a muppet, a nun, and a trombone walk into a bar...

last night at a bar not to be named, dos equis and i took in that most brilliant experience offered up by the band the dead hensons. with trumpet, accordion, and trombone along with the more usual electric guitars and such, they will rock your fuzzy blue face off with songs from sesame street, the muppet show, and electric company. and they did it last night via rock & roll that occasionally verged on ska, blues, and klezmer. they weren't just profiting off of the concept, but executing it really well and having lots of fun.

at this unnamed oaktown bar (ahem: barbie collection), i apparently got drinks for about half the price as when dos equis went up to order. while hey, this is a happy thing for my budget, it sucks on a general level. well, and it sucks for my budget, too, because when dos equis bought the drinks he did so by extracting all the cash remaining in my wallet. i'm a little puzzled by this because the bartender did not appear to notice me in any way unless i got aggressive with the eye contact (i had to physically pull out my eyeballs and throw one at him) and in fact seemed more inclined to ignore me in order to talk more to his favored patrons and the party they were at the other night and whether one partier was still tripping or not.

there was also a goth girl there dressed like a nun. a skinny hipster politely peeled away from the bar so i could elbow in and order something, as the crowd was three-deep. the 'nun,' who was sitting next to me, had just ordered, and i watched the bartender pouring tabasco and tomato juice and worcestershire into a glass shaker with vodka in it. it looked appealing, so i turned to her to say, 'that looks good. is it yours?' she said, not sarcastically, 'yeah, it's called a bloody mary.' well. that was nice of her to explain it to me. i guess that, despite all the stray white hairs that stick out annoyingly from the top of my head, i still look like i am 14.

one of the opening bands, a really good one also featuring a trombone, had screen-printed their name TOP BROWN –> on a bunch of thrift-store t-shirts and were selling them for $1. i mis-heard, thinking they were called 'top ramen,' so we drifted over to the table to check out the disappointingly-not-top-ramen shirts and i idly picked through them while dos equis got some dead hensons stickers. TOP BROWN –> was packing it in, and one of the members asked if i wanted to buy a t-shirt. i mumbled something nonsensical, having a sudden attack of the shy, and he picked up a lime-green polyester wifebeater and said, 'here, have this one' before shoving the rest of the shirts into the box to go. sweet. and a good thing, too, because dos equis needed that $1 for our last drink.

if anyone is interested in doing an undercover anthropological experiment with me at this bar, please let me know. we can order the same unsuspicious pairs of drinks, pretending we don't know each other, and then rendezvous by the pacman machine to discuss. are the prices cheaper for grayhaired teenagers than for fake nuns? or more expensive for guys in hoodies than guys with moustache-n-mutton-chop combos? inquiring minds want to know.