cheerfulMonday's show was, well, not particularly profitable, but interesting. In fact, Sunday/Monday bar income was down about 40% from target.
Now if I can remember the participants from this late date, well,
1ferritgurl was up in the area, and there with synkitty. And now my mind's drawing a blank. As I remember, there were two other groups of interest...I know I started on time, ended on time, and ran for about 12 rotations. Then, if I remember correctly,
timenchanter and I grabbed some Denny's, and got home.Tuesday was largely devoted to sleep. When I finally did wake up, there were also little things like paying some bills and doing laundry. It's interesting how important laundry suddenly becomes when you're out of both clean pants and clean underwear.
Partly as a result of that last, I didn't make it to
celticnoor and markobellydance's election night party until about 9:00pm. Just in time to listen to most of Obama's acceptance speech. That was amazingly uplifting - though I think it was telling how quiet his crowd suddenly got when he talked about needing to continue with hard work and sacrifice.Americans, in my experience, aren't too good about the long haul. We're better at short, intense bursts of energy. His push going forward would probably work better if it aimed at simple short-term tasks. Unfortunately, a lot of our problems aren't easily broken down that way.
Then, of course, was the long sadness and bitterness at the Proposition 8 results. The backlash since has been... interesting. I've even gotten that silly petition from several sources telling the Governator "not to enact" Prop 8. As if that was in his power.
Really, people, try to learn something about how your government works.
Or try to do something positive. I mean, at least rioting and vigils produce some public visibility, but better yet, do some fundraising for the lawsuit against 8, and get some support money to Equality California and the ACLU. In case they fail, start the effort to get a repeal of Prop 8 in the 2010 election.
I realize none of those do anything now, but quite honestly, (1) no-one is worse off than they were a year ago, and (2) there are more vital things to consider. GM just tanked. A year from now, we may all be scrounging for scraps of food.
Anyway. Wednesday afternoon was spent feverishly working on and ordering the flyers and poster for the Julie's gig - then rushing up to the City to make sure I could run the video cable before the place got busy. That was fun - I haven't done the "run a cable in a suspended ceiling bit" for ages.
It was amusing later seeing George's face when he decided to try my video feed (most of the bar had been watching a game up until then), and it worked. You'd have thought I'd pulled off a miracle, instead of just pulling an $8 cable.
I ran into one of those odd examples of the "jobs expand to take the time available" law - I got there at 5:20pm, ran the cable, which didn't take too long, set up, which normally takes an hour, and was barely ready to go at 8:30pm.
Interesting night - and 60% more profitable than last week. Baby steps, and all that. This Wednesday was mostly a birthday party. A birthday party of heavy drinkers. By the end of the night, several of them were having a little trouble standing up. The whole "wait your turn" thing was getting hard for them to comprehend, too.
It was almost exactly like having a bar full of Wades.
Mostly a fun and supportive group, though. They had no problem singing with each other, cheered each other on, and had a generally good time. I've gotta work at the names, though. I'm simply not used to men named Amin, Zuki, Duce (pronounced "deuce"), or Fari.
Around 1:50am, after about 10 rotations, I had to start repeating to people that it was over. I overheard one of the girls (Brandi or Melissa, not sure) telling another one that she'd like to be back next week, but it would depend on how she felt in the morning.
The bartender this week was different - apparently the usual one, Rachel, called in sick. So we had Anthony, who has apparently been a very active No on 8 supporter. And gave off a straight vibe. That was cool.
I was out of there by about 2:45am, with some help. Then wove my way down the 101. I was tired.
But not so much that I didn't stop at IHOP on the way. Priorities, and all that.
Some sleep, and then up again Thursday afternoon for lunch and hanging out with
tankgirl, including some with (ahem) "Jane." Always fun, that. And even more fun when she bummed a ride to the bar.Last night was pretty wild. A little bitter at the start (
moahb singing Revolution, and interjecting "FUCK YOU, CALIFORNIA" right after "change the constitution" was actually pretty funny), but then, just crazy. I ran for 6 rotations, mostly because it was slightly slower at the beginning, but then things built - I had about 28 different singers.Angela got Honey to come out,
onyx101 decided she wanted to be around people, this one group (Alex, Manny, Nelson, Shawn, and Maria) decided to come back (well, actually, came back in force), some more Scott and Sarah and a whole bunch of their friends.One of those friends being Shawn (different Shawn. Tagged himself as "FreakMonkey"), an old contact of Angela's with her recent fiasco.
Dan actually sang - multiple times.
Also this cute thing who was hanging around in a corner. Turns out she was waiting for Devon and Nate-o - something about being a potential roommate.
A few Stripes stragglers in to celebrate their victory - some
snafflekid, and quite a bit more of Kristi and Wade. And a friend of, I think, Wade's, who fell asleep on one of the pool room couches.An interesting little quiet guy named Cole, who sang to a background he'd composed himself, wrote up a whole bunch of slips, then took off (It was 1:30am).
kizmet100. lucydogstringer. And more.What with trying to let the crowd sober up a little bit, I was running videos until 2:45am. Then Timmie, Kristi, Wade, Angela and I dropped by Denny's for some food-like substance. Since we couldn't quite wake him, we left Wade's friend on the couch.
And when he got back, Timmie apparently decided that settling down at the bar was easier than getting the guy up. I'm not sure he's been home since.
I, on the other hand, dropped Angela off at home, got back to the Duplex, and collapsed. I have nothing really planned for today, so I think I'm going to just head back that way. Then maybe some more laundry, and a bit of rack repair. One of the wall warts keeps falling off internally. Not a good thing.
