I almost blogged from a gig last night.
The urge was strong when I noticed computers inside The Tribal Cafe. I thought about the repercussions of such an action, how I would, in one click of the Publish Post icon, go from just being a nerdy blogger to becoming the blog equivalent of Comic Book Guy. No turning back, I thought. I then realized that the coffee house was way too crowded and didn't want to deal with waiting in line to use a computer.
Coffee houses make for the most laid back gigs in town. Since nobody can dance, there is no need to try and make people dance. We basically played what we wanted. Kid C. threw on Nina Hagen's "African Reggae," Rip Rig and Panic's "You're My Kind of Climate" and Talking Heads' "Girlfriend is Better" (and, as his girlfriend, I take special interest in the latter). I threw on some Pulp (a remix of "Sunrise"), the one song on the last Le Tigre album that I like ("After Dark") and a bunch of other stuff.
At some point during the gig, I realized that I miss coffee houses. Long ago, this town was populated with holes in various walls marked with names like Betelgeuse, Tuesday's House, Anastasia's Asylum and Van Gogh's Ear. I think Anastasia's Asylum still exists, but the others have since disappeared. The best of the dearly departed coffee houses, though, had a simple pun for a name: Common Grounds.
I grew up about a mile away from Common Grounds, so my friends and I would walk there most every night, particularly during summer vacation. It was located in a minimall next to a fairly large university, so the crowd was mostly college kids, old neighborhood hippies and high school goths. Most nights, it was packed with boys and girls carrying lunchbox handbags and wearing baby barrettes and striped tights. Characters abound nightly, but the best time for people watching was during the open poetry events. On one particular evening, my friends and I witnessed a Stewart Stevenson look-a-like in a purple tie-dye shirt reciting an epic poem based on D&D. No freakin' joke, dude. That same night, this skinny goth kid stood up in leather underwear, a white button down shirt and green lipstick and started pounding on his keyboard. He then screamed "I slash my wrists for you!" and sat back down to sip on his ice blended.
Nothing that exciting happened at The Tribal Cafe last night. Maybe coffee house nutjobs are a thing of the past. Or, more likely, perhaps they only existed in the corners of the Valley.

P.S. After the gig, we saw Jonny Lang on one of the 20 or so public television stations on digital cable. He's a Grammy-nominated, platinum-selling artist who harmonizes with his guitar, even hitting the highs. Some of the stuff is too AAA for my taste, but I dig the guitar solos.