#ivan's

When it’s over it gets real sad.

A few years ago, nearly every single person I regularly socialized with lived literally no more than two miles from my house; I'd jokingly threaten to never visit them if they moved beyond the zone. But of course they eventually did: in the course of half a year or so almost all of them moved, and I was left feeling like Ishmael floundering around in the heaving surf, clutching a coffin, and mourning my fate. This is perhaps a little melodramatic. 

In the subsequent years I've hung tight with the few other bits of flotsam left in the wake, but I wasn't expecting to fetch up against any welcoming shoals anytime soon (sticking with the shipwreck theme here): I was too old for the kind of socializing that allows you to make new friends, and too much of a loner, and too occupied with a job that made me want to put a bullet in my head. Again: melodrama. 

But I got booted from the job, and wound up with another one that allowed me freedoms I hadn't known since probably high school, and over the last year I've made the kind of gains I thought were all but impossible. The ability to roam around in the night gave me access to new people, and with a swiftness I never expected, I've found myself with a bunch of new friends: I realized with something like a shock a few nights ago that there's somewhere in the neighborhood of thirty people I've become acquainted with. Not to say that I'm best pals with all of these people. That would be excessive. But I've made four or five close connections that feel like they have the weight of real friendship to them. And it's not to say that I've tossed my old friends overboard: the bonds I have with those people go decades-deep, and I'm not about to abandon them in favor of the shiny new things. 

About two, maybe three weeks ago, one of those new people, B, who was both a bartender and the girlfriend of J, both of whom are among the new and weighty friendships I've made, broke up with J and quit her post behind the bar. I went out for her last night to see her off, and sitting there, watch her go about her business, the bar all decorated with well-wishes and goodbyes, I found myself getting deeply emotional about the whole thing. It's not like she's leaving town and I'll never see her again, but she is leaving the place where I most often see her, and I know because of her relationship situation I won't be seeing her as much, and it really got to me. She cued up The Band's version of "Atlantic City" on the jukebox--everything dies, baby, that's a fact--and I sat there and thought about how much I hate endings

A few nights ago, another of these new friends, another bartender, told me she was quitting and will be leaving town sometime around the end of the year: her reasons are her own, and I understand them, but it sucks. I realize things can't stay the same forever, and no one wants to tend bar for the rest of their lives, and I suspect my main reservations come from the fact that she's not just leaving her job but leaving town, but there's that selfish part of me that wants everything to remain just-so, with no changes, or ones so small as to basically be no changes at all. I remember when I read Arthur Conan Doyle's description of Mycroft Holmes--Mycroft has his rails, and he runs on them--with a kind of wretched self-awarness: Mycroft breaking his routine is compared to "a planet...leav[ing] its orbit." I have that same tendency for wearing comfortable ruts. So she's leaving, and I hate it, but it's not something I have any control over, and even if I did it wouldn't be my right. I wouldn't be a friend, I'd be a jailer. 

Last night, late. All but a few of us were still there. The doors were locked to keep the world at bay, and the Kinks came on. K was beside me, and took my hand in hers and leaned her head my shoulder, and everyone sang along in their own way to the words: strangers on this road we are on...we are not two we are one. 

So last week I broke my rule about going out on weekends and went to a bar I don't really like because a friend's band was playing. There were three acts booked, and his was the headliner. The doors opened at eight or something, so I figured if I showed up at nine, the opening act would be done and I wouldn't have to sit through what I figured was some sad dude with an acoustic guitar. How wrong I was. I arrived at probably a quarter after nine, and the opening act hadn't even started yet, so I was forced to do a lot of standing around: this if nothing else is a sure sign I'm becoming a decrepit old man: why do we have to wait so long for the bands to go on? Some of us don't really want to be out until three in the morning. But I digress.

There were a lot of people there, a lot of people I know, or sort-of know, or at least have seen around enough over the years that I feel like I know them. I found myself pleasantly wandering around, able to find someone to chat with without having to turn more than ninety degrees or so.

The opening act, as it turns out, was not just some doofus with an acoustic guitar as I'd feared, but a full band, and they churned out some pleasant Whiskeytown-ish country stuff, the kind of thing that seems tailor-made for me, but, at least in a live setting, is rarely better than Good Enough, and this was exactly the case here. 

The second act, though. Oh boy. I'd been told they were good, and I had my doubts, mainly because 1) I have incredibly high standards and 2) they have the worst band name in history: Them Notorious Cadillacs (a reference, I'm told, to the pimps and drug dealers the band members would see pulling up at Big D's Barbecue downtown when they were playing their earliest shows). But I put these doubts aside: I've known Stephen, the drummer, for years, and I'd just met their singer, Van, a week or so previously, and liked him a lot: I was a little surprised to hear this guy at the bar, a middle-aged black man, talking about Scat Records and all these Cleveland-based bands like Guided By Voices, Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments, Pere Ubu, and others: he was being so geographically specific I asked him if he was from Ohio, but he is a native of Shreveport. My fault for judging a book by its cover. 

So I was more than surprised when everything people had told me about them was true: they are an intense and fun live act, the usual bass/drums/guitars setup augmented by some dense, heavy organ trills and baritone sax. I don't know if you'd call them a punk band with a soul edge or vice versa, but they were really good. Most of their material was covers, but they were of songs I either didn't know or didn't recognize (I think they did a Morphine song?) apart from Bobby "Blue" Bland's "Ain't No Love (In The Heart of the City)", which is one of my favorite songs ever, and their cover did it justice. Van is not the greatest singer in the world, but he is a great frontman: I regret I wasn't able to get a better photo of them, but the floor was packed: everyone in the bar was jumping around and dancing and just having a generally good time. 

The openers, Ghost Foot, my friend's band, are a two-piece. I'd only seen them play once, years ago, at a record store opening, playing on the street, and really didn't remember what they sounded like. They haven't played in years, because the singer/guitarist moved out of town, but he's either moved back or they've decided to work together long distance. Something like that. Regardless: they were great, too. It's just the two of them, but they work up a considerable, Nirvana-esque head of steam: the kids in the crowd at the base of the stage went ape shit, and I just sort of watched, wishing in a way that I was able to whip up that kind of innocent, unselfconscious joy. 

People were still really lit after the show; a lot of them, including me, made their way across the street to Ivan's, where people played Whitney Houston and Madonna and such on the jukebox and danced like crazy.