my mother always said good things come to those who wait. and it's always
true. i've been waiting to see the super friendz and al tuck on the same
bill since they last played together at the oasis this summer and man,
was i pleased to hear they'd be touring together this november. and then,
pow, wouldn't you know it, i have to WORK. from 10 til 2. argh. but, as
my mother said...
2:30 am. i'm waiting around for my supervisor to sign my timecard (ho
hum) and i still have to go downtown to fax my mother my christmas
list. shut up about my life, i know it sucks. so i figure while i'm in
the area, i'll go down to the night gallery to see if any of my (drunk)
friends are still stumbling around. i climb the stairs and turn
around and see charles standing there talking to my friend james *f.e.r.*
hayden. james smiles and asks how work is. ha ha. james helped me to find
this job, he knows how stupid and boring and blah blah blah...it can be.
we start talking.
"hey tara."
i turn around and shawn duggan's there, with a smile. (shawn is helping
them sell merch and what not on this tour, you know him from his day gig
:) as a cinnamon toast boy). we talk of how cruel the road can be, how
fun the road can be, and how freezing cold the canadian prairies are. "so
are you going to come back to halifax any time soon?" he asks. "well as
soon as it's feasible," i tell him, ever hopeful. "gotta go make the
label a money making venture and all that." we discuss the state champs
for several minutes. i jokingly tell him i don't even like their music
and he seems rather shocked. "you don't *like* them?? why?" he demands.
duh. of course, i'm kidding. he seems relieved. i'm not sure why.
matt walks towards us and grins and we began a conversation about how
they *might* be coming back in a few days to play at an all ages show
with fire engine red and wagbeard. yeah, with al tuck, too. ooh, i'm
feeling a lot better at this point in the evening/very early morning.
charles sort of stumbles over to me and taps my arm..."hey hi how are
you" he says in that voice that means either he's totally tired or
completely wasted, perhaps a bit of both. :) anyway, i admire their tour
poster (the colour one, wow, it's nice) and he says i should take it. i
stupidly don't and some other guy gets it. oh well. "al blew us away
tonight. we really sucked," sums up charles. "oh, well i'm glad i missed
it then," i reply somewhat untruthfully. "so...do you prefer tear-a or
tar-ah?" he inquires. you see, the super friendz have a history of
changing the pronunciation of my name every few months or so. i tell him
to think of this: to write my name, you'd need to 'tear-a' piece of paper
out of a book. "so are you going to come back east?" "yep," i say with a
smile.
al, by the way, has taken advantage of the very generous bar tab yet is
amazingly coherent. matt attempts to introduce al and i, even though we had
spoken before. we talk about the muchmusic appearance he made. "so how did
it come across?" he inquires. "insincere?" he suggests before i can reply.
i tell him that it was an interesting piece, what with those artsy hand
held shots that whatshisname from the gracebabies (yeah, he's mike
campbells' lackey in case you care) took.
charles walks off to carry gear into the van and continuously runs into
al at full speed nearly knocking him to the floor. al's guitarist,
however, needs no help in hitting the floor. he's LOOPED!!! he falls over
and tries to ride matt's amp while matt is carrying it across the floor.
"watch your guitarist" he murmurs to al. "watch my GUITARS??" al asks
somewhat alarmed. "no, your guitarIST" matt says, pointing at el drunko.
every one of them asks me when rebecca west is playing calgary and i
guess at the 17th. al tells me he's supposed to be leaving little clues,
little treats for the rebecca west clan along the way, sort of like a
scavenger hunt. "but," he slurs, "i haven't left them a THING so far."
drew comes up the stairs, we say hi to each other, james waves. it's time
for me to take james home and me to get over to that copy shop so i can
fax my mom my christmas list. james and matt introduce me to lonnie, whom
james has explained earlier on to me is actually a former member of the
Nils. and here i thought he was just some no name kid. :) wowza.
james is in his old school punk heaven. good for him. :) we say our
goodbyes, the super friendz promise to try to come back for this all ages
gig and james and i are on our way.
"so you know who al's new guitarist is?" he asks me, a gleam in his eye.
"no, not really," i admit. "he's another former member of the Nils! I'm
*lovin'* the Nils boys!" (you have to know james to get how funny that
last bit is). we laugh and continue on our way.
and now it's way too late to be awake. i'm sure they're all dreaming
peacefully over at marc's mom's house, getting rested up for the big
drive to edmonton again. too bad they have to leave so early, we had
hoped to have the bunch of them over at cjsw to spin a few songs on
my boring radio program tomorrow afternoon but because the edmonton
show is an all ages affair, it would be hard for them to make it on
time. maybe next time.
and so, this concludes the adventures of me and al and the super friendz
in calgary on a blustery winter night.
tara, data entry loser
--
"`Well, all my Sloan shirts are in the wash,' Mulder says sarcastically."
:) :) fuh fiction fuh four :) :)
***CJSW 90.9 fm --> http://www.ucalgary.ca/~cjswfm***
