Apostrophe S

That’s right, folks, tonight’s adventures included more than just dinner and Law & Order (although those things weren’t absent).

After work I decided to hit this Chinese restaurant around the corner called Panda. It looked like a crappy Chinese food place, but I was kind of in the mood for cheap, greasy Chinese. I stopped in, ordered, and waited. As I waited, I noticed the giant wall mural. Now keep in mind that this place is roughly the size of my bedroom. Ever notice that in every Chinese restaurant, one whole wall is devoted to a giant stylized mural of the “old country.” There’s always tall mountains, trees, and a waterfall. And usually there are sailing ships about 100 yards upstream from the waterfall. Doesn’t look safe in my opinion, but that’s what’s usually there. Is this standard issue for every Chinese place? I don’t know, but it wouldn’t surprise me. Finally my food was ready, so I paid and went home. I won’t say I was disappointed with the quality of the food, but it wasn’t as good as it seemed it should be in my mind. I guess that’s just about the definition of disappointed.

The two episodes of L&O that I watched tonight were very good. Both were pretty complex, and it would take hours to explain, so I won’t. Just suffice to say they were both good.

But what then? My usual four episodes were cut short by some dumb NBA game. I didn’t know what to do with my time. Luckily, just then, my friend/coworker Toni called and asked if I wanted to catch another band at the Stone Pony. I said something along the lines of “sounds awesome!” or something. You know, something good. The band turned out to be the Von Bondies, whom I didn’t really know, but whom Toni really seemed to like. They played what seemed like a short set, but then again, we arrived just as they were taking the stage, so we missed all the openers, which can make a show seem a lot longer. The music was pretty damn good, except at a few points when they just started rocking out and my ears were overloaded and I couldn’t really make out any specific notes. Fortunately that was the exception and not the rule. The lead singer has an interesting voice. The really interesting thing was that both lead guitar and bass guitar were women. Often, at least in my experience, if a band has a woman, she is the lead singer. These women sang backup, but mostly they just played, and I thought it was really cool. The drummer must have had a fan of some kind under his set, because his hair was blowing straight up most of the time. All of their songs were about 2 minutes long I think. Apparently, the lead singer and Jack White of the White Stripes got into a nasty fight last year, so that was a cool connection. So the Pony was a good start to a Friday night.

After that, Toni and I met two other guys who were fellow coworkers at a bar in part of Jersey called the West End. The bar was called Mix is, as Toni put it, a euro-trash kind of place. You know, white leather seats, candles on all the tables, stripes painted in pastels of the ceiling. Cody and Mike, the guys we were meeting, also work in the art department. They had been there a while by the time we got there. I had a yummy apple martini, and just listened to the other three gossip. It was fun.

Oh, and another cool part was my wallet remained untouched throughout the night. Toni paid my cover at the Pony, because it was cash only and all I had was plastic, then they all bought my drinks, so I didn’t complain. I do feel obligated to cover Toni for something some time in the future.

On our way to the Mix, we encountered a DWI checkpoint, where every car was pulled over and had to atone for their sins to Jersey’s finest. Despite Toni’s having had a long island at the Pony, she answered the cop “no” when he asked if she’d had anything to drink tonight. I thought that was pretty balsy, bold face lying to a cop at a DWI checkpoint. She couldn’t believe it herself afterward. I don’t know what got into her.

I guess one I write it all down it doesn’t sound like much of an adventure, but it was better than the alternative: NBA on TNT. Actually, I probably would have read a book instead. I don’t know how many more games of solitaire I can stand.

Who am I kidding, I love solitaire!

Well, take care folks…

ON AIR: The Von Bondies - Poison Ivy