it's D-Lux, son! it ain't hard...

so i went with carol to the atmosphere show at the old showbox and it was fucking crazy, man. doors opened at 8, so we drove down at 10-ish. when we got there, there was still a motherfucking line. so we tell them we're on the guest list and they shuffle us to a smaller line, but a line nonetheless, two hours after doors opened; it was fucking bullshit, man. when we got to the door, we discovered the hold-up...they were doing bag searches and pat-downs. it was so cool. instant toughness. like gough with a "t." i mean, with two Fs.

(by the way, this tomato bisque i'm drinking is fabu. oh campbell's soup.)

so we make our way inside to find rachel who is hanging with will by the sound booth on stage left. this should have been easy, but it turned out to be tremendously difficult as there were fifteen billion people in the venue. they must have seriously oversold the show or something because the shins were sold out on sunday (more to follow on that) and there was room to move. last night, there was scarcely room to breathe and people were fucking raucus with the dancing and the arm waving and the head bobbing. so we find rachel and watch a bit of one of the openings (i don't know who they were, but they were actually pretty good).

then all of a sudden, this big, burly red-head--and i mean big, he was at least 6 inches taller than me and i'm no pixie--guy throws his arms around all three of us (don't ask me how that is possible) and asks us if we like the act because he thinks they suck. he draws his equally tall friends into the conversation. i, of course, say i think they suck but tell him that rachel thinks they're the best band ever, so they converge on her and drunkenly ask her to elaborate. it was funny because rachel buckles like a belt under pressure. one of the guys asks rachel her name and she tells him and he's all "rachel? like that girl on friends! i watch that shit every night!" rachel, ever the polite avoider of conflict nods and agrees. carol,and i lose our shit laughing, i mean, come on, that is seriously the worst pick-up line ever in history besides "hi, my name is adolf hitler." it's like "hey, not only do i not have a life, i choose to fill that void with FRIENDS of all things." then, the big burly red-head tells me he likes my hair and it's cute. i thank him and he says "i'm not trying to spit on your game or anything." what? spit on my game? what the fuck does that mean? i mean, clearly, it means he's not trying to hit on me, but seriously, WHAT DOES THAT MEAN? what's my game? and why would he want to or not want to spit on it?

then some other stuff happened and atmosphere started their stuff and it was pretty cool. i was a little distracted by all the rhubarb with the showbox security people charging into the throng to stop whatever it was they were stopping. there's this girl who works there, she's kinda heavy and has these big long braids and she is SCARY. not in a bad way, but in a whoa, if i step wrong, this girl will fuck me up kind of a way. it was seth-davely awesome. i know it may just have been the braids and her zaftig figure, but when she jumped off the stage to accost that guy smoking pot all i could hear was die walküre and then later everytime she walked by i inadvertantly hummed various bars from götterdämmerung. rachel said her name is johnna, but she'll always be brunnhilde to me. well, not to her face or anything. clearly.

my father will be glad to know that his incessant listening to the ring of the nibelungen cycle back in 1992 was not lost on me.