i'll suck the marrow out...
Dylan plays on a stage by himself for once. It makes him look smaller, holding his acoustic agsinst his torso, his figure framed by blown up celebrity mug shots. Bob Dylan. David Bowie. Dylan says "the next song is about someone that died for reasons I won't go into" and the people sitting at the bar shout and groan at the basketball game playing on the tv with absolutely terrible timing. The man at the door misplaced the admission stamp and ran out of change, so I stand at the door feeling like it's extra obvious that I came out alone tonight.
"My girl is a seamstress or at least that's what she tells me but she brings me my drinking money so I don't ask" he sings and he looks strange without Andrew on his right, without Coty sitting at drums behind him.
I think of the last time I was at this bar, with old friends from San Francisco who ate french fries and played guitar hero on the big screen while we waited for their show to start. This time I sip a PBR at a table far too large for one person and write in my journal by the light of the cigarette machine and think "there are still cigarette machines?" The whole place smells like fried food and Dylan steps off the stage to take a bite of a burger that a girl at the nearest table offers up and then he plays a cover of that Rancid song that I like so much. I can tell I haven't eaten in a long time because the beer feels stronger than a PBR ever could be. I can see traffic out the window and I wonder what sort of person comes out to SE 82nd Ave on a Wednesday night for an acoustic show with a $2.00 cover.
Dylan sings on that empty stage just as loud and strong as if he was with the whole band and covers it smoothly when something at his feet disconnects and his guitar stops making any sound. Big mug shots of Richard Pryor and Tupac look stern and angry behind him. Two lights blink on and off. His voice is "whiskey singed" or something like that, says the review on his website. It sounds like a voice that holds a record of everything that's happened in his twenty-some years, plus a card catalog of centuries of persecution. I'm never totally sure that he remembers my name.
He finishes and shakes hands with boys all in black that approach him. Afterwards, he sits at a table full of friends in front of the stage and listens to a girl named Kim play quieter than he just played runs fingers through his hair while he listens. At corner tables in bars and venues all over town, I sit with a cheap beer and a journal wishing that I was a musician. Or dating a musician. Or something. Dylan leans over and smiles at the girl he'll be marrying once summer time comes and I wish that I could reach across the table and touch someone's hand but I'm the only one at this table built for eight. My weekend lurks closely. One more day until a party and a show and playing cards at another bar while the sun is actually still up. Next weekend is a crazy trip to SF with an old friend but tonight, those things feel very far away and Kim is getting louder, she is asking for more reverb, and I sit thinking of what Bob Dylan and David Bowie would think if they weren't just dead boys in mug shots. Emma Hill, who I've listened to onilne, gets on the stage and does a Postal Service cover with Kim, their voices sounding distant and vintage, voices from an album recorded in the 50's. Time quivers. The songs are unnecessarily punctuated by the sudden clacking of pool balls hitting and rolling down the tracks, percussion that nobody asked for. The night swells and contracts like it has a heartbeat. People stare vacantly at the t.v. and sip pale cheap beer from smeary glasses and kill time. Emma Hill and a boy I don't know jump up and start dancing to a cover of that "Shake it Like a Polaroid Picture" song and I think of the fact that Kodak stopped making Polariod film and that kids growing up now won't even know what this song means eventually...but I guess eventually people won't know any of these pop culture references.
Kim finishes with Rilo Kiley's "A Better Son/Daughter" which makes me grin unexpectedly. I find myself sitting here in front of the cigarette machine, in it's dingy light and wondering how many cookies and cupcakes I'd have to make to convince these boys to remember me.
They take the michrophone down and start moving amps around. That means it's time to go be weird and awkward until I finally get up the nerve to say.... "hi dylan."
"My girl is a seamstress or at least that's what she tells me but she brings me my drinking money so I don't ask" he sings and he looks strange without Andrew on his right, without Coty sitting at drums behind him.
I think of the last time I was at this bar, with old friends from San Francisco who ate french fries and played guitar hero on the big screen while we waited for their show to start. This time I sip a PBR at a table far too large for one person and write in my journal by the light of the cigarette machine and think "there are still cigarette machines?" The whole place smells like fried food and Dylan steps off the stage to take a bite of a burger that a girl at the nearest table offers up and then he plays a cover of that Rancid song that I like so much. I can tell I haven't eaten in a long time because the beer feels stronger than a PBR ever could be. I can see traffic out the window and I wonder what sort of person comes out to SE 82nd Ave on a Wednesday night for an acoustic show with a $2.00 cover.
Dylan sings on that empty stage just as loud and strong as if he was with the whole band and covers it smoothly when something at his feet disconnects and his guitar stops making any sound. Big mug shots of Richard Pryor and Tupac look stern and angry behind him. Two lights blink on and off. His voice is "whiskey singed" or something like that, says the review on his website. It sounds like a voice that holds a record of everything that's happened in his twenty-some years, plus a card catalog of centuries of persecution. I'm never totally sure that he remembers my name.
He finishes and shakes hands with boys all in black that approach him. Afterwards, he sits at a table full of friends in front of the stage and listens to a girl named Kim play quieter than he just played runs fingers through his hair while he listens. At corner tables in bars and venues all over town, I sit with a cheap beer and a journal wishing that I was a musician. Or dating a musician. Or something. Dylan leans over and smiles at the girl he'll be marrying once summer time comes and I wish that I could reach across the table and touch someone's hand but I'm the only one at this table built for eight. My weekend lurks closely. One more day until a party and a show and playing cards at another bar while the sun is actually still up. Next weekend is a crazy trip to SF with an old friend but tonight, those things feel very far away and Kim is getting louder, she is asking for more reverb, and I sit thinking of what Bob Dylan and David Bowie would think if they weren't just dead boys in mug shots. Emma Hill, who I've listened to onilne, gets on the stage and does a Postal Service cover with Kim, their voices sounding distant and vintage, voices from an album recorded in the 50's. Time quivers. The songs are unnecessarily punctuated by the sudden clacking of pool balls hitting and rolling down the tracks, percussion that nobody asked for. The night swells and contracts like it has a heartbeat. People stare vacantly at the t.v. and sip pale cheap beer from smeary glasses and kill time. Emma Hill and a boy I don't know jump up and start dancing to a cover of that "Shake it Like a Polaroid Picture" song and I think of the fact that Kodak stopped making Polariod film and that kids growing up now won't even know what this song means eventually...but I guess eventually people won't know any of these pop culture references.
Kim finishes with Rilo Kiley's "A Better Son/Daughter" which makes me grin unexpectedly. I find myself sitting here in front of the cigarette machine, in it's dingy light and wondering how many cookies and cupcakes I'd have to make to convince these boys to remember me.
They take the michrophone down and start moving amps around. That means it's time to go be weird and awkward until I finally get up the nerve to say.... "hi dylan."