The weekend

I had an interesting weekend. On Friday I was asked to run sound for a band that the president of my former company plays in. This meant that I would be running into a ton of folks from my former company which could have been rather awkward.

It wasn't. I don't think I've been hugged by as many different people as I was that night. The first words out of the CEO/President’s mouth were "It's really good to see you Poobis."

Drinks and dinner were free, and the times were good.

Then my former supervisor decides to show up. I caught him walking through the door, and he bee-lined to the other side of the bar. This was fine by me. I resumed my evening.

For some strange reason when a band comes back from break to start the second set, they always sing and play louder. It's a trick to pump up the vocals a bit in the monitors so that the performers think they're singing louder, but the sound hitting the audience is still properly mixed. I was in the midst of trying to pull this off when my former supervisor decides to sit down next to me.

He stuck out his hand, and I reflexively shook it. He asked if he could buy me a drink, I just showed him my full beer. He asked how I was doing. I responded, "great."

I was making it pretty obvious that I didn't want to talk to him.

So he cuts right to the chase. "I thought I'd come over here to see if you'd like to catch lunch or a beer some time."

"Why would you want to do that?" I asked.

"I miss you. We were good friends. We had some really good times together."

"Then you shouldn't have lied about me."

"We can talk about that over lunch if you like." He responded.

"Unless you've come to offer a very heartfelt and very public apology for how you misrepresented me to everyone who'd listen to you at [the company] then I can't imagine what the hell we'd have to talk about." My barely contained anger is not so contained at this point.

"I know it didn't happen that way." He says.

I half cut him off. "No matter how many times you tell yourself that over and over again it still won't be how it really happened."

He said, "ok" and went back to the bar for ten minutes and left.

What's really funny about all of this: At the former company, just about everyone there has figured him out. He's become a running joke in the entire department. I've been hearing varying reports about what he's been telling people that I said to him. Quite a few of them have already compared notes, and it's not been the same story twice.

After that the night only got better. I'm not generally a mean person, but I really questioned that after deriving satisfation from the dejected look on his face... but then again, I don't think I've ever been flat-out lied about like that by anyone.

So then it was on to Detroit for the Dirtbombs show at the Magic Stick.

The Magic Stick has to be the best smaller venue I've ever been to. It's what the Newport should be.

On the first floor: Bowling alley, bar, and a hole cut in the wall to allow access to the pizza by the slice joint next door.

On the second floor: a full high-school gym sized room with two bars, eight to ten pool tables, and a nice sized stage.

The fact that it's the Dirtbombs home turf makes it just that much better.