So I was out last night. To the Cat Club in West Hollywood. For a hilariously cliched evening. My old colleague Bryan Master tends to hang out there because he is a Rock Star. Every week, on Fridays, he would come in totally exhausted because he’d been out all night with various metal/rock musicians. And I always said I’d come down & meet up with him and check out the band and generally rock out.
So I went last night, and had a great time. I didn’t get there until almost 12:45, but I walked right in to find Bryan happily ensconced in the band. My new friend playmayt has the listing of who was playing. I was clueless because they were all from bands a little before my area of expertise. My specialization is grunge, not metal – I could tell you half the musicians from the Seattle grunge era, but not the G’n’R lineup. But even though I wasn’t familiar with the original bands, the guys on stage were very much ROCK STARS, and were also ridiculously talented. So not only did I get the fun of watching a total rock star cover band, but I also got to watch very talented musicians having a good time, and playing their favorite songs, from about five feet away, and nothing impresses me like, say, serious keyboard skills.
It was just kind of a very L.A. rock scene thing to be in the middle of, something more cliche than not – and the ridiculous number of cougs hanging around the stage certainly made it more so.
I’d already had a busy day before that though. After work, I had a CODE PINK peace vigil outside the British consulate. At which the L.A. co-founder reminded the news cameras that the same number of civilians are killed or injured every day in Iraq, and we don’t see them making the news. As my mother always says, “violence begets violence” – and that’s why I went. I don’t think that those innocent people would have been murdered (in cold, horrible blood) in Britain two days ago if their government hadn’t insisted on leading them into a war that the British government had doubts about to begin with.
I opted to ride my bike to the vigil though, so as not to deal with parking on Wilshire, and lo and behold, I got honked at for being in the only lane available, by a fucking LAND ROVER. And no, not the kind that gets used, but the kind that some jackass has to show off how much money he has by blowing it on a needless SUV. I should have turned around, gone up to the car, and informed him, “hey, jackass, don’t you dare honk at ME, I’M not the one driving a POINTLESS FUCKING VEHICLE. I’m the one NOT using the gas, and I’M the one risking MY ass in a city that doesn’t have space for cyclists.” But then again, that’s why I go to Critical Mass – to raise awareness for statements like that. Still, despite my permanently calm, Zen-like mentality these days, where I find it impossible to get angry or to really hate, that’s the one hatred and anger that I don’t feel I need to get past. I refuse to get past my anger for SUV driving assholes who can’t share the road with me for thirty seconds until I can get out of their lane. I really need to start carrying “SUV’S SUPPORT TERRORISM” stickers and slap them on cars that annoy me on the road. Zen only goes so far, and then I start guerrilla warfare.
I have a whole other rant on how cars as a status symbol is destructive to society, but I’m late to meet some of my boyz at Daily Pint – my favorite Vegas buddy frat-type boys, that is. I’ll have to post photos when I can get them of the Cat Club last night though. That was definitely one of the more colorful things I’ve been to lately.
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