Date: 28 May 1996 09:13:27 +0100
From: Lynn Landry

Hope that you got in at least one war movie this weekend to celebrate your country's ability to kill, kill, kill. I saw Patton.

There was much activity this weekend. Actually, there was much activity this weekend that involved drinking beer. Friday was just your basic night of drinking beer at Trax with the usual suspects. Not much to tell. The Adam's Family Pin Ball game was broken and I didn't do too well at pool. Jack was on the table a lot but I don't think that is as interesting as ME being on the table. Saturday was beautiful. Temp was in the 80s and the sun was shining. We spent it running errands and cleaning the house thinking that this weather was going to be that way the whole weekend. Wrong. Sunday, winter was upon us with cloudy, dreary skies and temps didn't go above 55. Kind of a drag, but better than 100 degrees and 98% humidity.

That night we had beers at this micro-pub called Toronado's. Very good atmosphere and the bartender was this hip looking older woman who really know her beers. I liked the way she'd tell the men "full body..." Then, we bussed down the street to the Fillmore where we had tickets to see these three bands—Screaming Bloody Marys, The Dilly Creeps, and Idiot Flesh. The Fillmore is a pretty famous club here and I guess among the band freaks like Jack. It is an old theater with high ceilings, balconies and crystal chandeliers. There were black lights shining on the crystals which gave the place a purplish, goulish glow.

It was a very good show with each band better than the previous one, as it should be. The first band is being promoted by East Bay Ray from the Dead Kennedys. He jumped up on the stage and played guitar for a couple of songs. This band was kinda like retro-punk. Not much new to offer the world but good enough to hold your attention. The next band, The Dilly Creeps consisted of four guys, three regular dudes in lumberjack shirts and one guitar player called Buckethead who wore a Kentucky Fried Chicken bucket on his head and one of those eerie white generic masks kind of like what the drunk rich guys of the Carnival Krewes wear at the New Orleans Mardi Gras. Buckethead was a tall skinny frizzy haired guy who looked much taller with the fried chicken bucket extension.

The last band, Idiot Flesh, was not what I expected at all. These guys wearing what looked like old-fashioned striped pajama hats (ala "Twas the Night Before Christmas") stuffed with toilet paper so they stood straight up. They were in little matching body suits kind of like the oompa-loompas. One guy had fake kabuki makeup on. Instead of Japanese characters on his face, he just had regular old arabic numbers—14, 15, 16, 17, 18. The band started out in one of the theater boxes all crammed together with trombones and snare drums and big red sticks. They started playing some "o when the saints come marching in" music, beating on drums playing trombones and then they began to make their way around the balcony, down the stairs and through the crowd on the floor with an entourage that grew to about 20 people with whistles, things to bang on, mouths to chant and big red sticks. They got to the front of the stage and chanted and I could here Jack and his work/musician dude/friends kinda chuckling and making fun of this little scene. One guy referred to it as Cirque du Sole-hell. Then the musicians in the entourage (the oompa-loompa looking guys) went on stage and they started to play the wildest, craziest, coolest sounding music. If you're going to put on a show like that, you'd better be good, is what I say. It was an evening of crazyness. There were strange, interpretive dancers painted white, a king and a queen doing some sort of action on the floor, some guy in a thong dragging a large box, people beating on saws and gears and playing Australian aborgine horns. My god, you gotta see these people if you get a chance, it was incredible.

During the course of this evening, I met this girl named Candy who wasn't more than 21. She reminded me of Drew Barrymore with that pixie bleached blonde hair and frosty pink lips. She talked like Californians are stereotyped and told me that she needed to find East Bay Ray because she needed to get him or something like that. She was freaking. I think she was nothing but a groupie. I think it is so sad that women do that groupie thing. I mean, dumb is dumb, but you don't see dumb men hanging out in clubs trying to sleep with some musician—or am I the dummy here?

Anyway, it was a great time. But, we realized that you can't get a cab in San Francisco late at night. Nor can you catch a bus. Luckily, one of Jack's coworker buddies gave us a ride home. Although at one point the door of the car on my side flew open and I nearly fell out. I didn't even register the incident right away because I was slightly wasted.

Kristen and Steven are here. It was great to see people from the homeland. They came in a day late because they had to stop an hour outside of SF due to high, hurricane force winds. But, they finally arrived Monday morning, safe and sound. They were just as excited as we were and I appreciated living here all over again.

Kristen has an interview at my company later.

Hope to hear from you kids in TV land.

Bye.

Landry

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 28th, 1996 at 12:13 PM and is filed under DIY, Friendship Wars, Genderblock, Music, Punk, San Francisco. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.