Who: As Friends Rust • Further Seems Forever
I had forgotten how much I love Mike the VTL, COSI Mike, the Mike whom I pseudo work with. A couple of weeks ago, I was at a "My Parents are Out of Town" get-together of sorts at Mike's friend Tim's, and as we sat listening to a little band called Further Seems Forever, Mike suddenly announced that he was planning an excursion to Cleveland that was to involve seeing them live. I asked him to take me. He agreed. So, a few days ago, he brought up the excursion and asked if I was still coming, but when he reminded me of the date, I realised that I was to have my wisdom teeth out just two days prior to the event. I wasn't about to let my aching mouth disrupt my plans, however, so I told Mike to give me a call on the day of the concert to see how I was a-feelin'. And he did. All that morning, I battled with myself, saying that if I didn't go, and I would hate myself, and if I did go, I would have a miserable time of it in all of my toothless glory. Nevertheless, when Mike called, I found myself copying down the directions to his new house and actually dressing myself in a concert-y manner.
When I arrived at his place at 3:58 PM, Mike's little purple Neon was nowhere to be seen. I didn't think much of it and knocked on his house's door, which stared back at me with a smirk, obviously mocking me with its information of Mike's whereabouts. Rather than risk anything with the door, I simply called Mike's cell phone, which he answered from inside Kroger. While I was awaiting his arrival, Mike's neighbor came out of his half of the house to the porch where I was leaning and asked, "Waiting for Smail or insert some indiscernible name here?" I eyed him blankly and finally said, "Waiting for Smail," which he accepted as explanation enough and went back inside. I was then quite sure that the neighbour was watching me from the window of his half, so I extracted my compact mirror from my purse and toyed with my hair for a while to give me something to do other than contemplate the fact that Mike was unlucky in getting the whole number rather than the half number address that belongs to the house's halves.
A few minutes later, I heard some rattling inside the house that signaled Mike's apparent arrival from the back, so I put on my uninterested face and waited for him to open the door for me, and as he did so, I remember thinking how great he looked in his stupid brown-ish Chemists Have All the Solutions t-shirt and his dark jeans with the rolled bottoms and his black Vans. He immediately headed to what appeared to be a kitchen down the hallway to put away his groceries, so I busied myself with the DVD collection on his bookshelf until he called out for me to have a look around. His house was really quite what I expected from him, meaning that it was the perfect blend of 14 year-old male, music junkie, and art-y intellectual. I dug it all over the place, especially the blue plastic doctor's waiting room seat that was the entirety of his living room furniture. After I "borrowed" an ice cube to soothe my talking-with-raspberry-Jolly-Rancher-in-mouth-induced tooth socket pain, we left for Cleveland.
I feel like we discussed very little on the way there. I always find it odd that I can spend 6 hours in a car with Mike going to and coming from Cleveland and still know not a thing about him. He'll burst out with a story about his early college days or one of our mutual friends or one of our mutual bands every now and then, but I think we mostly just have really comfortable banter about being gun-lovin' white folk when we're together. I like that. We stopped at a Pilot travel center, which Mike described as "frickin' awesome", to grab some cheap gas, and when a woman tried to edge in front of us in the line for the pumps and act all "Rico Suave in her SUV" according to Mike, he decided to take it out on another cheap gas-wanter by filling up and then leaving his car parked at the pump while we ventured inside the Pilot's Wendy's for a frosty with which to accidentally decorate my pink polyester pants and some fries, which Mike devoured in less than .02 seconds. The hermaphrodite waiting patiently behind Mike's Neon gave us a head shake of disapproval as we took off again. And I don't know where the time went to after that, quite honestly. The next thing I knew, we were nearing Cleveland, and Mike asked if I cared to stop and grab some more food before venturing to the concert club. As it was 7 PM and the concert was to begin at 8 PM, I asked if we had the time, and after telling me that we had loads, I found myself smack dab in the middle of a Denny's for the second time in my life. Mike and I had a work story-dominated dinner of omelettes and other such artery-clogging delights as we listened to an American Airlines employee explain the plight of his dog's lice-infested derrière to his stereotypical Jewish parents. Oh, the once-scabby horror of it all was revealed, but thankfully, some hair is again beginning to appear back there. Relief.
Something went on with the bill-paying that I'm really quite unaware of, but it involved me giving our waitress a $20 tip and seemed highly suspicious and illegal, which just about everything does with Mike, actually. He chose to leave our money on the table rather than taking it up to the cashier, a sure sign of felonious activity, so the manager of the place followed us out and asked if we had paid. I told him to hike on back to our table for his goods, and we continued on our way as he did that. Getting off at the next exit, Mike's MapQuest directions failed him and led us on a tricky trek through the back streets of Cleveland, where we finally happened upon a motorcycle-riding tour guide, who pointed us in the direction of the Blind Lemon, which we happened upon at around 8:15. Discovering that Further Seems Forever wasn't to play until 11 PM, we decided to take a walk down the street to see the sights of the beautiful ghetto-fabulousosity that is Lakewood, Ohio. Mike contemplated a blow job from a $10 hooker but passed her up for a trip to Drug Mart, whereupon a model-gorgeous male outside asked if we were going to the Further show and self-assuredly relayed to his companions that he could tell that we were by the pins on Mike's black messenger bag. I smiled and nodded my way inside and left my bag with the rent-a-cop as Mike casually mentioned that the studly questioner had been Jason, the lead singer of Further. Wide-eyed, I followed him to the back of the store to retrieve the bathroom keys, which had to be given to us by the attendant at the pharmacy counter. She paid absolutely no attention to us, so Mike cleared his throat and said much too loudly, "Yes, this looks like the place," which I loved. On our way out, Mike stopped in front of the gaggle talking to Jason and waited until Jason stepped toward him, asking, "Yes?" Mike grilled him on his love of cookies before handing over two bags of Soft Batch, which Jason accepted with far too much gusto, something of which I was very appreciative. He asked our names and thanked us graciously once again before sending us on our way.
We happened upon some sort of Catholic Preparatory school, which was alive with the sounds of snooty parents and goosey teachers, and Mike somehow felt the need to venture inside, so we did. I think that's the most attractive part of Mike. We all know how predictable I am. I would never think to set foot in a strange school full of tired businessmen-parents in my stupid brown-ish Chemists Have All the Solutions t-shirt and my dark jeans with the rolled bottoms and my black Vans, but Mike did. I love that. Yeah, I really love that. In the lobby area, we were sneered at and talked about like toadies, but no one was willing to ask why we were there without our mock Italian suits, so Mike led me to the school's bookstore, where he couldn't just seem to find a sweatshirt to fit his supposed son, Johnny, whom we call Jay, who is apparently a wrestler at the school. We ventured to the cafeteria to consume our punch and petite fours while trying to look as if we were mingling with the high-hats and then continued on our tour around the school, which Mike informed me in his faux aristocratic accent was barely recognisable thanks to the addition of some sort of student learning center. I was really in the mood to discuss Little Johnny's coming year with one of the teachers but knew that I was in no condition to keep a straight face while doing it, so Mike and I finished our punch in the street on our way to Giant Eagle. Mike hadn't been able to properly expel himself while in Drug Mart, it seemed, so he took the time to do that in the back of the Eagle while I stood looking Kim Deal-esque by the milk and milk-related products. I then contemplated buying a roll of cookie dough to gnaw on during the concert, but Mike led me back to the Blind Lemon dough-less, past the retirement home that was showing Dragnet to a room full of no one, as he explained to me that a man we work with only became a Mormon in order to have a constant supply of young boys at his disposal.
Once inside the Blind Lemon for good, I immediately started feeling very old, which is something that a nineteen year-old gal doesn't feel that often. Seriously, everyone there looked like it was his first time in a clubby-bar-type atmosphere, and they were all grouping like little fishies. After showing me a used Lou Reed record that was for sale at the merch table and then telling me that it wasn't for me, Mike bought himself a Madison Prep tee, which bowled me over in all of its cool lacrosse stick-y goodness, and then he headed outside with a catch of my eye as I waded through a small box of LP's. I thought about mixing with some of the kiddies but decided to watch the third band, As Friends Rust, instead. They were bad. I mean just bad bad. Lovely lead singer, but that's not going to carry a band. Mike came back in with one song left in their set and asked if I wanted to move to the front just to stand and be with him until Further came on, as I usually find myself watching concerts from the back of the house or the balcony if one is to be found. As we stood, the tiniest girl who ever existed said to me in the tiniest voice that ever existed, "They really appreciated the cookies!", as if I had anything to do with the cookie-giving. But I replied, "Oh, I'm glad," and she asked if I'm a "big fan". I told her that I'm a Dashboard Confessional girl at heart, and she explained that she and her equally tiny boyfriend are also Dashboard fans and have seen them live before. I congratulated her as Mike interrupted to make fun of her sandals. He apparently hadn't been impressed with my choice of footwear, especially after the straps on my flip-flops started to eat away at the top of my feet on our twelve-mile trek, and he mocked Tiny Girl for her little flip-flops, too. He seemed to be almost concerned about the fact that our feet would get trampled on, but in reality, he was just using shoes as a way to point out idiocy. Ahh, such is Mike.
After some set-up and some of Jason being far too polite to his soundboard guy, thanking him for each adjustment, which I admired, Further Seems Forever began. To put it simply, Lead Singer Boy has pipes. Here he is, only nineteen or twenty years old, trying to prove himself in a band of members whose ages range from the mid-20's to the late-400's, and wow, is he doing a job of it. He seemed like a little kid just having fun on stage, sticking out his tongue and standing on his monitor and singing down to Mike as if he was incredulous at Mike's knowing the lyrics. It was very impressive . . . all twenty minutes of it. Seriously, it was the shortest show that I've ever seen, but I would call it well worth the drive. When it was over, I turned to Mike and whispered nothing but "wow", and he said, "I know what you're thinkin', little missy," but I was totally uninterested in Jason's beautiful arms sticking out of his little Dashboard shirt and totally interested in how energetic the show had been. And then as we were leaving, a guy randomly handed us fliers about a Relient K show, and I learned that Mike met Relient K right around the same time that I did, which surprised me. I should really just stopped being surprised by Mike. I should just assume that one of his old college roommates went to high school with the Get-Up Kids, but I find myself in awe that he even knows who the Get-Up Kids are.
Once we were back on the highway, I vowed that I wouldn't fall asleep as I always do when someone else has the wheel and tried to focus on the Rufus Wainwright that Mike allowed me to play. (Mike claims that he's heard Rufus on CD101, my radio station, by the way. I'm not so sure.) My focusing didn't work a lick, though, and I soon found myself dozing off for moments at a time, only to wake and find Mike swerving to the side of the road, nonchalantly endangering my sleeping self when he thought that I wasn't looking. I couldn't help but watch his speedometer, as my head refused to acknowledge the support from my spinal cord and kept drifting to the left, and I noticed that his speed was 0 MPH. His needle wasn't moving a bit . . . and he didn't seem to find it the least bit odd. We stopped at a gas station in order to allow Mike to pump himself full of sugar, where he mocked my grammar skills when I asked, "Can I come in?", as he was leaving the car running. I informed him that I use improper grammar to make others feel as if they don't have to be on their toes to impress me all of the time, but strangely, he didn't buy that. Mike bought a gallon of water, which he drank straight from the bottle, reminding me of the town drunk with his liquor in a paper bag.
And then suddenly, we were back in Columbus, listening to The Offspring's Gone Away and discussing getting picked up by vengeful cops. We were both nonexistent brain-wise when we arrived back at his house, and I didn't want to impose and invite myself to spend the night, but luckily, he offered. I think that I'm bothered by the fact that he invited me to sleep at his house without a moment's hesitation when he has a girlfriend of several months. I want to be threatening, darn it! I wanted Mike to have to call the woman to make sure that she was okay with the fact that at any moment, I could have seduced him with my wily charms and polyester pants. But no. He just laid down on his living room floor on one of those pillow things with the two arms, while I planted myself in the blue waiting room chair, and we watched some television story about the safety of Central Park at night. Highly romantic and suitable seducing material, let me tell you, but then Mike interrupted my plans to ask if I wanted to watch a DVD or something, so we popped in O Brother, Where Art Thou?, which I had yet to see. I was totally awake at that point, but about forty-five minutes into the movie, I started noticing very relaxed, sleepy breathing coming from below me, so I plopped myself down closer to the TV, which was turned down low for the comfort of Mike's resting neighbor. Mike woke up a short while later and told me that he wasn't going to make it much longer, evidently not realising that he had already not made it, and informed me that the bed was mine for the taking. So, without realising that there was only ten minutes of those Soggy Bottom boys left, I marched myself to Mike's room, took off my overshirt, laid it on his bed, and went back to the living room as I heard him begin to wrestle around on the floor. I then watched Mike get up and walk into his bedroom, stand there for a moment looking confused, go to the bathroom, and then come to lay right back down on his pillow. So, thinking that he really was uninterested in his bed, I went back to the bedroom, where I found my shirt moved to a side table, and positioned myself underneath the covers. I sat pondering for approximately twenty seconds and then decided that there was no way that I could comfortably sleep in Mike's bed without Mike there. I didn't find it peculiar at the time, but I felt as if sleeping in Mike's bed without Mike was improper with him in his girlfriended state, so I carried his comforter back to the living room floor, where everything seemed safe and platonic. By this time, the DVD player was rolling credits, so I rewound, laughed at the simple brilliance of the movie, turned everything off, and went to sleep.
Perhaps two minutes or perhaps two hours later, I found myself being butt-slapped by Mike, who apparently was either checking to see what was under his cover or had finally given up fighting his urge to grab me. (You may snort, Mike.) And not being satisfied with that, he lifted up his blanket, did some more checking, and moved himself to his bed after some berating from me. And this has nothing to do with the concert at all, so I'm just going to end it by saying that I left at around nine the next morning to take a friend's thrifting virginity with four hours of sleep in me, and as I was getting into my car, my John Travolta look-alike Weimar and the Third Reich in German Literature and Film professor from OSU went jogging by with his dog. I think that about sums everything up.
Where: The Blind Lemon Concert Club • Cleveland, Ohio
When: Thursday, September 6th, 2001