Drunk Chics in High Heels

I went to The Blind Tiger tonight to see Malcolm Holcombe. As a result, I have decided that The Blind Tiger and Malcolm Holcombe are mutually incompatible. Malcolm Holcombe plays listening room music. The Blind Tiger is not a listening room. The Blind Tiger is a neighborhood bar trying to disguise itself as a music venue. Clearly, it has the makings of a music venue. It has a decent sound system and sound engineers who know how to operate it. It has a stage and a green room. To some degree, it has decent acoustics. There is no reason for it to fail as a music venue. Except the person in charge of publicity - if there is one - fails to publicize shows.

But I digress.

I went to The Blind Tiger to see Malcolm Holcombe. And it is always a pleasure to see Malcolm Holcombe. Until drunks arrive.

Holy fucking shit. I am still so angry I could spit.

These drunks that arrived were your standard variety drunks. Nothing special about them. Upper class wannabes. Dudes in khakis and polo shirts. Chics in Walmart party dresses and five inch heels. They were all loud. Especially the chics.

Malcolm is slight, crumpled, wiry and wild. He beats on his guitar with the restraint of a savage. He half sits, half stands while his body rocks and his head shakes and he stomps his foot on the stage as if he's trying to awaken the demons that slumber under the earth. He drifts into some distant sphere while keeping one eye fixed on this one. If anything happens that he feels he needs to address, he hollers real good.

The standard variety drunks arrive and make their standard variety drunken commotion. Earlier in the evening, I turned to a group of three boys who were talking during Malcolm's performance. I walked over to them and told them that they could go to the back of the house to talk: somebody's playing music up front. I turned my back on their jeers and their sneers and tried to focus on Malcolm's music. It took a good while for the rage to subside in me.

So when the drunks who didn't get enough attention from mommy and daddy and who never excelled at anything in their lives and who needed more than anything to feel important started to re-kindle the fires of anger in me, I started to have imaginings. I imagined myself ordering three cups of ice from the bartender and proceeding over to the mess o' drunks and dumping each cup onto the heads of the most obnoxious ones. I imagined myself approaching the single most loud and obnoxious chic in the bunch, grabbing her by her bleached-blonde hair and yanking her out into the parking lot where I threw her down onto the rough asphalt and kicked her in her Walmart special. I imagined running into the group and kicking, hitting, bitomg and yanking every which-a-way to cause as much pain as one person could possibly inflict upon a group.

I did none of these things. Instead, I approached Danny Bayer, my boyfriend, and told him I had to leave. I was too pissed off. Danny, however, had a half-full beer. We stayed so he could finish it. During this time, Malcolm had begun to survey the situation. Once fully apprised, he addressed it with one of his abstract parables. He hollered to the high heavens and the depths of Hell in case no one was listening. The drunks heckled him. And he hollered again. And I came to recognize that the elaborate and seemingly nonsensical story that Malcolm was engaged in telling was his own unique version of simultaneously flipping the bird, blowing a raspberry and saying "Fuck all y'all!" His message was lost on the intended audience. But the rest of us howled with laughter.

The Malcolm supporters gave a generous round of cheers and applause after his final number. And Malcolm most graciously received their gifts.

After Malcolm, a band called Troubel from Boone played. They were a bright, energetic, melodically and harmonically tight unit. Guitar, banjo, cello, violin. Most of the audience had left. Danny and I stuck around and soaked up the sweet sounds.

At the completion of one song, a drunk chic staggered, nearly falling off her high-heeled shoes, up to the stage. She wore a strapless dress, very short, which she kept hoisting up at the bust. Apparently it was continuously falling down and her boobs, consequently, were always on the verge of falling out. At any rate, she leaned way over to address the band members, seemingly to request a song. Adam, the lead vocalist, told her, "I'm sorry. We don't know it." She requested another. "Sorry. We don't know that one either." The drunk chic couldn't believe they didn't know whatever it was she requested. She became demonstrative. Adam said, "Sorry. We only play originals." At which point Danny and I and a couple of other folks let out a mighty cheer. The chic protested. And Adam said, "Yes, they were originals, when Johnny Cash did them." And then he addressed the audience and said, "I'm sorry folks. We don't know any Johnny Cash tunes. But here's a tune we do know." It was a pretty perfect moment.

All in all, I left feeling that true art had somehow triumphed over blatant ignorance. This time around, anyway.