Hey waiter, there’s a monkey in my soup! Or, Daydream Nation: A night on the town with Uptown Sinclair and how I learned to love again

This isn’t the first time something like this has happened to me at an Uptown Sinclair show (my nose still hurts whenever the barometer drops – a painful reminder of my last Uptown show – and incident, but that’s too long a story to tell here to those who don’t know it). And, considering the way these things go, it probably isn’t the last. In fact, looking back on the events of that evening now I am actually able to laugh about the bizarre chain of sequences that eventually propelled such a minor misunderstanding into a the near semi-international incident it became, but at that moment the whole affair seemed coldly serious, possibly cataclysmic, and had nearly everyone, the Uptown boys included, on a razor’s edge. Fortunately, my quick wit was able to douse the rising flames of war and ultimately send the whole place herding off, fully satisfied by another one of Uptown Sinclair’s wild-assed "concerts for the people" (that’s what guitarist Tim Parnin calls them – barely able to conceal his socialist zeal).

Anyhow, I was standing at the bar, having squeezed myself between a pretty faced honey-blonde coed who was chain smoking Kool’s and some fat guy who smelled of liniment oil and looked like a swollen Billy Crystal, in what was amounting to a near vain effort to score a beer when suddenly this arm shoots by the left side of my head and actually grazes my ear. Now, mind you, at first I figure that this was a mere accident, the incidental contact of drinking men and women at the watering hole, that is until the honey-blonde says to me, "That guy just took a swing at you." My mouth was halfway to saying something to the little fox when – WHAM - the sonuvabitch cold-cocked me.

When I finally came too head Uptown honcho Dave Hill, who was packing up the band’s gear, scowled and said to me, "Jesus man, are you gonna bleed at every gig we play? You’re just too violent man. These shows are for the kids to have a good time, not for your redneck brawling."

"But," I paused, rubbing my swollen, tender right cheek, "Ah, forget it."

I laid back down on the sticky floor and stared up into the stage lights.

"Are you going to be alright?" Hill asked.

"Yeah, yeah, I’ll be okay," I moaned, then, as a lame effort to regain good graces, adding, "Good gig tonight, eh?"

"Yeah it was, for awhile at least."

I knew exactly what he meant.

 -----

The evening had started off much better than it ended however, and my pandering "good gig" line wasn’t just a line - it truly was another fantastic show, the sort of which have seem to have become the norm with these cats. But this night wasn’t the norm, my penchant for getting socked aside, not in the least. Oh sure, there were the usual hep-cats and good time rockrollers that the Uptown boys usually draw. And the ratio of drunks to those-who-were-drinking-just-enough-to-get-drunk-but-not-too-drunk-to-get-up-for-work-in-the-morning was pleasantly balanced. But this particular gig was an opening slot, a warm-up for the main event which, from the early looks of the growing gathering, must’uv been an L.L Bean sponsored band of toque wearing, granola munching, reggae listening, snowboarders who’d packed too much of daddy’s college allowance into the bowl of a bong, smoked it all away, and then dropped out to become "ski instructors" on some backwoods Colorado mountain. Ski instructors with the worst sort of taste in music at that. But the pretentious neo-hippy crowd wasn’t even the weirdest gaggle of beings at the show that night, not even by a long shot. What was invariably weird, what was absolutely mind-boggling, totally inexplicable, and utterly flabbergasting was the small but growing crowd of adoring adolescent girls, standing only five feet in front of me, who seemed to be mistaking Uptown Sinclair for another one of Lou Perelman’s concocted and pre-fabricated Boy-Band nuisances.

"Oooh Rob the drummer is sooo cute!" I heard one sigh.

"I like Bill’s sideburns! They’re almost muttonchops! And"

"Oh my God! You guys are crazy, have you seen Dave’s haircut? Oh my God he’s like sooo cute."

A fourth, who could hardly have been all of fourteen years old, was clutching an autographed copy of the bands freshly release eponymous debut disc to her chest and staring dreamily at guitarist Parnin.

I inched myself a bit closer to the girls in an effort to eavesdrop and to try and figure out just what the hell was going on here. Was this another Uptown scheme? I wouldn’t put it past the band to goad somebody’s little sister and her friends to show up at a gig and play this whole boy band thing to the hilt. But as I caught bits and pieces of these girls banter it became obvious that these were no plants – these girls adored the band, idolized them, and in fact at one point, during the bands live rendition of their super swell cut "Superman", were all reduced to an emotional puddle of tears. I was astonished.

-----

After the show, which had been another wildly energetic and successful Uptown Sinclair rock and roll circus affair – complete with a cigarette and candy laden Evil Clown piņata, I figured I’d mosey on over to the adoring girls, introduce myself, and get to the bottom of this whole sordid affair.

"Hi girls," I said with a wink and a nod, carefully clutching my beer chest high – so they’d know that I was hip. "My name is Kurt, I’m a rock writer and a good friend of the band. I couldn’t help but notice that you seem to know Uptown a little bit."

"Know them!" one howled, "We don’t just know them, we LOVE them.
"Yeah, God they are soo cute," another piped in.

"I’d do anything to meet Bill," said the one with the facial hair fetish, slowly running the back of her hand over her cheek.

I took a swig of my beer, emptying it, and said that I’d try to hook the girls up in a moment, but first I was going to go grab another beer. "Can I get you girls anything?"

"Oh my God!" they seemed to say in unison, "You’d really introduce us to them?" They began to hop up and down in a giddy childlike girlish manner and the fourteen year old started to hyperventilate.

"Easy now, easy girls," I said coyly. "Sure I can do that, they’re great guys. Now let me go grab my bee…r…"

I had hardly finished getting the word out when one of the girls flung her arms around me and hugged me, finishing the hug with a kiss. My arms wrapped instinctively around her – and that’s when my pathetic sub conscience betrayed me.

I unwrapped myself from Lolita and went to the bar to grab a beer. Along the way I stopped to congratulate Bill Watterson and Dave Hill on another brilliant evening of Uptown Sinclair brand fun and to also point out the girl-fans whom I’d promised a moment of the bands time. As I turned toward the bar I surveyed the joint for Rob Pfeiffer and Tim Parnin. I saw them near the door and made a mental note to corral them after getting my beer. I maneuvered through the mass of humanity in front of the bar and then pushed my way toward the counter, winding up between the bloated Billy Crystal and l’il Miss HoneyBlonde waving a five-dollar bill at the bartender. I’d never seen my sweet hugging Lolita’s father put away his cell phone and follow me to the bar. He’d apparently driven the adolescent girls to the show and stayed on as a chaperone, lingering in the back of the club watching and waiting for lecherous pigs like me to approach his daughter and her friends.

So when the first punch whizzed by my ear, I didn’t know what the hell was going on. But as the second one landed, had I been able to hear something more than the crunching of a fist against my jaw, the rattle of my teeth, and the ensuing ring in my ears, I’m told that I would have heard this man – my Lolita’s daddy - making his point very clear. "Don’t you EVER touch my daughters ass that way you sonuvabitch. Don’t you dare defile her with your sick perversions, you’re lucky you sick bastard, I should break your fucking head open!"

"So man, are you really okay?" says Dave Hill, sounding like he really means it.

"Yeah, I am," I say. "Thanks."

Hill hands me a shrink-wrapped copy of the band’s officially released disc. It’s the same set of eight fantastic tunes that I’d been listening to for a few months now on a copy Hill had burned for me except that this "proper" release adds a staggeringly good slab of rocknroll classicism titled "Sentimental" to the already potent brew.

"Thanks man," I say as Hill packs up a guitar.

"No problem," he replies.

"No, seriously," I mumble solemnly, "Thanks man. Thanks for the shows, thanks for the disc, thanks for it all man. I’d started to forget how fucking fun this rockroll thing could be."

Hill looks at me whimsically for a moment and then says, "You know what? You’re one fucked-up guy…but you’re welcome."

I laugh until the pain in my jaw turns it into a groan. I lie back down and stare at the lights on the ceiling. The granola band is getting ready to take the stage and someone is telling me to get up and get the hell out of the place. I try to respond but my jaw hurts too fucking bad. A foot nudges me. "Get up," a voice says. "Get up and get out." I roll over and start to lift myself. "Hey punk, I said get up and get out you loser!" the voice pushes me. I try to say something but only mumbles fall from my swollen lip. I get to my hands and knees and see the people staring at me. "Move it punk." My head hurts too bad to try and speak again, but I want to say something so bad, I want to let them know…

"I’m a writer goddammit! I’m a rock and roll writer and this is my fucking life."

I get to my feet and the thug grabs me by the coat and drags me toward the door. I can taste blood in my mouth and I try to work up the strength to spit a mouthful of it onto the big gorilla that has me collared. My mouth opens and my mind tells me that I am indeed spitting, but my jaw lets me down and the bloodied saliva just drips off of my chin and onto my shirt. People are laughing. I yell, "I’m a rock and roll writer goddammit!" but to anyone who cares to listen it sounds more like "Uhmarogrollwitagawhamit."

The Cro-Magnon man heaves me out into the street after showing me like some kind of stray cat to the doormen and telling them not to let me back in. "Fug ooh!" I yell at the closing door of the club. I wipe the spittle from my chin and then stroll to my car. I turn the engine over; I take a sad look at my pathetic visage in the review mirror, touch my now very swollen jaw line and unwrap the new Uptown Sinclair disc. I slide the car out of the parking space and forward the disc to track four. I turn the volume way up. I roll the car windows down and then I hear it - the sweet, sweet opening of one king-hell of a song, "Sentimental".

"Hey now, ho now, come on come on over now, I want to get get sentimental"

I push the volume higher, lean back in my seat, and drive on. After all, I am a rock and roll writer goddamit.

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