October 27, 2006 "A Shit-Ass Scene For Nature Boy"

10/27/2006 Jaunita's - Little Rock, AR
Other bands: Say Anything, mewithoutYou, Piebald

Juanita's was the "other place" in Little Rock n Roll aside from Vino's, and barring any diseased punk collectives in basements of condemned houses on the bad side of town.

Not sure if it was dumb luck that both happened to have above average restaurants attached, but at each one we ate well, though moreso at Juanita's because at Vino's they usually gave us two pies and some beer, both of which were good, but gone fast.

El (La?) Juanita had an exquisite fajita buffet set up that reminded me of Warped Tour if it were inside a 500-cap rock venue. Members from multiple bands lined up with paper plates to load up, all except for Aaron Weiss who made himself scarce alot and would then appear in the shadows to scavenge for scraps. Sometimes I thought of Jonny when I looked at Aaron.

I sat at a table with Greg from mwY, who, if I haven't said it before, was quite possibly the nicest and most endearing of the odiferous bunch. The drummer Ricky seemed to have a bit of a chip on his shoulder at all times, but maybe he was still upset that he lost his cymbals at the Indianapolis show I booked for them four years ago. Greg was a straight-up dude though, and I always thought he meant what he said. You don't come by guys like that on the touring circuit very often.

Everybody was better as socializing with other bands than I. In practice it always terrified me. I always assumed, usually incorrectly, that no one liked us and saw overtures of well-meaning compliments as superficial niceties that veiled inward umbrage. Perhaps it's because I knew how brutal we were with our criticism outside the range of non-Brazil ears. Our in-van banter could sometimes peel the stickers off a 4x8 trailer.

I once again riled Say Anything's tour manager with my confetti cannon explosions. I'd already been doing it the whole run, yet Little Rock was the first time he happened to notice. The cannon, about the size of a bowling pin, put up enough confetti to cover the stage in a thin layer of sparkling plastic and I always shot one off at the end of Strange Days 'round when Eric started his gigantic Tony Iommi guitar god solo. Piebald didn't seem to care and Aaron Weiss picked it up and sprinkled it out on the crowd during the mewithoutYou set. For all I could tell, Max and company could care less themselves.

But for Say Anything's TM, disrespectful was the word used as answer to my CO2 driven grand finale, so I put away the remaining cannons for another time. Even though I had perfected my trajectory.

Our repertoire of voices increased by one that day also. On arrival, James jumped out to secure a parking space in front of the venue, while another car simultaneously tried to take the spot. James refused to budge and let the New Jersey flow until the guy in the car rolled down his window and said something about getting a pistol in a tiny helium-pitched voice.

And we latched on, in the way we did with such things. For the next six months, we'd taunt each other with microscopic voices that said "I'm gonna get my pistol."

Higher and ridiculously higher.