARD, even though he also knew she possibly had the HIV. We watched her dance with him and another guy simultaneously for a few songs, then push our mutual friend away as she was whisked off into the corner with the other guy, leaving our friend in a state of "holy shit, what just happened here." (But not before he got one last beg in, where he sort of forced himself between the two and tried to keep it going, it was hilarious.)

While recovering from laughing, I stared at this girl make out with the other guy, in the creepiest way possible. Alone, across the bar and in a dark corner. But I couldn't help it, Ashley Dupree was hot and to top it off she was making out in slow motion, like she knew she was being filmed for a porn. Just ridiculously long mouth movements, she slowly would trace her lips with her tongue and then bite her lips. It was bizarre that anyone would make out in such an overthought way, I realize drunk people can get sloppy, but this was the opposite. Almost like she was madly in love with the guy about to get HIV. Half porno/half depressing Nicolas Sparks movie.

My attention was snapped back into place when some girl put her drink down on the table in front of me, forgot it was there, and the sat on the table, sending her drink flying into my lap. Then the bouncer came over and looked at me like a) I spilled the drink over the fine burlap sack couch or b) I just pissed my pants. It was not good times, until I remembered that I don't live in Manville, didn't get HIV (it's not airborne, right?) and that the cover band was on their second ground of Ke$ha's "Tik Tok."

Tomorrow Part 2: The Cover Band.