hey sarah, hope you feel better

so i went to a show tonight at dante's. it was pretty fashionable.
going out:
- fauxhawks
- their bastard brother, the rattail
- gwen stefani up-in-front do
- hooray!
coming up:
- pigtails (long and curly, short and nubby)
- mini bangs
next show:
- bring scissors
- cut off all pigtails in sight
- glue them to foreheads of people with mini bangs

i saw the hunches open for the black lips. thankfully, we missed the set of the opening-opening band, local retards reptilian civilian. they are pretty terrible. actually, the bassist is pretty good, but the whole band is dominated by this terrible frontman who thinks his shitty band is so awesome that they should be locally famous. they're obviously never going to get there on any kind of musical merit, so every show he takes his clothes off and tries to pull some stunt. but then the hunches played.

let me tell you what i know about the hunches. well, actually, i don't know that much about the hunches. but my roommates have some pretty terrific impressions of their frontman, hart. at the mention of his name, stephen cocks his head at a slightly retarded angle and says, over and over again, "i'm so fucked up, guys. guys, i'm so fucked up." andy says that hart claims it's his birthday every time andy sees him, and jake tells a story about hart shouting "what do you want? what's wrong with you?!" to repel unwanted advances. i was pretty excited to see him onstage, and he didn't disappoint. onstage, he was like a retarded three-year-old. i realize i've used the word "retarded" a lot so far today. first, it's really the only way to describe hart in person. second, i want to use it all the time and i'm tired of holding it in to be politically correct. anyway, i spent a lot of their set debating whether he was actually extremely fucked up, and that was why he was practically a dead ringer for an inebriated keith richards, or whether it was just his stage presence. i decided it was probably an act because there's no way he could be that fucked up and make it through a 45-minute set. also, there's this unspoken hierarchy in portland; who can be coolest by acting like they don't care at all about being cool. by acting retarded, hart had bested us all. the set included a mournful application to voltron, an impromptu standup but about "portland bee-ands, everybody loves ;em" and an extended metaphor about how portland bands are like restaurants and want to serve their audiences, which ended with hart's announcement that he didn't want any food, and then about thirty seconds of him shouting "bunny" into the microphone. but it wasn't a weird performance thing or anything - the band was great, but also hilarious.

the black lips were great, too. i mean, i really love them, and was excited to see them again, but their show did seem a little routine. but terrific. one of the guitarists had a grill. it was awesome and everyone had a great time. but it didn't end there. here is what happened while jake and i were in line for the merch table:

heart falls over, pushes his friend into me. his friend says, "sorry, don't mind him." and i said, "its okay, i don't." then heart says to this friend: "sorry. do you want a hug? DO YOU WANT ONE?!" and the guy is like "uhhh . . . no thank you," so he offers one to the guy on the other side of his friend by yelling "DO YOU WANT ONE?! DO YOU?! IT"S A TRAIN" and the guy was like "uhhh . . . no" and got out of there. then heart turns to me, and i thought he was going to ask me if i wanted a hug, which i probably would have agreed to, but instead he just yelled "DO YOU SEE ME?!" and i said "ummm . . . " and then he said, in a regular voice, "noooo, you like the black LIPS." i said back, using my voice i usually use on small, unreasonable children, "yeah, i do like the black lips, but i saw you too." "noooo," he said. "you like the black LIPS." "i do," i repeated, "but i saw you too. you were great." "TERRIBLE!" he shouted. "no!" i said. "i thought you were great! everyone did!" "TERRIBLE!" he shouted again. then he went on to say something to the effect of "you should get into the black lips before they get big. they're going to be the next best thing." "it's too late," i said. "i already like them." "NEVER!" he screamed. he actually reminded me a little of jack sparrow. "THEY'LL NEVER GET BIG! And then you can tell everyone that you liked the black lips before they NEVER GOT BIG!" "okay," i said. "i . . . i'll do that." "But NEVER tell anyone you knew the hunches. never admit it!" at this point, he straightened up and became dead sober. in a normal business voice, he said, "my name's heart, by the way. pleased to meet you" and shook my hand. i told him my name, and he repeated it, and then he spun around and walked away. as i stared after him, he turned back around, squinted, and pointed prophetically at me with one shaky hand, mouthing the word "NEVER." it was amazing. then on my way out he pretended to collapse on someone else and poured a drink all over me. at first i was like "aw crap, i'm going to smell like booze and be all sticky" but as it turns out, it was only water. i want to be just like him. AMAZING.