Took the gang out to Sundown in the City last night. Mic Harrison, formerly of the V-Roys, opened, with some loud metal band helping him out. The headliner was an Australian named Xavier Rudd, who played guitar and aborigine instruments that I can't spell simultaneously - really made some amazing sounds that pleased the Aging Hippies in the crowd. I liked it the way I like Jack Johnson's music. It's pleasant listening, good for work, but it doesn't grab me by the earlobes the way Elvis or John Prine does - the words don't really seem to be that integral somehow. And I don't mean that as an insult. It taps into a different part of my head - it's restful somehow.
Anyhoo, incredible people watching! Goth kids, preppy kids, kids who climb on rocks, chic grandmas, the afore-mentioned aging hippies, young hippies, Yuppy scum, anorexics by the dozen, and me and mine sitting in the middle of it all. I really didn't mean to stare. And I don't think of myself as nosy, per se, more interested in my fellow creatures. The rather plump lady chugging beers in a too-too tight pair of denim shorts was talking loudly about how her husband shouldn't buy her anymore beer because she couldn't stand up anymore - when Xavier Rudd starting grooving, she did too. As God is my witness, I have never seen anyone attempt a lap-dance standing up. And I hope I never do again - but it was like a train wreck. I couldn't look away. She's grinding into her husband, frontways, backways, sideways, sometimes with a rose between her teeth, sometimes chugging beer. Now and then, she'd take a smoke break, and some twisted part of my mind wondered if she could do other tricks with her cigarettes. I guess she had a good time. I know she's got a massive hangover this morning. I'd bet $5 that she passed out before any actual sex happened and I'd bet $10 that her husband was glad.
Since all these folks I'm watching are strangers to me, I make up their stories. The skinny girl puking in a trash can was holding a bottle of water, while her pony-tailed boyfriend held her hair out of her face - they looked like New Hippies to me, so I figured they were doing 'shrooms and that made her sick. Or maybe a bad veggie burger. She made a quick recovery.
The anorexic girl curled up in a lawn chair, while three older men stood talking around her - she was a trophy wife gone repentant, hating the middle-aged paw that caressed her bony shoulder in ever more possessive fashion. The kids with the pink hair - well, that was the most interesting thing about them. The gray-haired punk in combat boots was most likely a stockbroker (albeit a very cool stockbroker) reliving his wild youth, but somehow, aren't we all? Man in Green T-shirt was headbanging so hard I thought he was going to hurt himself, or somebody else - he looked an awful lot like an ex-boyfriend of mine, had time stood still. That ex-boyfriend would've been dancing just like that. Deja vu all over again.
And that was Sundown in the City.
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