A Tale of Two Cities

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…

This weekend was awesome. Friday night, we had a final run through of our setlist for the show on Saturday night. Things sounded fine, and we knew that the show would be a success.

And it was. Saturday night rolled around and we were solid – receiving high praise from all those we talked to. Well, almost everybody… Dave’s girlfriend didn’t bother to say anything nice. Not that it is a new thing for her to treat the rest of the band like shit. But I’ll get into that in a second. The truth is, Randall and I (and probably everyone else; I just haven’t talked to the rest of them yet) knew it was our best show. And we had so much fun that we are pumped to get back on stage as fast as possible.

I want to personally thank those who came out to see us. From work (and good friends): Mark, John, Aaron and Laura (The Pampion of the Cheople did not show up as expected); Other Friends: Sarah, Holly, Amanda, Denny, Bob & Kel, DeAnna, Scott, Ken, Helen, Rye, Ryan from Danny’s, Adam & Jeanette, and all the others who I may have left out.

But the night was not perfect. We all noticed that the 2 or 3 times we had met Dave’s girlfriend in the past, she was a biatch. And Saturday night was no exception. Her condescending attitude towards each of us, on separate occasions throughout the night, was completely out of line. We have given her ample opportunities to be kind, while we ourselves have not been anything but kind. But in several instances over the course of the night, she managed to offend each and every one of us (with the exception of Dave), not to mention several people that we know and/or are related to. I will not go into too much detail about each of the things she did, but I will at least tell my offense. The second band for the night was playing and they happened to have a fat guy on stage dancing with his shirt off. We were all talking and laughing, and she walked by with her camera to take a picture of the monstrosity on stage. I called out to her and she turned; I said, “No pictures of that guy,” while shaking my index finger side-to-side, in a completely unharmful, playful, funny manner. She scowled back and gave me the middle finger, then turned and headed towards the stage. And this particular instance of bitchdom was the least of the offenses during the course of the night. I don’t feel the need to go into any more details, but why was it that I felt like this good-for-nothing hoohah was going to pull a Yoko Ono? I even commented about it last night to Johnny…

But anyways, I got to work early this morning and had a smoke with Randall. He proceeded to tell me that Dave and Jason quit the band. At first I thought, “Yeah right – you always make shit like this up.” But then it I realized that it was no joke. I don’t need to go into detail about why Dave quit, mostly because we don’t know exactly why he did, but have a pretty fucking good idea. Jason on the other hand… he basically felt constricted on stage; not his normal self. Even though this was the best show yet for him and for us, he felt out of his element and, if that was how we expected him to act on stage, didn’t want to deal with it.

So, as of this moment, there is no more Phoenix Down. Randall, Rickey, and I remain devoted to each other (at least I certainly hope that they are devoted to me because I know that I am devoted to them).

In any case, I am now depressed, upset, angry. Sure I will wait things out to see what happens. Hopefully, if nothing else, Randall, Rickey, and I will move forward with a new project and be all that much happier. But in the mean time… Now that my true love has been temporarily taken away from me, I will be a wreck.

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Finally, I just got a call from my friend Stephanie. She was the one who was out here a couple of weeks ago to visit her ailing father. He secumbed to lung cancer last night. I pray for her and her family.