(photo by Musicmaker Magazine)
[This started as an email to a friend, then submitted to Honolulu Weekly for the "Clubbed to Death" column, but editor Stu Dawrs had already written a review himself! -- Doug]
(photo by Musicmaker Magazine)
Annabel,
Shoulda been there. Ozomatli put on a great gig -- for tall people. I just stood around with a beer in my hand facing the same way as everyone else. I think they were looking at the band. I could have perched on your shoulders and both of us could have seen what was going on. I'd buy the drinks and it'd be the start of a great symbiotic relationship. Or is that what’s called "codependent"? Whatever, not Platonic anyway.
Big crowd - the Pier Bar had these movable barriers that they used to expand their space. No kids though, due to a disgusting over 21 rule. Damn, Goldenvoice shows used to be and are absolutely supposed to be "all ages." Which means a bunch of twitchy juvenile delinquent vandals running around jumping up and down and stage diving talking too fast or too slow... I mean, that’s what the music is for, to provide the soundtrack for the joyride drama of our times - driving music for that ride down the shining path to that shining place that’s actually got a place for us. All of us.
Ozo’s like that. A BIG bunch of people wailing and honking and pounding on stuff. But even with the Refuse and Resist guys reasoning (ha ha!) with security guards and leafleting and marching the "Free Mumia" banner on stage, it didn’t seem quite right. ‘Cuz the kids weren’t there. Just old farts with their state issued certificates oldness. Oldies.
And touristy oldies at that. Old mainland tourists doing their drunken fake salsa thing, and jarheads standing in endless beer lines. I'm trying to figure out how to describe the beer lines "moving at the rate of glaciers" without saying "glacial" but I can't so I won't.
After standing in a beer line for about an hour, I just flagged down a waitress, "Hey, any extras on your tray?" Nope. "I'll give you a ten for that Heineken." Okay. She followed me around all night.
Ran into my bunch of friends. We call ourselves The Van Gogh Club ‘cuz we're all broke artists. Actually none of us is an artist. We're all writers who are broke. Actually none of us is really broke. I'm the brokest. The rest are "dot edus" -- writers that have broke students. But we uphold the honor and glory of brokeness, and we want to think of ourselves as artists like Van Gogh so we figure calling ourselves that makes it so. Oh no, now I’m in trouble with them. Well you guys, fuck with me and you’ll catch a disgruntled exit wound big enough to walk a dog through. See? I’m a writer. Got it handled.
After a while The Waitress came by so I bought a round and gave her a KILLER tip. She was VERY attentive to us. (Tip for the kids: When you venture in a bar, keep your doves in a wad with the twenties on one side and the ones on the other -- try to avoid intermediate denominations. If there's a waitress or woman around, hold the wad with the twenties out and fan the wad so it looks like you got more than you know what to do with. If it's a thug or someone from outside your own Van Gogh club trying to bum drinks, hold it with the ones up and SQUEEZE it so it looks like you only got a couple of bucks, max.)
The Van Gogh Club Rules of Etiquette are quite patriarchal-feudalistic when it comes to drink buying so pretty soon everyone was buying rounds and doing the who-can-leave-the-biggest-tip contest. I don't know who won. At the moment I feel I lost, however.
At the end of the night I turned around and found out we were all next to a portable bar that didn't have any lines. Shit.
I'm gonna stop drinking when I go out. You just act goofy, say shit you shouldn't have (I forgot to mention I ran into Stu and told him if he fucked with my shit he'd "catch a disgruntled exit wound big enough to walk a dog through") and then just regret it the next day unless you crack your car into something and die or kill someone else. Really, I'm done with that.
And then you wake up the next day, look through your pockets and keep turning that skinny wad of ones over and over looking for the side with the twenties...
Well, I’m just going on and on. But Bellie-girl, I promised to send you a review so here it is. Shoulda been there.
Refuse and Resist (http://mojo.calyx.net/~refuse)
Ozomatli (http://ozomatli.com)
[Check out Stu's review of the same gig]
[Added 8/18/00 -- Ozomatli's statement re the Police Riots at the Dem National Convention]