Up late on a school night

A couple of months back, I got an email from my old buddy Opa Lutz. You might remember him from such episodes as: "We're boozin" and "I'm drunk dialing you from a train to Amsterdam at 3am, did I wake you up? Oh, sorry." When we were in Germany in 2004, his band flew over and they went on tour.

These days, he plays bass in a different band called The Generators and Opa L informed me by email that they were going to be touring Europe. Last night was the Hamburg show. After much internal deliberation, I decided to go. It helped that the venue was a club called Hafenklang, which is like a five minute walk from my apartment.

I'd known about the show for a few months, but never listened to any of the music beforehand. I did do some preliminary reading about the band and discovered that they are signed to a label called People Like You Records out of Dortmund (Schmidt's hometown). So, I asked him if he ever heard of it and he was all like, "Um, no." Then I visited the label site and learned that the full name of the label is "I used to fuck People Like You in prison - Records". Maybe Schmiddy just didn't recognize the shorter version.

Aside from some technical difficulties with the microphones and a broken bass string on Opa's guitar, I enjoyed the band's sound. I don't feel particularly qualified to comment on the music any more than that. The crowd could have been more amped, but it was a Tuesday night and it's not too difficult to imagine that some people had to work the next day (today). They might be punks, but sometimes you gotta subvert the system from the inside, fool -- or at the very least, flip some anarchy burgers to pay the rent.

I ended up staying out way too late and had at least two beers too many for a Tuesday. However, I did learn that sometimes you can unlock one of those VW busses with just any old key. I don't know what I can do with this knowledge, but maybe one day it will come in handy. I also talked to a prostitute in a wheelchair who was wearing a trucker hat covered with golden glitter. She told me that she had serviced quite a few men that evening and then went into detail about some of her "favorites". The highlight reel, so to speak. When she was finished, she asked me if she could have a sip of my beer. I didn't say anything, but I was thinking, "Really? 'Cause you've just finished telling me where your mouth has been..."

It was at that point that I realized that I'd been up way past my bedtime anyway. So I just handed her the still nearly full bottle, wished her a "schönen Feierabend" and made my way home.

Then I watched Heroes and fell asleep.