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 I walked out of my
front door on Sunday at about 4:15 in the afternoon and headed
down to The Dubliner. I never figured I'd go to a Super Bowl
party, let alone one with a soundtrack by the Grateful Dead
and Coors Light specials. Avoiding the bad beer would be easy
enough. So why would I go? The simple answer is friendship.
First though, let me tell you about The Dubliner. This place
looks huge from the outside with it's two floors, large windows
and rooftop lounge. However, this is quite deceiving as the
building is a mere one unit wide. It is a very thin bar indeed
and not well set up for a crowd but all in all a decent place
to hang out. The food was pretty good too, but I'll get to
that later. I made my way up to the second floor where they
move the pool table out of the way for the band.
Dragons With Matches plays the music of the Grateful Dead who,
to be honest, I never really got into. At least not to the
extent of these folks. Still, I love to watch them play. Four
of the seven members are very good pals of mine and some of
the most talented and fun people I know. Freddy Testa (Guitar,
Vocals), Mike Finn (Guitar, Vocals), Marcia Finn (Guitar, Vocals)
and Chris Rydstrom (Drums). I've had the chance to jam and
party with them on various occasions thru the years. They actually
give the Dead life (yeah I know, bad pun ... but it's true).
They have this joyful energy that reminds me of kids in a playground.
All smiles, all bliss. Especially Freddy who often gets completely
caught up in the twister.
Meeting me there was Liz and a group of her friends. Ann, Jess
and Maria. Eric was there too as were other familiar faces.
Eric is still trying to get me back into playing music on a
regular basis. I'm just not ready yet. Troy was there too.
He's still having trouble letting go of the gay jokes directed
at me.
The band played thru the boring pre-game. Then, once the boring
game started, the bar played Grateful Dead CDs. Liz leaned
over to me and said sarcastically, "Wow they got everything
for you, huh? The Dead, Football. What else could you ask for?" I
replied, "Coors Light specials!" and we laughed at the surreal
absurdity of the whole thing.
At one point I could see the girls huddling as if to try and
block a pushy pick-up artist. Sure enough, that's what they
were doing. When it didn't work, they decided to go to the
downstairs bar to get some food. We all ordered various versions
of the Dubliner Burger and some drinks. The conversation started
weird enough with a discussion the number of vaginas on a koala
bear. This lead to multiple penetration black porn with skanky,
gagging crack whores. Somehow we ended up on asshole bleaching
and bikini waxing. God I love hanging out with women.
After the food, we sat for a while watching the half time mess.
At first we all started yelling that Mick Jagger was lip syncing.
However, thanks to the pussy producers fearing the FCC, they
had a five second delay on the game. This was unnoticeable
during play time, but when the Rolling Stones hit the stage,
you could see it was out of sync. I do have to say that it
sounded really good, as long as you didn't look at the screen.
Normally the sound at these things suck.
We decided to go back up stairs to hang with our friends, but
the band was not playing, the game just wasn't enough to keep
us going and the girls were huddling again for pick-up protection.
So slowly, one by one we left. Eventually I'd find out the
the Steelers had won. No big deal for me since it was only
a few days ago that I even found out who was playing. Liz and
I were rooting for the Seahawks strictly for environmental
reasons. Birds are good and the steel industry is bad. At least
that was our logic, and we stuck to it, even though the Seahawks
lost.
As I walked, it struck me how dead (this time no pun intended)
the town seemed to be for Super Bowl Sunday. A day that Liz
found out is the largest eating day in America after Thanksgiving.
The tonnage of chips and wings and gallons of beer is pretty
gross, but not unexpected.
I was home by 10:00 and just relaxed for a bit until sleep
came. Despite the oddity of the activities for me, I really
enjoyed the day.
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