So last night, for the first time in fifteen years, I played drums in Kalamazoo.  Also the first time I’ve played at all, other than a few minutes a couple of weeks ago, since early 2007.  And the first time I’ve played in front of an audience (granted, it was an audience of about 40) since The Actors.

This is why you just can’t take me anywhere.  My friend Lynette says “you wanna go to Monaco Bay this Sunday?”  Monaco Bay is the dueling piano bar downtown, which by local ordinance cannot be mentioned without saying “Matt Giraud” in the same sentence.  (Giraud was one of the house pianists at MB when he auditioned for American Idol, placing fourth or something last season.  I don’t really watch it, or honestly even care for the concept of the show, so the details aren’t exactly indelibly etched in the granite of my mind.) 

So we get there, and since I’m definitely planning on DRINKING tonight, I start with my traditional shot of Jager before moving on to the cheap beer.  At some point, my dear friend Lynette thought it would be a good idea to tell the piano players that there was a drummer in the house who would love to jam with them, and suddenly I’m on stage trying to play “Plush” by STP – a song I haven’t even heard in three or four years at least, and have never tried to play.

Naturally, I pulled it off just fine, a celestial chorus sounded from the heavens, the mayor gave me the key to the city and proclaimed today “John Henry Day,” and Simon Cowell called it the most inspired percussive performance since “Moby Dick.”

Okay, not really.  But I played, it was apparently good (how the hell would *I* know if it was good or not?  I was playing.  Unexpectedly.  Hell, I still had a cigarette in my mouth, I spent half the damn song trying to make that ‘burning hair’ smell stop every time I moved my head because my hair would sweep across the lit end of the smoke.

People clapped, I got off stage, and continued drinking.

At some point several beers later – my memory’s a bit fuzzy, I had very little to eat yesterday and the drinks hit me harder than I was expecting – I somehow ended up back on stage playing three more songs: ‘Piano Man’ by Billy Joel – required under the same ordinance cited above – and a couple of others that I’d never heard, or heard of.  Somehow, I managed to play through those as well.  The piano players and folks in the bar and the wait staff and the bartenders all stopped what they were doing to stare enraptured.  You know, like that scene in Airplane where the nun starts playing the guitar?  Right, like that.  We then solved the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, cured cancer, and convinced the religious right to live and let live.

I may be exaggerating a bit.  Either way, I had fun and lost memory and apparently was able to keep a beat.  Unfortunately, you gotta be a pianist to actually get a ‘job’ there, and a pianist I amn’t.  Shame, really.  As much as I’d rather have a bar like the Roxy or First Avenue or (sniffle) Club Soda there, full of great live local and national music, I could still have fun with a gig like that.  It’s all requests, so you have to kinda pull things out of your ass a lot, which is challenging and fun.  Plus they pack it in on most weekends, so the tips would likely be as good if not better than what I’m making now.

But, oh well. 

Anyway, after I dissed Lindsay Lohan and stole her cell phone, me and the Olsen Twins met up with Emma Watson and [REDACTED TO PROTECT THE GUILTY] spatula.

Now my tale is told.

In other news…the same old stuff, really.  Just keeping my nose to the stone and doing my best to work my way back up to having a life of some kind.

Side note to the obsessive twit who keeps trying to spam blog comments with pointless and what would be disparaging remarks if I could stop laughing at how pathetic and weak they are:  You’ll never get a comment approved here.  Go back to arguing on Usenet about sweaty guys in tights and leave me out of your stupidity. KTHXBAI.

*quietly does a YAY I PLAYED LIVE AGAIN AND PEOPLE LIKED IT dance*

So yeah, just for future reference, if you’re planning on taking me out somewhere for drinks, if there’s a drum set around you may as well plan on me ending up behind it somehow.