Let's Unlovables!

Last night was a good old-fashioned Year2 of Yes dilemma: Should I spend a restful evening at home or should I drag my lazy butt out to Brooklyn to see a rock show featuring Hallie's amazing band The Unlovables?

Reasons to stay home: It had been a long day, I was tired, the show was far away and late at night and I'd be going alone and I only had oatmeal and carrot cake to eat all day and my life is very hard and wah-wah-wah.

Reasons to go: I wanted to. They hadn't played in what seems like a year, so I ought to take the opportunity. And it had been a pretty craptastic week, perhaps these minstrels would soothe my jangled nerves and get me psyched once more.

Obviously, I went, otherwise the entry's title would've been "Let's (Not) Unlovables!", or I wouldn't have written anything at all, like my unwritten entry "Let's (Not) Go to the Two-Day Employment Seminar Thing Because They Never Sent Me a Confirmation Email and I Didn't Want to Go at, Like, 8:00 in the Morning!"

And it was fun (the Unlovables show, not skipping the seminar, though skipping that was fun, too). It reminded me of the old days, when I'd go out alone (because I didn't know anyone) to some random event, be it a crazy $5 play, burlesque show, band, a "quiet party," whatever.

It was a good, strange nostalgia to have to fend for myself for a few hours, with no one to talk to and trying not to feel too alone or awkward, while slowly drinking my drink so I'd appear somewhat busy.

But I feel like I've gotta go to music shows by myself. I don't want to drag someone to see an unfamiliar band, because what if they hate it? That would suck. And even if they liked them, they wouldn't know their songs, so it isn't as much fun.

At least, that's how it is for me, so I assume it's the same for everyone else in my circle of life. I don't want them to have to sit in a dank bar basement (aw, but the dank, Moe, the dank!), listen to unfamiliar bands (though one had a nice cover of "You May Be Right" and another did a cover of the Night Court theme song, which pleased me to no end), and wait a few hours for the main event.

Actually, maybe this is learned behavior, because once I took a girl I'd just started dating to a similar show featuring similar bands at a similar venue. And in my fictionalized memory, I remember her smiling politely as people bopped. We broke up soon afterward.

Anyway, the night (both last night and the night of the half-imagined bopping) was worth it, because the Unlovables rocked. They always do.

The only thing I wanted was to hear Hallie sing "Samantha," which is my favorite song of theirs, and then they played it for their final number, so I chalked the night up to a success.

Then, as an added bonus, I got to briefly meet the actual Samantha afterward, which is like meeting Superman or Gordon Ramsay or Kermit the Frog face to face. You always figured he existed, but weren't sure, but then there he is, looking just the way you always imagined.

For all my whinging and hand-wringing beforehand (although I always knew, deep down, that I'd go to the show - there was a reason I spent about two hours killing time at Borders reading Death Note), their songs did indeed soothe my jangled nerves, and I traveled home, probably the only psyched person in Astoria at 1:30 in the morning.