discofever

I apologise for not making my appointed rounds. There was a sudden connection outage that Cox Cable could not clear. I am guessing that there was likely a bundle of fiber optics involved in the loss of service, an errant backhoe, angry workmen and service orders and threats of Ahll sue yuh! But the connection LED on the front of the cable modem is blinking away happily now.

Bartenders are usually quite happy to serve me. They tend to treasure patrons who order simple drinks, who tip well, who busy themselves with books rather than start fights or jump off balconies or whatever. I take pride in causing as little work for people as possible and on Wednesday every patron in the bar seemed to agree with me on this point. We would order our drinks unobtrusively, pay promptly, and let the bartender continue flirting with the cute young thing at the end of the bar. Their conversation was sweet and a bit nave and contained lots of exclamations like You like that? I love that! The joint was full of men, most of them single and alone, but not one eyed the bartender or his charge with hate. There was a touch of envy but mostly everyone tried to hide their smiles in their beers.

ElimiDate, a television show that airs late-night, came on as I was sobering up and apparently they have filmed episodes in New Orleans. For those who have never seen this show, or even watched television, here is the premise : one glamorous person flirts with four people of the opposite sex on camera in some local hotspot and then decides that one of them is not up to his or her snuff. Repeat until there is one left. You tend to get the dregs of humanity on this show. But dregs have never been packaged this well. The show only uses the most beautiful people that our most common and base cultures can produce. There were two people on this particular episode that we recognized, a guy who appears in Das Coffeeshop, a girl who goes to the Lebanese restaurant down the street. Sarah sat and aimed hate rays at the girl, we both rooted for the guy, who is a screwed, blued, and tattooed exotic dancer, the only certified freak that Ive ever seen compete in a reality TV show, we hoped he would win but he missed the final cut.

Ive only watched Elimidate three or four times, each time while waiting to sober up, but seeing people I recognize in it was disturbing and that television show will be avoided at all costs now. This is not hard as my secret addiction is Cheaters.

Friday I had word that a novelty indie act was playing at a venue called the Manhaus, and I had to go. Never found the joint. It was supposedly located in the deep edge of Bywater, a neighborhood with nice, down-to-earth people but high crime rates, the address I had led to an empty lot. I drove around with my windows down, listening for loud thumping electro beats and eating a bad of dried fruit, but I heard nothing. Two things I will remember from this. The first is that King Rogers Seafood on St. Claude has coon meat in stock. They advertise this loudly, two banners, each that says WE NOW HAVE COONS in three-foot letters. The second is that the dried fruit were prunes and I absent-mindedly ate the entire bag. And this this caused problems throughout the night.

I support all hockey mullets. You can have a mullet and not play hockey but I will mock you. But to skate and bash people with sticks with your mullet trailing behind you like a superhero cape, this is what hockey was meant to be.