Lesson learned

There I stood, in the alley behind the only gay bar in town and waited.

I was waiting for the guy that I thought booked the bands. He was busy — busy stomping a broken chair into bits.

When I was fairly certain that he had completed his stompfest, I approached him, hand extended and introduced myself.

He was taken aback. He looked at me like I was about to spoil his good, boot-stomping fun.

Perhaps I was too polite or articulate. He was afterall a bartender who worked in the most notorious dive-bar in town.

Eventually he caught on that I was trying to book a show for my band.

"Oh yeah, I already talked to your drummer about that show."

Ah, good. We wanted to play the Wednesday before Thanksgiving — just as we did last year. This year's show would mark the one-year anniversary of KP joining our band and leading us fearlessly through the best year the band has yet had.

I gave the bar dude a slip of paper with La La's number and the date we wanted to play scribbled on it.

As we continued to talk, I quickly surmised that something was amiss. All of a sudden he was talking about his band and how long they were going to be playing and whatnot.

It was midnight on Friday. I was tired and crampy and had just witnessed a full-grown man massacre a helpless chair soley because it was weak. And now, I was confused.

Had I just agreed to play a show with this guy and his band? Who is this band?

Frustrated, I extracated myself from the conversation and went in search of Bill who I'd left at the bar.

When I found him, he asked, "Where were you? I got the name of the lady who does that band booking here."

Huh? Now I felt even worse. I had just spent a half-hour of my life with a chair stomper, agreed to a show with a band that we didn't know and then learned that he wasn't even the right person to whom I should've been speaking in the first place.

Doh!

Fortunately, I gave the chair-stomping dude La La's number and he called her. It turns out they are scheduled to play the Saturday before Thanksgiving. La La called the booking gal and got us scheduled for that Wednesday.

There is a reason that La La does our booking.