Last night’s How to Kick People was a strange but ultimately pretty wonderful affair. We had a technical difficulty that prohibited us from presenting the excellent work of Miss Emily Flake (I’ve really become kinda smitten with her comic strip and we’re going to have her back in the next couple of months, for sure.) and that was all very frustrating, but we also had one of those really nice moments I will kind of remember for the rest of my life, and one of those reasons I wanna do this show forever and think that anyone who doesn’t attend the show because of TiVO or something might be kind of a dick. Seriously, think about that.
OK, so last night’s musical guest was Peter Fitzpatrick, a swell singer who can also play nearly every musical instrument you’ve heard of and a few million more you haven’t heard of, and plays a bunch of those instruments and sings with the band Clem Snide. He also performs with another band, The Pee Wee Fist, and under several different names as a solo artist.
Last night, he performed as NO ONE LISTENED TO OUR TALES OF MONSTERS, a name chosen at my suggestion. (Other names that were considered but ultimately rejected: The Lady Apples; Creaky; The Fireproof Students; Books, Bugs, Bubblegum & Bells – all of those are still available to aspiring musicians, providing credit is provided where due.) For one of his songs, he explained he was going to perform a duet with his wife. His wife, however, was in Napa, California. So, with his mobile phone on speakerphone, and resting on a tom drum with a mic in front of it, Peter and his wife sang together, live and scratchy, together and apart, onstage and (according to her) in the middle of a vineyard, watching the sunset turn the whole world pink. It was a love song about the two of them, and it was perfect, even with its occasional mess-ups and false starts included. Puppy-with-a-chewed ear precious. A handwritten-note-you-found-in-your-shirt-pocket left there ten years ago precious. A pretty girl in scuffed shoes precious. You don’t get many like that, and it felt nice to host it.
And in between then, I made someone from the audience hold up a large drawing of my penis as I pointed out all of its physical flaws to the room. The bartender at Mo’s hopped up onstage, unannounced, to show me (and everyone else) a large can of glass cleaner that states, directly on the can, “KILLS HIV-1 VIRUS.” Bob talked about a deformed twin brother, active pus, and millipedes crawling into loincloths. And Rena warned all of us about tramps and hoboes who sneak into delis and spray their own piss and shit on steam table entrées. I guess what I’m trying to say is, it can’t all be magic. But it was some damn fun.
