All Is Quiet

[Well, Happy New Year.]

[Since I can see you're dying to know, I'll tell you that last night's Cake show at the Warfield went about as perfectly as possible. Allen asked me about a month ago if I wanted to have the second of two tickets for the floor he'd bought rather on a whim. I said sure, though I haven't listened to them too much lately. For me, Cake will always be John and me, circa 1998. But I had a feeling they'd put on a good show, and I hadn't been to any kind of rock or pop concert in more than four years.]

[I met Allen at Dolores House, realizing I hadn't been there since before Thanksgiving. Both and A. and Charlotte have been out of town more than not in the last month-plus, and now that I live over the hill, trips to the outer Dolores Street part of the beautiful green forest aren't as frequent as of yore. The Dog Bruno greeted me ecstatically, but then I've noticed he greets dried up shit on the street with the same enthusiasm. I hung out with them and Carrie, who was headed all in white to an interfaith New Year's happening headed by some swami or something. Very Carrie, and she looked radiant. Allen cooked us dinner, and I may have chosen the wrong piece of chicken, because my evening ended earlier than I had hoped. That's all you need to know about that.]

[Anyway, sufficiently pre-concertly pixillated, A. and I headed downtown and into the venerable Warfield. I remembered seeing Margaret Cho's I'm The One That I Want show there, the one that's on the DVD. I remembered all the shows John and I ushered. I remembered how expensive the drinks are, after ordering A. and myself a couple of Grey Goose-crans. There was a lot of eye candy, made all the more sweet the more we drank. Those two middle-aged queens in the corner staring glassy-eyed at the oblivious straight boys? That would've been us.]

[Anyway, the opening act! OMG - The Lovemakers rool! Think of the Banshees fronted by younger versions of Simon LeBon and Siobhan Fahey. Think dark pop harmonies mixed with tight, glammy beats and hook-laden choruses to die for. I'm buying all their CDs any minute and so should you. Yummy!]

[As the roadies tore down the Lovemakers' set and put up Cake's behind the curtain, we were treated to a twenty-minute set of existential poetry by this scrawny brunette accompanied on theremin and standing bass by an Al Franken lookalike. It was though Cake and David Lynch collaborated on an intermission act. The strangely scented smoke wafting over the floor doubtless helped all of us enjoy this more than we might otherwise have done. All I know is A., the bear couple we befriended, that dorky-cute German boy over there, the three truly young mop-tops in front of us, and I all applauded lustily thru the haze.]

[Then Cake. Well, Cake are pretty much the personification of the '90s urban hipster look and sound aren't they? Between John McCrea's ironically monotonous vocals to Vince DiFiore's wacky but flawless trumpet to the thrift store-esque finery (it takes a lot of money to look that cheap, as Dolly Parton said), these guys party like it really still is 1999. But never mind; they seem to have a lot of fans who don't even remember that period, plus the many late-30s/early-40s types who still remember what it was like to be cool, or at least cool-adjacent.]

[Midnight hit just as the band was wrapping up 1996's "The Distance" in what was to be their only encore. Of course there was a countdown, balloons, streamers, confetti, yet more pot smoke, kisses all around, and a Chinese dragon wending its way across the floor. A pretty engrossing 30-minute taiko drumming demo ended the show. All in all, a more San Francisco New Year's could hardly be imagined.]

[A. and I planned a post-show My Power Hole crawl (i.e. trips to the South of Market bars My Place, the Powerhouse, and the Hole in the Wall), but I was only one Sauza shot in at the Hole before I realized I needed to get home. Ah, digestion! Ah, humanity! Whatever, I was clean as a whistle and between my new flannel sheets by 1:45, and fit and perky this morning, so I can't complain that the debauchery was somewhat curtailed. A truly fun night, and how nice that it basically went according to plan.]

[And now... hmmm. Max, calling from a layover at SFO, tells me the weather's good outside. How nice to get climate updates of my own hometown from travelers just passing thru, especially since I live in a cave. Perhaps an afternoon constitutional is in order. We need milk. Off I go...]

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