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| Still my #1 jam. |
So I've been gearing myself up for this show all week, I didn't have a date but was going with my friend Lauren who has had my back in two bar fights that I can remember and apparently three that I can't, AND she is also single, but not nearly as chronically as me, so who knows? Maybe with some coaching and liquid courage this would be an ideal chance to meet a guy and give up this life of debauchery and pooping with the door open.
We start out at Lauren's apartment, Lauren just got off work and so while she's getting ready I help myself to some beers. Like, five beers. We hop in a cab and make our way downtown and realize that we're still like, an hour away from the doors opening at Ritual, so we head to a tiny little pub-style joint and sit at the bar and chat but more importantly I start ordering Old Fashioneds.
In case you're unfamiliar an Old Fashioned has been called the original cocktail - it's a mixture of whiskey, angostura bitters, water, sugar, and orange peel which leaves your eyes watering and tastes like a barrel of jet fuel fell off the back of a truck on the highway, hit a guardrail, and sprayed all over an orange grove. I started ordering them because truth be told I wanted to be that girl who drank whiskey and was mysterious and knew her shit, but I continue to drink them because all other typical cocktails have lost their kick - I can down 'em faster than you can say 'cirrhosis' and end up being that girl who gets drunk at 8 p.m, won't stop requesting the Humpty Dance, and ends up puking into a mailbox. So the Old Fashioned worked, for a time - they forced me to pace myself and instead of nervously guzzling booze in order to try and immediately quash my sense of awkwardness when faced with most social situations that don't require screaming at refs or yelling at schlomo bouncers trying to eject me from their respected establishments, I ease into a drunk that is manageable but more importantly not hyper-aggressive and Messy with a capital Gross.
Unfortunately, my body, as usual, is trying to fuck with my clever, clever program, and has adapted my tastebuds into thinking that Old Fashioneds are no longer grimace-inducing stink waters but delicious and thirst-quenchingly innocent, and therefore I'm able to down four of them in an hour. This is not right, and it must be the five beers already partying in my tummy-works that blind me to this fact and cause me to miss Lauren's raised eyebrows as I sling back the whiskey concoction in two swigs and tell the wary bartender to keep 'em coming.
I am, at this point, about seven parts alcohol to two parts human. But Lauren has seen me rally from worse, so she drags me to a shwarma joint, crams some pickled turnip down my throat and then we clatter down Nicholas Street to make our appointment with Matt Mays.
Let me tell you, awesome show. The opening act, July Talk, were tight and had stage presence to boot. They are the last clear thing I remember because Ritual was serving Red Stripe in stubby bottles and man do those things go down fast. Not to mention that Lauren has developed a taste for what she calls 'jager bomb cocktails' which is just loading a rocks glass with as much jager and redbull it can hold and drinking them like water. She buys me a few and that's when things get weird.
I dance, I scream, I applaud, I push and shove a bit, but apparently not enough to get in any serious trouble, and then that's it! Shows over, Matt Mays takes some bows and exits, much to everyone's disappointment. As me and Lauren are deciding what bar to head to for some last call drinks, we notice a line forming stage left made up entirely of young ladies and Matt Mays at the front of it, posing for pictures. 'Well!', I said to myself, 'this is an opportunity you might not get again Maddy - you should definitely line up in an orderly fashion and shake the hand of such a talented young musician.' But with all the booze what really formulated inside my buzzing skull was 'MATTS MAYSSSS! PICTRURE!'. So stumbling but confident I managed to push myself to the front of the line with Lauren in tow. I'm told that in response to multiple cries of 'hey! there's a line!' and 'no budding, man!' I, at top volume, informed the disappointed and annoyed throng of girls that I didn't speak to peasants and proceeded to throw an arm around an undoubtedly super impressed Matt Mays, slurred some highly sexual, incredibly inappropriate and possibly illegal suggestions into his ear as well as my phone number and posed for Lauren's camera.
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| ...Is that fear in his eyes? |
I don't have a drinking problem, I really don't. I just get either so awkward or bored in bar type scenarios that I have to find some way of curbing the cynicism, and they're selling the alcohol right there, soo... As far as I can tell the only problem I have with drinking is that I don't have enough people, including a certain special someone, to do it with. I'm still waiting for Matt Mays to call.
