2005-08-13

Haunted.

So in an effort to conserve funds so that we might one day move out of the apartment we've been living in since the night Princess Diana died, the houseboy and I have drawn up a budget of sorts, and jettisoned all things deemed "unnecessary," such as ordering pizza every Friday night, having the newspaper delivered, and (gulp) cable television.

Yes. Yes, chickens. Lisamcc, purveyor of all things pointless and pop-culture, has been severed from the electronic umbilical cord. It was painful at first, but I'm getting used to it. I'm actually READING a lot more now, and am about 3/4 of the way through a book about Squeaky Fromme that I picked up at a used bookstore the other night. It's terribly interesting. I mean, it's not SO interesting that I'm going to take up embroidery and pledge allegiance to Uncle Charlie, but it is a rather good read.

One thing that we are making allowances for are shows. It's just that they have to be REALLY good shows, such as the Gang of Four reunion. Next month we're seeing Paul Weller, and last week we saw The Knitters.

Holy shit were they awesome. Understand that I am somewhat of an X fanatic, and this extends into The Knitters, which is 3/4 of X plus Dave Alvin of The Blasters, doing all roots music, all the time. I wormed my way pretty close to the stage, and just gaped at Exene Cervenka, who is so beautiful that I almost cried a little bit.

In fact, the only thing making this not-quite-as-completely-awesome was this unbelievably inebriated woman and her considerably-older, creepy-looking date. She was trashed well before the show even started, and was bobbing and weaving all over the place. She became fixated on one of the people I was hanging out with, my acquaintance having asked her earlier to kindly stop falling drunkenly into us, and when she wasn't jumping up and down like an oversized toddler, was trying her best to start a fight with us.

I watched her with a mixture of all kinds of unpleasant emotions: disgust, anger, pity. The houseboy assures me that I was never that out-of-control, never that mean and ugly, when I was drunk, but at the same time I watched this woman and felt such deep sorrow and empathy. She was clearly an X fan, had probably been looking forward to this show for weeks, and she was so shitfaced that there's just no way in hell that she remembered any of it.

About halfway through the set, something or someone pissed her off sufficiently that she scowled, grabbed her boyfriend and huffed out of the club. The relief in the general vicinity was palpable, and the rest of the show was just even better without having to fear for anyone's safety, but this woman still haunts me for some reason.

lisamcc at 3:19 p.m.

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