From tob@cwis.unomaha.edu Sat May 1 16:44:14 1993
Return-Path: <tob@cwis.unomaha.edu>
Received: from cwis.unomaha.edu by ccu.UManitoba.CA
(4.1/25-eef) id AA03517; Sat, 1 May 93 16:44:11 CDT
Received: by cwis.unomaha.edu (5.65/DEC-Ultrix/4.3)
id AA08002; Sat, 1 May 1993 16:43:10 -0500
Date: Sat, 1 May 1993 16:24:42 -0500 (CDT)
From: Tob Wood <tob@cwis.unomaha.edu>
Sender: Tob Wood <tob@cwis.unomaha.edu>
Reply-To: Tob Wood <tob@cwis.unomaha.edu>
Subject: A day in the life
To: New Subscribers <bjdorris@acs.harding.edu>, cdibble@acsu.buffalo.edu,
gt6877c@prism.gatech.edu, umdesch4@ccu.umanitoba.ca
Message-Id: <Pine.3.05.9305011425.B27630-e100000@cwis.unomaha.edu>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII
Status: O
Somebody I recently met asked me what I do. I said `nothing'. They
ask where I worked. I explained that I didn't. They asked me what I did
all day. I said `nothing whatsover'. They said, "Oh Tob, you're just
being difficult! What's an average day in the life of Tob like?"
"I don't have average days." I replied.
"AAARRGG! Would you just answer the question?!"
"I forgot the question," this of course was a lie.
"WHAT DID YOU DO LAST NIGHT?!!!" Anger surfaces.
"Nothing much. Well, actually quite a bit," this was true.
"Finally we're getting somewhere."
So I proceed to tell them everything I did last night. I got the usual
amount of gaping jaws, stares of disbelief and everything else I'm used to
when I have conversations with people. When I was done, they said, "Tob,
that is an average day. An average day for *you*!" Eh, whatever, you
be the judge.
MY ACCOUNT OF FRIDAY, APRIL 30, 1993
Everything you read here is true. The names of the innocent have NOT been
changed. Nobody is innocent, so deal with it.
I got to my apartment around 5:00 pm Central Daylight Time. I don't
really remember what I was going before that, but it can't be important.
I think I went to the grocery store or something. I wasn't feeling well
(as usual; I'm always sick), so I decided to flip on the tube figuring
that the sickly sweet Fox sitcoms that are on at that time of day would
settle my stomach like sugar in medicine. I watched "Full House", then
two episodes of "Who's The Boss", and then "M*A*S*H". I was reading at
the same time, some comic books, a back issue of the newspaper (the one
with the story about me going to Chicago to see Superchunk. I love
reading about me.), and a biography of Andy Warhol by Victor Bockris.
I usually don't go out on weekends becausee I don't like crowded places.
That's why I was just sitting around. I also drank some beer, did I
mention that? Well, whenever there's a story like this, you can safely
assume that I'm drinking beer at the same time. Around 8ish, I ran out
of beer, I wasn't worried, but I was bored. So I decided to look for
Scott, my friend and ex-roommate.
I went over to my old house were they still live with Winston the dog.
You can't miss it; it's on the corner of 34th & Seward, and it's salmon
colored (some say pink). Scott wasn't there, but Ben (other ex-roomate
and friend) was there playing with the dog. He had no idea where Scott
was, but we hung out for awhile, and traded the latest news.
>From Ben:
1) Chef Bob's ankle blew up and he had to perform First Aid (Ben was an
Army medic). There was blood all over the Gourmet Shop. Chef Bob is O.K.
2) The dog needs to lose weight. Winston probably weighs 95-100 pounds.
(that's about 40 kilos for my Eurofriends and about 700 dog-pounds for
all my caninefriends. And about 135 Canadian at current market value.)
>From Me:
1) I applied for a job at a florist. I want to learn flower arranging,
espescially ikebana, the traditional Japanese technique.
2) I blew a soap bubble as big as a basketball, and then proceeded to blow
14 more little bubbles _inside_ the big one. A new record.
This went on for awhile, and then I decided call Doodles (the bar downtown
where Scott works) while Ben started to make weird hamburgers. Scott was
there bartending and told me to come down. He said he would buy me a beer.
Never pass up free beer, even if you have money (which I do not). So I
left Ben to his own devices (and two Bongoburgers) and bolted. This was
a little before 10:00 pm CDT.
I zipped downtown to an area known as "The Old Market". This is one
of those old renovated it-will-be-good-for-tourism riverfront type places
(you know what I'm talking about; you have one in your city too) full of
bars, restaurants, art galleries, funny t-shirt stores and street musicians
every 15 feet (3 metres). Doodles is one of the bars. I walked into the
bar, which was stupid because I should have seen it, and then I turned
and walked into Doodles. I was glad to get off the streets; there's
horse-drawn buggies there. They frighten me.
I sat at the bar. It wasn't as busy as all the neighbooring places, so
I felt pretty secure. Scott got me my beer, and I sat back relaxed, and
asked Scott when he got off work.
"Oh man, I gotta close dude." He said. That wasn't for another 3 hours.
I drank my beer and sat there and drank my beer and sat there and drank my
beer and sat there. When my beer ran out, Scott bought me another, and when
I was about halfway through with that one, two ladies sat down next to me.
I didn't pay much attention, I was watching the Cheez-Lounge-Lizard-Duo
play their gig. I promised myself that if they played _It Had To Be You_,
I was leaving. They didn't.
I turned back to the bar to take a pull at my brew, and suddenly Scott
decides to get introduce me to the two women sitting next to me. It turns
out that Scott went to high school with one of them, and the other was a
friend from Des Moines. They're names were Dana and Beth respectively. I
told Beth I had been to Des Moines. She very politely couldn't have given
a shit. I asked if there were White Castles in Des Moines. She said no,
but they did have Sapp Bros. truck stops (these are famous for their water
towers since they're made to look like giant coffee pots). A conversation
between the three of us was born.
Beth had come into town to see Dana so they could have one more party
weekend before finals and graduation. Dana asked Scott and myself if we
knew of anything going on. Scott laughed and said, "Never ask Tob a
question like that." There's more to me than meets the eye (but not much).
Talk talk talk blah ha ha ha (I made a joke) Talk talk talk talk talkt
blah. Dana promised to take Beth to see the Fishheads. They were playing
next door. Dana weasled money out of Scott so I could get in and we were
off, telling Scott we'd be back at 12:30 am to pick him up.
The bar next door is The Howard Street Tavern. It is on Howard Street,
get it? It's a pretty big venue for live music 365 days a year. We went
out on the dance floor, and after more than a few futile attempts to get
me to dance, I just leaned against the wall and listened. That's what I
do.
The Fishheads play "Island Party Music" if you know what I mean, and they
really had the crowd wired. They won't ever win any awards, but they're the
funnest-energy-party band in the land. I was enjoying myself; I enjoy most
live music. So we were getting into it, the crowd was into it, and the band
was into it. R.J., (the singer) kept switching hats. I thought it was funny.
Later I commented, "Silly hats appear to be prerequisite to the membership of
this band." I could be in the Fishheads, I have tons of ridiculous hats.
Eventually, the band took a break. I took this opportunity to impress
the ladies with my yo-yo prowess. I did some pretty sexy tricks to their
delight and we discussed the physics of tethered satellite dynamics. Right
about this time, Steve, the Fishhead Guitarist, walked up to us and said,
"Hi Tob. Nice yo-yo".
I said, "Hi Steve. Your band is silly. Play some ska for me."
He said, "O.k., I'll see what I can do." And he walked off.
Dana turned to me and asked, "You know that guy?"
"Yeah, that's Steve Eisenberg."
"How do you know him?" she asked bewildered.
"Well, I guess I know everybody on this circuit. Eh, you get used to it."
It looked as if this mildly impressed them. I guess lead guitarist don't
ever come up to them and talk to them. In my world, I can't go anywhere
without it happening to me. It's fun.
As the band has heading back to the stage, R.J. the singer, noticed me and
came over to us. He said, "Hi Tob. Nice yo-yo!"
I said, "Hi R.J.. Nice parrot." He had a life-sized plastic parrot on his
shoulder. He does these types of things. I'm used to it. The ladies
weren't. The band went back on stage.
Dana said, "Do you know that guy?"
"Yeah, that's R.J.. I don't know who the parrot is though."
The band then blasted into a searing rendition of Happy Birthday because
it was somebody's birthday. Then R.J. was screaming into the mic "Tob!
Tob! Tob's here! Tob's here" Then Steve started doing it. (You must
realize that they're just doing this to annoy the hell out of me. I don't
like to be singled out in public.) I tried to run, but the crowd was thick,
and before I knew it, Nils Erickson (owner of Rainbow Recording Studios)
grabbed me and dragged me onstage. Steve said I had to sing a song. I asked
if I could leave. He said no. R.J. said for me to shut up and sing
_Suspicious Minds_. I wasn't going to get out of this, so I said, "O.k., but
I need the parrot."
R.J. gave me the parrot and I grabbed a mic. I put the parrot in front of
the mic to make it look like it was going to sing. While I had my back
turned, R.J. put his dreadlock wig on my head. I took it off and put it on
the parrot instead, and the in my best carribean accent, I said, "Hey mon!
I and I be Rasta-Parrot-Boy, and now we play Elvis!"
The band started playing, and right before I hade to come in I had a great
idea. As soon as I had to start, I got behind it, grabbed it and used it as
a puppet. I started singing "I'm caught in a trap...etc" in my best falsetto
opera diva voice (it's good) while shaking the parrot to music. I only got
out about three words when R.J. laughed so hard that he squirted beer out his
nose onstage, and the crowd lost it. Then the band started cracking up, Steve
fell on the floor. We didn't get any further than the first verse because
everyone in the band was laughing too hard. I was too, seeing beer come out
of R.J.'s nose will be a memory I carry for life, right up there with the time
that Lash LaRue fell off the drumset during a solo (but that's another story).
R.J. shoved me off the stage and pandemonium continued for about 5 minutes.
Once the band calmed down, R.J. shouted into the mic that he should have known
that I would pull something like that, and then they went back to their set.
Fifteen minutes later we had to meet back up with Scott. I got no less
than three pats on the back as we walked out from people I didn't know. The
ladies hadn't commented on this little episode yet. We went back next door
to Doodles and got Scott. As soon as Scott asked how it went, I remained
typically silent while Dana and Beth tried to explain what happened
simultaneouly. In their histrionics, I was catching phrases like:
"Singer!...Beer!...Nose!"
"...Rasta-Parrot-Boy.."
"Opera Elvis..." etc, etc, etc. Scott sat passivley listening and when
they were finished and expected a huge reaction from him, he just looked them
both straight in the face and said, "Yes. And?" I giggled at that since it's
one of my stock phrases. Later in the car Scott said, "A fake plastic parrot
with dreads? That's great." I said that I thought so too.
By this time, it's 1:00am and all the bars are closing (yes, they
close at 1 here). Scott really wants a drink, so we all jump into Dana's car
and cross the river into Council Bluffs (get out yer atlas and look up Omaha)
where the bars are open until 2:00. We went to Jacobs, a 'locals' bar and had
a few more drinks. Dana had water, Beth had a whisky sour, Scott had two
bourbon and Cokes and I had (see if you can geuss) 2 beers. We chatted and
they eventually threw us out around 2:15 am.
Beth was starving, so we went back to Omaha and went to an all night diner
called The 11-worth Cafe". It's on Leavenworth street. Get it? Ho hum. It
was packed. It usually is around that time of night on weekends. We got
a table in about ten minutes and sat down. I wasn't hungry so I didn't
order any thing. Scott was jonesing for a club sandwich, and the ladies had
cheeseburgers. I ate fries and pickles off everyone elses plate and drank
water. I love water. And Ice.
We were there until about 3:30am. I ran into a bunch of people I knew,
including Deanna Buck and her entourage. I overheard Dana ask Scott if I
knew everyone in town. Scott said, "No, just the weirdos." We egressed.
In the car, everybody was thinking, "So now what do we do?" I knew
of two parties that would be going on for hours yet and I suggested them.
Scott admonished the ladies with "Never go to a Tob party". I geuss that's
pretty good advice if you don't know me too well. I also suggested the
two hip dance clubs (they have all-night pseudo-raves on weekends), but that
idea got shot down also. We ended up going back to Scott's house.
_ - - - - - -
Ok, I am going to give you the short ending now because I really need to
leave:
We talked the rest of the night about whatever weird stuff that came up.
Scott showed them a few examples of my work that he keeps magneted to
the fridge. We had a few sips of Wild Turkey, listened to music, and then
we left at 5:15 am. Birds were chirping. The ladies went back to Dana's
apartment and I went back to mine. I read until 7:30am and then I took a nap.
I got up at 9:45 and went to the museum (I do this every Saturday. It's
free.) until about 1:30 pm. Then I drove to campus while listening to opera
(I do this every Saturday) and started to type this.
More stuff happened, and the museum had some cool stuff, but I really have
to leave. More later,
Tob
...............................................................................
:I am a clueless newbie. More info via `finger' tob@cwis.unomaha.edu:
:.............................................................................:
Command ('i' to return to index)('space' for next letter):