The National at the Bowery
Anyways – what's with our drinking culture? What gives? That's one thing I kind of like, traveling through Muslim countries where alcohol wasn't a social lubricant: without the pressure to drink and the haze of the stuff, conversation was much more interesting.
Went to see The National last night. I was waiting around for Claudz at the entrance when one of the bodyguard hauled an (obviously) inebriated guy out, gave him some kind of juice, and proceeded to bang on the poor kid's back until his dinner waterfalled out.
Gross? Yeah, definitely. When I got home, there was another drunk guy on my street. He pointed at me and a couple of other people on the way home and started to yell "Step the fuck up or shut up!" Then, in typical drunk fashion, he wanted to talk to me (I was sitting on my stoop with a bottle of Lipton Iced Tea).
While I was getting the tea, the Undies-girl in front of me (I call her that because her jeans were falling down as she was getting out of the subway, thus offering a free peep of her pink lace undies for all of us who were exiting behind her) was purchasing a 40 oz can of Coors. I couldn't help but judge in some way – sucks to be her, dragging a single can of beer home at that hour. Was she going to drink by herself? Save it for a barbecue the next day? Give it to her loving boyfriend who was watching the dog at home?
Anyways – what's with our drinking culture? What gives? That's one thing I kind of like, traveling through Muslim countries where alcohol wasn't a social lubricant: without the pressure to drink and the haze of the stuff, conversation was much more interesting. It's like alcohol is an easy mask for us to put on so we don't have to engage with others.
Anyways - all that as an aside. The concert rocked! Matt, bless his heart, got a little tipsy at the end when they were performing Ada. He climbed the amp and rocked out. It was cool for the audience, but after he came down, he started knocking microphones over and at one point, even grabbed the wrong mic to start Mr. November. I learned to like a couple of new songs (Cherry Tree, Fashion Coat), got to hang with Claudz who's always down for a good time, and because of the horrendously long wait time for the Brooklyn subway (an hour!), got a good chunk of reading done on Rushdie's "The Ground Beneath her Feet". Check out The National! Dark, funny and ironic – they're good for you couples out there (and awesome to rock out solo too!)
I always have thought of alcohol the other way, takes peoples masks away, induces much more interesting conversation (when drunk in moderation....which.....can be hard to do) thoughts?
Posted by: vinny | June 05, 2007 at 08:55 PM