Thursday, March 15, 2012

SongStory - The Oblivians "Live The Life"

Please note this is all being written on my iPhone since I can't wrestle my laptop away. My index finger will be sore...
So I get a writing challenge from my friend Shawn to have a song define a moment. Mine happens to be two moments linked together. A song, a great song, happened to be there. And every time I hear it, it makes me laugh and think of these funny incidentences.
My story starts in Chicago in the fall of 2005. Venue: The Original Bottom Lounge. I went out with my gay cop friend Jeremy to see some bands. My friend Rob happened to be working at the club that night as well and got to be privy to the events about to unfold.
Now, I'll only refer to the band as Band X in case anyone might know this guy but I will call him by his first name which is Jay.
So it's towards the end of the night, last band is wrapping up and Jeremy goes and gets us another round. I'm standing around waiting for him when this guy walks up to me and says hi. Your typical long black stringy hair, dirty black jeans, throwback 80's t-shirt rocker guy. He's being friendly enough and he's a little drunk but I figure he's harmless. So he asks me the typical getting to know you stuff and then comes the fun part. "I'm really tired. Do you think I could come back to your place?". Really? He's gonna pull this line of crap on me? "No you can't" I tell him thinking seriously this guy has some balls on him. I could beat the crap out of him. "Why, do you have a boyfriend?". "Yeah I do and I live with him". This is when I was still with my ex Jeff. "Well it doesn't look like he's here now" and grabs me and kisses me. How can he pull this off? Well this guy is only about as tall as I am. I jerk away from the guy and at the same time my friend Jeremy comes back from the bar with two beers. "Here you go sweetie" and hands me my Pabst. Band X Jay bails hard. I've never seen a guy take off so fast in my life. He probably thought Jeremy was my boyfriend and panicked. "What was that all about?". I proceed to tell him the story and of what happened with Jay and we had a good laugh for the rest of the night.
So it sounds like a pretty cut dry story with nothing to do with my writing challenge. Well I'm still going and here is where it gets good...
Flash forward to Columbus OH the summer of 2010. I'm at the best show day in years. New Bomb Turks during the day with The Oblivians at night. Heaven! I've been drinking it up all day with Jim and Tom and it's at the end of The Oblivians set. Jim and Tom are outside having a smoke and I'm sitting alone at the bar waiting for The Oblivians to come back out on stage. As I'm sitting there minding my own business, this guy comes up and sits next to me. He is wasted. He is trying to talk to me and I try to be nice but I really could care less. Then he says something that really grabs my attention. "I'm really tired. Do you think I can go back to your place?". I stop and really turn around to look at this guy. "Wait a minute, aren't you Jay from Band X?". He looks kinda puzzled but replies yes, how did you know. "You fucker. You used that same pick up line on me in Chicago and it didn't work then and it ain't working now.".
Now this guy is really looking at me like what the fuck. But then he stops and says "Oh yeah, I thought you looked kinda familiar. I used that line before? Sorry about that.". What a maroon.
Just at the same time The Oblivians come back out on stage and start in on "Live The Life" and Tom comes back in right as Jay tries to start talking to me again. Tom grabs me and drags me away from dirty rocker guy from Band X and we start dancing to the song. Thank goodness I was saved once again. And got to catch all three encores too!
After the show I run into Jay and his friend he is there with and I tell his friend both stories and he apologies for Jay. Friend proceeds to try to come back to my hotel room with me as well which ain't working. Why can't a girl just go and hang out these days? I gather up Tom and Jim, we grab Jack Oblivian and head to this guys house where I spend the rest of the night talking to Eric Oblivian about why KISS is one of the greatest rock bands ever.
So now every time I'm in my car or the ol' iPod is on shuffle and I hear "Live The Life" kick on, I start to think about this Jay from Band X, drunk and trying to pick me up in Chicago and Columbus and wonder if I'll see him in 2015 in some other city that starts with the letter C and he'll try it all over again. Well... as the song says... you got to live the life you sing about in your songs.

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