That Guy

My friend, Tanisha, works at The Living Room down on Ludlow Street on Thursday nights. I visit her and she gives me free drinks. This is a slightly complicated process since she is the service bar bartender and customers can't get get drinks directly from her but rather through the waitress. I lean on the bar as she makes me whiskey sours - heavy on the sour, which does not mean light on the whiskey. She turns to her right and gives the drink to Matilda, the waitress. Matilda turns to her left and hands the drink to me.

While i get tipsy for free, i listen to whatever well-intentioned artist might be playing. Jenny Owen Youngs played tonight. I had never heard of her before but she's my new favorite. I assume that she, like so many female singer-songwriters aged 12 to 16 in 1992, was inspired by Ani DiFranco. Jenny actually has managed to develop her own attitude and style. She sang and played guitar with another guitarist and a drummer. They had some surprsising melodies along with satisfying predictability. (Of course! After the slow vocal/guitar intro comes the driving bass line. Or something.) Jenny's rapport with the crowd endeared her to me even more than her music. Complaining about the warmth of the lights, she said, "It's like a holocaust, but with heat instead of people dying." I believe that should be the new meta-politically-incorrect catchphrase. "It was like a holocaust, but with a job interview instead of people dying." "It was like a holocaust, but with a cab ride instead of people dying." Anyway she's good and you should listen to her because there are fewer and fewer songwriters that have voices to carry the lyrics they write.

Before Jenny's set started, some guy next to me turned to his friend and said, "Gotta turn off my phone before the show begins. I don't wanna be that guy." Looking at his skinny, sculpted like tiny purple flames mohawk and Carhartt "work" jeans, i thought, you already are that guy. Perhaps you've managed to overcome your insecure self-absorption enough to silence your cell phone (although, i'm guessing it was an attempt to refer to your new Razr or Treo), but your Livestrong bracelet is showing and i suspect there is a tribal tattoo circling your bicep underneath your thermal t-shirt. Give it up, guy. The more you resist becoming "that guy," the more you will become him. Just avoid saying the N-word, even if you REALLY indentify with hip-hop.

Earlier in the day, i was strolling throught the East Village. I passed a woman i had never seen before, who, as i passed, said (to me? i don't know.), "She's a black dogwalker with an orange scarf and my leg has a cramp." I thought, i am black. I am weaing an orange scarf. I walk dogs. This situation leads me to several questions: First, what the fuck? Who are you? How did this limping, overweight New York woman know anything about me? Where has she seen me before? Has she seen me before? With a dog? How does she know i'm the walker and not the owner? I was a good 30 minutes from my dog-walking route during our encounter and based on her slight handicap and girth, i had to assume that she wasn't very far from her home. Striking the possibilty that she knew me, i must believe that this is a revelation from the Universe that i am being noticed and taken care of. I don't get the whole leg cramp thing, though.