Last night I hung out and wrote, and had a couple of Stella Artois before I headed out to McSwells to see the Slits at the ungodly hour of 9:00. With two Stellas under my belt, both literally and figuratively I walked/weaved up to McSwells. I called Rand to see if he wanted to join me for a pint and he begged off, he had some work to do. I was surprised at the fact that two beers made me struggle to walk a straight line but then it’s always a struggle for me to do anything straight after all.

A band was on, one of the two opening acts. Todd Abramson was around, looking as handsome as ever. He is such a stud, eminently doable. Is he as hung as people have said? I saw Ari Up and Tessa from the Slits having dinner in the front room while being interrupted by various guys carrying their first, and only album ‘Cut’ for autographs. Besides Todd and the Slits I didn’t know anyone there as I stood by the jukebox looking around the front room. I walked to the back room and asked the guys working the door when the Slits were going on. They said 10:50 or 11:00.

I walked back out front, finished my Guinness and walked back home. I couldn’t bear to stand around for two hours at McSwells not knowing anyone and not having any drugs. Ah those memories from the eighties, working at McSwells and doing an occasional line while running around pushing people out of my way with two cases of cold beer. I came home, logged back on and chatted with Juan, nursing a semi broken heart on the night before his birthday. Also chatted with Song who was actually in Taipei before moving on back to Sydney. He wished Juan a happy birthday, in Chinese!

I had another Stella and almost settled in for the night, willing to sacrifice $15.00 just to chill out at home, like I do every friggin night. No, Juan wasn’t having it and proceeded to encourage me to go back to McSwells. I told him I think I’ll go and hang out for a few songs but he browbeat me into going for the whole set. I agreed and watched most of ER and left before I found out whether or not patient ‘A’ was going to live or die. Funny thing is I’ve been watching Scrubs all the time and find it hard to take ER seriously anymore. Then again, after the original cast moved on I found it hard to maintain any interest in the show.

I walked up to McSwells again and walked into the back room just as the Slits were starting. I stepped over to the bar and had another Guinness and looked around where I saw Carol Cusack, who I run into occasionally on the Path train and who I used to work with at McSwells in the eighties, Charlie who I used to DJ with back in the day and Stan who is also friends with the Carol and Charlie. The Slits were excellent, with Ari Up and Tessa being the two original members with four other women in the band, including Holly Cook on background vocals. Holly looked like Neneh Cherry to me and she is actually the daughter of Sex Pistols drummer Paul Cook. Brilliant!

The Slits were having a good time on stage, urging the audience to scream and participate. I will definitely see them again should this line up come back. I was mightily impressed with Tessa on the bass, playing dub style which is a big favorite of mine. For a band that started back in 1977, not knowing how to ‘properly’ play their instruments opening for the Clash and the Sex Pistols and the Damned, they’ve really made a great impression. Once again, DIY wins out. Good info on the Slits at Wikipedia, featuring a link to an in depth interview with Tessa from few years ago. I even used this quote in the morning announcement at work, “Punk wasn’t about being a follower . . . it was about creating your own thing. The Slits were never a punk band in the ‘follower’, or the normally accepted sense of that word.”
— Tessa Pollitt.

Got home at around 1:00AM and went right to bed, waking up 5 hours later, going to work and dealing with the usual Felicia bullshit and I don’t want to get into that right now. Cheers!

from Rod 2.0 blog
· Houston Mayor Bill White halts flu vaccinations at early voting sites in predominantly black and Hispanic neighborhoods. The program didn’t require recipients to vote and was available to anyone aged 50 or older. Health officials wanted to reach people in medically underserved communities but local Republican Party leaders say this was “completely motivated” to turn out Democratic voters.