my best friend stopped in with some people. one of the people she was with, paul, ordered 3 paninis and i told them drinks were on me, not food. i got my discount for the food, but when i took the check to paul (who i haven't seen in years), he just looked at me like i'm the one with brain damage instead of him. so i played it off like it was no big deal, but honestly i was pretty irritated. then he didn't leave a tip at all.
at this point, my friend and her entourage had exited, and ben was sitting at the bar with this guy named doyle, who was also very cool. when trivia ended, evan, isaac (another co-worker) and i talked to those guys for a bit. they were funny, ben recommended that i see some tv show called the wire, which i will have to check out, bc he's all about some always sunny and that is one of my fave shows EVER!, and i told him he's got some shameless to catch up on, because it's my new favorite addiction.
then i started bitching because i had to cover a $30 tab for those paninis. it really irritated me. it was rude, even though i played it off like it was cool. i was going to eat it, and ben bought them. i was like, "dude, no.. you definitely do not have to do that!" evan just took his money, though, and i thanked him. it was one of the nicest things a stranger has done for me in a while.
so the crowd clears out. no one comes in for an hour or so. ben and doyle leave for 'the buc' (the bucaneer), a place i had never been nor really known about.
after he left, my co-worker evan (who is awesome)told me that ben is the singer for this local band called lucero, which isn't very local anymore. i remember seeing them over a decade ago and there were only a handful of people at the show. i want to say i was at the deli, but i could be wrong. i remember thinking their name reminded me of a santana song or something.never paid much attention, but over the years, just like cody and luther in north miss allstars, i saw the band name get bigger jigs at festivals, etc. he just got home from a national tour with his 5 bandmates, which i'm sure was both arduous and fun. i had been yammering on about my life when he asked questions, because he said he'd just gotten back, and so have i, and he asked where i've been, and when i consider where i've been when i think about my life right now, it's pretty astounding. so i'm talking to him about my life, and how it circled back to memphis. when i asked him about his travels, he was super vague. now i know why and feel like kind of a shithead. obviously, he's kind of a big deal to people all over the country who are familiar with his music. for me, he was ben, wearing black gloves with the fingers cut out and an old army jacket over a red lumberjack looking shirt that reminded me of my dad. the cool thing about that is, i will never see him any other way, even though their new tour lineup looks fantastic, and he doesn't just sit at home playing rock star, he apparently is one.
since we closed pretty early, isaac and i went to the bucaneer with evan to see if anything was going on. normally i leave and go home, this was the first time i'd been invited to go out with the guys, and i thought maybe ben would still be there (seriously, i don't think lucero is my type of music.. but i wanted to see him again).. and he was.
..and he was totally shitfaced and a huge asshole. i was sitting with isaac at a table watching friday and drinking a blue moon, and he was down at the end of the bar closest to the door. there were a lot of people in this dive. it reminded me of this anclote river bar that you can park your boat at in fl, and go in and meet bikers; it's like this little shack. the buc is super similar in the way it feels inside, tiny and squished by the bar, bigger rooms on the other side. interesting mix of folks in that place. i chilled with evan and isaac and didn't say anything to ben or doyle for a long while. when i did go to say hi, ben was a dickhead. i guess he'd had way too much to drink, and i was a little tipsy too, and all i did was go to say hi, and he told me to fuck off with this look in his eyes that was very serious. repeatedly. at first i thought he was kidding, but when i realized he wasn't, my feelings got really hurt and then i got really pissed. i told him he could fuck off and walked back to the small two-top i'd been sitting at with isaac.
he actually yelled at me to get original material, so i yelled at him to fuck himself with a gerbil, and to just let it run around in his intestines (or something super fucking bizarre), and evan came back over and told me to stop.
he gives me this whole "oh, he just got home from a super long tour and he's shitty drunk and you don't know who he is and he's used to people buying him shots all the time".. and i didn't give two shits. he had been blatantly mean for no reason, leaving me feeling stupid as hell. and evan reminded me he was nice enough to pay for the paninis, and i told him i'd give the fucker his money back, and all these tears were welling up b/c why would someone be mean for no reason (and also i have a tendency to cry easily when i drink- easier than usual!).
either way, i was right and evan told him to apologize or he decided to apologize or something, but he came over and took both my hands and looked me dead in the face and told me he was sorry he'd been such a huge jackass and that there was no cause or excuse for it. and then i'm all tryin not to cry, but i'm still pissed, and i'm hanging onto his tattoo-covered hands and looked right back at him, and i asked what had happened to him that has made him the way he was acting, where had he been?
those are probably things i will never know. he left shortly after, alone, hunched over, super drunk, no one stopped him from driving, i had been the only one who had called him out over being a shitass, and his "friends" just let him go when he was probably the worst off out of everyone in the damn bar that should drive anywhere.
i've never been a rockstar, nor will i ever be, but as i watched him leave in his army jacket and fingertip-missing gloves, i felt a wave of loneliness for him. evan says that when he's home he's a dork and plays dungeons and dragons or something silly. it's hard to imagine that someone who is a local celebrity, recognized everywhere he goes by someone, can be leaving a bar alone at 4:30am by himself to go digest his liquor alone.
he was so human, so normal, such a douche, and then he was genuinely sorry about it. for a minute i wish he hadn't been a successful musician, because he's someone i would like to know.. that won't happen, but what a nice man. that's my conclusion. ben nichols is a nice guy. maybe his loneliness was perceived wrong, and i was just seeing something in myself reflecting back out of him. you can be surrounded by people all the time and still feel quite alone. it's weird. life is weird. all people are just people. no one is above the other when it comes to fame, money, etc. we all come into this world alone and leave it the same way. the experiences are all just for us, each one. no one that's here is exempt from it.
so tonight i hung out with a new friend, woodsey. what a nice person. he let me watch this foreign nazi zombie movie, ordered tucker's for me, let me have a glass of red wine, and we just chilled and hung out for about 4 hours.
interesting guy, he and his roomie christian are very into film making, and christian has been in a few movies as well. he's apparently locally known too. personally i prefer woodsey, content to be behind the camera and in on the making and creation of the movie (although he will be in projects if needed). they write a lot of stuff, turn it into films, it's pretty cool. somehow i feel like woodsey didn't like me.. but i hope he did because he was nice as all get out and i would much like to be his friend.
when i left, i felt like he may not invite me to hang out again, and i would like to. i'm decidedly single right now but it would be nice to have a new friend. maybe i was a let down; he's been trying to meet me for over a month.
in any capacity, life is what is and you cannot elude death or taxes. time for me to go to sleep.
