NP: The Cars, Complete Greatest Hits

Okay, so we wound up with another last-minute Diver .75 gig at Cullen's on Sunday night. The first odd thing was that Tony thought I would be disappointed if I didn't have the opportunity to schlep my whole kit over there, and was hesitant to suggest we do it as more of an acoustic thing. Then again, he didn't know that one of my New Year's resolutions was apparently to hurt the hell out of my back.

Which brings us to the second thing. I don't know if I had a different vantage point because I was standing with the djembe, or what, but I noticed an odd little pattern. Chicago's northside lotharios are all going to get head colds. I saw two or three guys leave with young ladies who I'm going to assume they picked up on the scene, 'cause they just looked like the type who pick up women at bars. Part of the uniform was wearing a dress/sport shirt with no t-shirt, and the top three or four buttons unbuttoned. And none of these guys seem to have brought jackets. Yes, it was maybe a little unseasonably warm, but not that warm.

Maybe this is just the influence of little old Italian grandmothers, but I almost always trade-off fashion for warmth when we hit winter in Chicago. Either these guys have iron constitutions, or they haven't been here very long.

I also saw the most peaceful ejection of a patron from a bar in a while, but it may have just seemed that way after I was almost in the middle of a fight at another bar on Saturday. As my friend Mike commented, "they don't grow them soft in Belfast."