Bringing the Drama

So I told you I would be watching the US/England game in Denver, right? I ended up watching the game with a couple of thousand other people in the middle of a blocked off street in the light rain. It was awesome.

Since my friend Jacob ended up not being able to come to Denver, I was determined to show up two hours before kickoff to watch the game at an Irish pub near Coors Field. I walked out of the Hyatt with my American flag bandana on, because of all days to wear my patriotic bandana in public, June 12th would be a day. The Irish pub plans changed after I showed up and saw no empty seats and the viewing angles for the possible areas to stand pretty much sucked. I ended up at this place called the British Bulldog. My mom had actually found out about it in a magazine or something and told me about it. After a phone call and a google search, I had the location and started walking.

I arrived about 11:15 or so, a little over an hour before kickoff. There was a pickup soccer game in the street, and the beer line wasn’t long. They had what looked to be Carlsberg on tap at the truck outside, but I did see someone with a can of PBR. I never went and investigated where the red, white, and blue cans were though. Adriene and Brandy were going to meet me there later in the day, so I got a spot under an awning and started to wait. There were a ton of people there already, but as the kickoff neared, the crowd swelled. I’m not sure how the Irish pub ended up, but this place to watch the game was WAY BETTER. The beer line grew to half a block. I had chosen not to start drinking until closer to the game, but with that long line I just abstained.

The crowd was pretty electric considering we were outside in the light rain. I moved out into the street just before the game started. When Gerrard scored, the smattering of English fans cheered while everyone else stewed. We had been so amped up and it all came crashing down just a few minutes in. It did not help that it began to rain harder too. Dempsey’s goal shot new life into the crowd. It’s one thing to celebrate with some friends, but with a couple of thousand other people it was great.

Adriene and Brandy showed up just before halftime, and the rain stopped. Things were looking up. Everyone collectively was up and down during the 2nd half. No goals were scored, but there were some close calls. It was nice to have the same reaction as other people like when Altidore struck the post. When Rooney missed on a header in the 2nd half, I yelled out something about how he was going to be eating beans in a trailer. I’m not sure how many people got that I was referencing the Nike commercial, but at least Adriene laughed.

Since the game ended in a draw, nobody really went home disappointed. Well, except maybe the English fans. I was kind of hoping for a miracle win or something, but I could live with a draw. It was cool walking away from that place with people wearing flags and face painting with people driving by and honking. It was definitely a game we were proud of, and I got to watch it in the middle of a blocked off street with a couple of thousand fellow crazed fans for free. Can’t beat that.

BTW, that’s my unemployment beard. I stole the idea from Coco.

If you missed the game here’s a 4 min highlight reel.

I started growing my beard out again the week of the HALF MARATHON. It started out innocently enough, I was just going to do a No Shave November, but then I remembered how I wanted to grow it out for the final two months or so of 2007 and couldn’t. So I was going to grow it out through the end of the year and then shave it. Then I started getting compliments about it. “that beard is epic” “your beard looks good” “it’s so thick!” People liked it, I kept getting unsolicited comments. So then I thought “okay, I can let it go a little while longer.”

I was talking to my friend Brandon at work last week, and told him I was leaning towards shaving it off. He told me I should wait, and I told him that now it’s gotten to the point where if I shave it off, it’s a little over two months’ work gone. Gladly, the beard is not tied to anything sports related, so I didn’t feel compelled to shave because of the Saints or Hornets. I had the beard in Nashville while watching the Cowboys game. [photo credit: Brandi]

Thursday I went to the gym to run since it has been too cold to run outside. I passed CGG as I was leaving, but looked away plus I had my beard and glasses on, and avoided eye contact. Friday I went back to work out, and he noticed me and called me by name. The beard lost it’s disguise factor. Also, I found out CGG is part of the cleaning crew, which makes me think he’s not really related to the owner. That’s another story.

Saturday night my friend Jacob and I were finally going to hang out after two postponements. I shaved my beard down to a mustache. I had just gotten tired of the beard, plus with the disguise factor going away and other factors, it had to go. I had gotten the mustache idea from when Jacob had done it a couple of years ago….to go out with a mustache. I ended up being late because the beard took so long to shave off. I thought the mustache came out pretty well.

Sunday before meeting up with family to go down to the WWII Museum, I shaved the mustache off. I’m clean shaven for the first time since late October. It’s a brave new world.

The whole ‘post every day of the month’ was in trouble tonight. I couldn’t come up with anything during the day, then I went to see the Hornets actually play with effort and toughness and upset the Suns. My favorite player, Peja, had a HUGE night. He had one 3 (of his SEVEN) that initially hit the rim, bounced straight up, and then went in. Awesome. I have not figured this team out, but I definitely think the coaching change has helped. I got home about 10:45.

So I mentioned that after the Pete Yorn show was over, Jacob and I got a picture with the tambourine player/merch guy/stage dancer guy after. The picture is below, Jacob used it on his Whiskerino page. This was the ‘casual’ pose, which mostly for me means “stare off into space as if something is going on off camera”. I call it ‘Beard Trifecta’.

And maybe he doesn’t look like David Bazan as much as we thought, but it was dark in there.

So last night I met up with my mom to go to the Hornets game, and then right after that, Jacob to go see Pete Yorn. I ended up being able to go as Jacob’s +1 (ie FREE) since our other friend Jacob had to bail. After the game, which the Hornets WON, I made my way down to Republic. I hadn’t been there since seeing Death Cab 3 years ago. I was able to find a parking spot a block away, it was a snap. I walked up about 9:45 and didn’t see Jacob. I did see the tour bus and stood on the sidewalk with the smokers. Some people really should look in the mirror when they smoke to make sure they don’t look completely awkward. This one guy looked very awkward with a cig in his mouth. Not only is he slowly killing himself but he looks like a dumbass doing it.

As I was standing there waiting for Jacob, Pete Yorn got off his tour bus and was talking to a couple of people. I texted Jacob to coax him to hurry up, and luckily we met up a few minutes before PY started. We obviously had missed the opener, who happened to be GIVING AWAY his EP at the merch table. If you’re giving away your EP, it probably sucks. The fact that they were being given away played a factor later in the evening.

The way Republic is set up now, is they have couches near the back, about ¾ of the way back between the stage and the merch table area. People had been sitting in them, so when the show started they stood up. Of course people stood up right in front of where we were standing, so we booed them. One of the guys turned around and Jacob then noticed the guy’s friend had an Iggy Pop shirt, and said we were just kidding, which we were, for the most part. The dude in the Iggy Pop shirt apparently is dating a rather tall girl, so of course she came over to stand with him. Then they started dancing and making out, which was weird. They were standing in front of the couches though, so it wasn’t a big deal view wise. PY must have this crazy dancing/PDA vibe, because there were a few people doing this. Later on in the show all of those people were standing in front of the couch, with Jacob and I standing behind it. During a song a few minutes later, the guy in the black shirt who had turned around, reaches over to his friend in the IP shirt, who is dancing with his chick, and tickles his underarm. Jacob and I looked at each other and telepathically exclaimed WTF? We laughed at what had just happened. I would never tickle a male friend’s underarm and don’t understand the logic behind doing it in a public setting.

We weren’t really paying attention to the songs that were not on musicforthemorningafter, so when PY was playing a new song, we went in search for High Life. There were plenty of people drinking it, and as connoisseurs of the HL, we figured there must be a special. There was a special, it was $2, but when we went to the bar they were out! OUT OF HIGH LIFE! I wanted to give the bartender $3 for a HL and they were out. It was a complete travesty, esp when we were offered Bud Light instead for $4 (not including tip). We declined and went back to standing behind the couch. Then I realized that the other bar on the other side of the room may still have HL. We walked over, because PY was playing another new song, and the other bar did have HL. We toasted on our way back to our spot. The night was going so well!

Upon returning to our spot, some idiot decided he wanted to get a better view of the stage, so he’s standing on the back of the couch, above everyone. I think he was intrigued with the drummer doing something in front of the drum kit. Problem was, he kept standing on the back of the couch and blocking our view. We yelled at him to get off, but he probably didn’t hear us. The next thing I know one of the opener’s free EP’s hits the dude in the back, causing him to turn around, and get off the couch. He looked around as if he didn’t know who threw it, and seemed to ask his friend “what just hit me?” Jacob and I laughed as we judged them, and clinked our bottles of High Life.

The show itself was alright, but like the time I saw PY in 2003, it just wasn’t GREAT. I mean, he comes out and plays his songs, but they’re not that much different than the album really, and he doesn’t talk a lot. The band was good though, and there was a guy whose job it was to only play tambourine. He had a majestic beard, and we both thought he reminded us of David Bazan. When the band came out for the encore, I yelled for Burrito. It got a reaction from some of the people in the crowd, and a group behind me got really excited, but they didn’t yell Burrito too. I yelled it again but then PY started Crystal Village or something. It’s a fine song, but not Burrito. PY did play my favorite song, On Your Side, and played seven songs off musicforthemorningafter, which was fine by Jacob and I.

At the end of the night, we got a picture with the DB look-a-like. I’ll post the picture when I get it emailed to me. We stayed around to try to get a picture with Pete Yorn, but after 15 or 20 minutes, it didn’t seem worth it anymore with it being almost midnight on a Tuesday, so we left. I got home about 12:35. It was surely a late night, but a great night. Word.

In the 2nd half of my college experience, back when I was young and naive, I bought cds like they were going out of style. I probably spent half of my intern money on cds after my first intern semester. I sometimes would drive up to Greenville, SC just to go to the record shop when I was working in Greenwood, SC. Not every visit netted something important, but I did happen to score a vinyl copy of the Pearl Jam live album, which apparently is out of print and worth more than the $12 I paid for it. My 5th year when I had an on-campus job, I probably still spent way too much on cds.

The year I was living in Clemson being a bum, (aka believing a headhunter really did have an ‘in’ for a job for me and was just working things out) I went to the local music store a lot. The owner gave me the inside scoop on new bands, and I was always a sucker for albums that were $6.99 and $7.99, no matter who they were. If someone recommended them, I’d buy them. I found John Mayer this way before ‘No Such Thing’ broke. Yeah, I am that cool. I also found this guy, Pete Yorn. His first album is still one of my favorites. My friend Marika and I called him the mimbo. It used to be ‘smoldering mimbo’, but now I think it’s just mimbo. I may be the only person still using the nickname. Anyway, he had a song on his 2nd album called ‘Burrito’ that Marika and I would laugh about. I saw him live in 2003, and he played Burrito that night. It was one of the highlights of the show.

I had seen Pete Yorn listed for a NOLA tour stop a couple of weeks ago, but seeing how it was on a Tuesday was going to make it difficult to find a concert friend. With friends being married and maybe with kids now, they somehow don’t have time anymore for weeknight concerts. Anyway, so I was talking to my friend Jacob last week and he asked me if I wanted to go see Pete Yorn. We’re going Tuesday, and we’ll both have beards because Jacob’s in Whiskerino again and I’m growing mine out again. If time permits, I’ll get a picture. Word.