Nurse the Hate: Columbus Club Fiascos and NFL Week 6

 

We are playing a couple of shows with Hillbilly Casino this week.  Wednesday night we are at the Beachland and Thursday night at Rumba Cafe in Columbus.  There are very few cities in which the band (or bands in this case) have played more venues than Columbus OH.  In the Early Days Of Bitter Struggle of The Cowslingers, which has since yielded to The Later Days of Bitter Struggle of the Whiskey Daredevils, we found ourselves booked into all sorts of weird spots.  The goal was always to play Stache's, the 1990s gold standard of Columbus indie rock venues.  That was the sister venue to The Grog Shop in many respects, the place where the most currently active bands in your record collection would likely play a show.  That moved down to the next level, Bernie's, aka The Distillery, still in my mind the worst men's room in rock n roll at the end of their admirable run as a bagel sandwich/rock club/filthy basement.  Bernie's featured nowhere to park, nowhere to safely unload, flights of stairs to carry the gear and then a dodgy sound system once you finally played.  It was though, a reliable place to play. 

After Stache's closed or re-opened as Little Brothers, and Bernie's died its slow painful death. the Columbus club scene fractured into an unpredictable Balkans States of venues which would fall in and out of favor with rapid speed.  We had played shows at a variety of these locations to varying degrees of success and/or disaster over the years.  There was a basement show in a slick Short North eatery with the World Famous Blue Jays that had a local bluegrass opener with a singer that was violently opposed to what The Cowslingers were doing and wrote terrible things about us in some local magazine.  I think he reviewed his own show.  Is that even allowed?  The review was along the lines of "We played and were pretty awesome, and then this piece of shit band from Cleveland ruined everything because they suck and fuck those guys cause they're a bunch of dicks, and then the Blue Jays played and I love those guys."  Now it was possible that we sucked that night, and it was also possible that we got all loaded up on comp beer and were a bunch of dicks too, but I wish I remembered that venue because we never went back again.

We played a place called Freaky's Pizza where I swear to God, Eric Davidson from the New Bomb Turks was the only person in the crowd.  There was a shitty place by what we refer to as "The Columbus Chicken District" that has all those fried chicken joints in a row right off 71 by the Rumba where Gary's amp was so loud a guy told me "that was the loudest show I've heard since Mastodon", who I have never seen live, but if the band is called "Mastodon" it can be surmised that they are not a folk duo.  I think we played Woodlands but I get that confused with The Thirsty Ear.  We had a great show in a place called something like King Ave Five (?) with Driftmouth followed by a horrible show there with Left Lane Cruiser and Driftmouth.  What was the venue attached to Hound Dog's Pizza?  I liked that place.  We played Skully's to varying degrees of success.  Ace of Cups is a cool place, but I think we aged out of there and don't wear enough ironic Carhartt skully caps to fit in.  Andyman's Treehouse was always fun despite arguably the worst sound system in the modern age.  Our practice PA was better.  I bought one of the most comfortable t-shirts I own there from a band called the Rye Notes who I have no musical memory of whatsoever.  I wear the shirt all the time though.  There was that place where Dime Bag Darryl got shot.  Alrosa Villa?  I can't remember why we played there.  It sucked though.  700 North was a thing for a bit.  I can just keep going...

The venue I really wish I could remember was on Ohio State's campus.  This was a Cowslingers show that I think Sasha booked us into where he somehow shook loose student activity money from the University.  Sasha worked out of Champaign IL and knew the University system very well.  That guy was a hustler in every sense of the word.  These colleges would keep this princely sum of money that they would dole out to bring in whatever the decision maker decided was a cultural event that the Student Body would not only enjoy but take some sort of artistic merit out of.  I can say with great certainty that The Cowslingers neither provided artistic merit or were anything even remotely enjoyable for the Greater Ohio State student body.  The only Ohio State students that ever came to see us wandered in by mistake.  Somehow Sasha got past these obvious shortcomings to qualify us to take a big chunk of money out of that student fund and got us in there on a Thursday night.

The venue was a basement of what seemed to be an old dining hall.  We had trouble finding it and we knew where we were supposed to go.  We could have just as easily set up in a basement of a church.  There was no beer because it was a "university sanctioned event".  I immediately went out to a nearby UDF and got us a couple 12 packs.  There were no posters set up anywhere announcing "Cleveland rock band playing secret basement" so the prospects of success seemed bleak.  I figured we would play to no one.  I can't remember much about the show, but I do remember this.  1. We quickly drank all the beer hoping that if we got drunk we wouldn't notice how awful this show was.  2. Nobody came because no one knew about the show and even if they did they could care less about some sloppy ass country punk band.  3.  We had four friends that came (who I can't recall the identity of now) and we essentially played for them.

We packed up as fast as possible as we were A) out of beer and B) wanted to distance ourselves from the stench of failure that this event wafted in every direction.  We were close enough to some High Street Bars that we could walk, so we left the van by the abandoned campus building and went out in our cowboy outfits. It was then that two legendary Cowslinger events happened.  As we walked a back alley towards High Street, Bobby Latina's cowboy boot heel feel off.  He started hobbling after the rest of us screaming out in a high pitched voice, "MY HEEL!  MY HEEL!  MY FUCKING HEEL!!!".  The rest of us, always empathetic, began doing our own high pitched imitations of The Boy screaming out "MY HEEL!  MY HEEL!  MY FUCKING HEEL!!!".   Meanwhile Bobby gimpily trotted along trying to catch up in his broken cowboy boot holding his fallen heel in his hand.

Why we decided to go to Papa Joe's, I don't recall.  I think it was because it was the exact opposite crowd we normally hung out with and wanted possible confrontation due to the disastrous show.  Papa Joe's was a straight up Frat Boy crowd.  This was the very cliche of an uncool college bar.  Horrible music, draft beer in plastic buckets, and every single guy from everyone's high school that liked to get into fights performing for the hairspray professionally ripped jeans girls that loved them.  In short, these were not "our people".

Bobby must have been around 17-18 years old.  I have no idea how we even got him in that bar.  I probably told them he was my son or something.  "Hello Mr. Doorman.  I am a 29 year old man and I would like to introduce you to my 17 year old son that has no passing resemblance to me.  Now we will be on our way to enjoy the delights of your draft Natural Light beer served in those charming plastic buckets."  Regardless, he got in somehow.  

We couldn't have been in there that long when I noticed Bob out on the dance floor doing "The Move", a signature dance step he picked up somewhere as a joke.  He was in the middle of the dance floor with the cheap light show and weak fog in his broken cowboy boot smiling ear to ear.  He wasn't really dancing with anyone but sort of with everyone, which was funny enough.  But what really got me laughing to tears was that he had taken his scrotum out of his jeans, or "hanging brain" as it is known in some circles, and was smiling like nothing was going on.  It wasn't for five seconds or so.  It was a full song or more as these college frat party dopes concentrated on their horrible wedding reception dancing as the little deviant cowboy did his thing.  There is something memorable to seeing 70 people dancing, oblivious to a little cowboy and his scrotum doing "The Move" in the middle of it all.

That's the way it goes.  You have to make the best out of a bad situation.  That's what I think the sad sack Carolina Panthers are going to do today.  Let's not mince words.  The Carolina Panthers are bad.  The coach got fired because of two mistakes he made.  1. He wasn't good at being a football coach and the NFL is a tough place to be if you are bad at that.  2.  He tied his wagon to Baker Mayfield to win some games, and that is not going to work.  A year ago Baker was being discussed as turning down a $35M a year/5 year deal to be the Browns franchise QB.  Now he will likely never be a starting QB again and will need to completely change his reputation to become a quiet backup in the mold of Colt McCoy.  Damn.  In retrospect, he maybe should have signed that extension, but what's $175M anyway?  I'm sure he got a degree at Oklahoma that will lead to equally lucrative compensation.

I am banking on that boost a team gets when they boot the old coach and get a QB on offense that has at least a prayer at getting the receivers the ball in stride.  Yet, I'm also betting AGAINST the Rams.  The Rams look really shitty right now.  Their offensive line is terrible, Stafford looks wrong, and they have zero running game.  When two teams have trouble scoring, I will take the team getting ten points.  I could look like an idiot on this game when Carolina loses 35-6, but I am banking on that first week wake up call when an organization is on fire.  Carolina +10.

Along my consistent strategy in the NFL of "buy low/sell high", I'm on Pittsburgh.  Sure, they looked awful last week, but everyone looks awful against Buffalo right now.  Once again, Pittsburgh is not very good. They can't move the ball.  Quarterback play has been "underwhelming" at best.  The trademark tough defense looks soft.  Their only win was due to five (5) Bengal turnovers, and even then, it went to OT.  This is exactly how the NFL gets you.  Just when you think a team is non-competitive, they somehow play well against superior competition.  Tampa is an ideal opponent in this regard.  The Public still think the Bucs are the 2020 Bucs.  Instead, the 2022 Bucs are the "can't score much but we have a good run defense" team where Brady appears mortal.  I'm not looking for a win here, but more of a "just hang around" type game from Pittsburgh.  Pittsburgh +9.5

The Patriots aren't very good.  They are part of that mix of Vikings are the Patriots are the Saints are the Bengals are the Browns are the Colts are the Broncos are the Cardinals etc.  They go to Cleveland this week to play a Browns team that, on paper, is a much better team.  My concern for the Browns is that Belichick will somehow come up with a gameplan to make third string backup Bailey Zappe look at least competent and attack the middle of the Browns defense in ways the 30th ranked Browns can't stop.  The Browns can do one thing which is run the football.  Hoodie is great at taking away the one thing you do well and forcing teams to beat him another way.  In a battle of wits, who do you want to support?  Stefanski and Company or Bill Belichick?  Yeah, that's what I thought.  Patriots +2.5.

Current Record:  8-8