No Names Have Been Changed To Protect The Innocent

I've been a huge fan of Henry Rollins since I was about 16. Not the music - I've never enjoyed that stuff. His spoken word performances, however, are something amazing to behold. I picked up one of his spoken word CDs in a Coconuts Records, probably because of the sweet Henry skeleton pic on the front cover. I bought it because the first track is titled "The Adventures of An Asshole" and it was 45 minutes long. Listening to that CD was incredible - the stories that Henry tells about his life are incredible, usually funny and always thought-provoking. Since then I've collected all of Henry's spoken CDs, spoken DVDs and seen him live about half a dozen times. The following is the true story of my first trip to see Henry.

It was January, 1999, and we were living in Evansville. Henry was on tour, and he was going to be in Cincinnati at the end of the month. I got a ticket, and so did my buddy Jeremy. On the day of the show I picked up Jeremy and his girlfriend Amanda. We were dropping Amanda at her sister's place in Louisville, KY along the way and picking her up on the way back. At the sister's house we also picked up the sister's boyfriend, Jayne. This cat was strange - and not just regular strange, but the kind of strange that ended up wasting hours of my night.

First problem with Jayne - he didn't have a ticket. This wasn't a last minute thing either, we'd been planning the trip for ages. So we drove around Louisville going to places Jayne just "knew" would be selling tickets. I think the third place we tried was a Ticketmaster outlet, and he got that taken care of. Then he was hungry. I was hungry too, but I wanted to get on the road. We were already behind on time and I was not interested in missing even a little bit of the show. But Jayne didn't want to eat in the van on the way. He assured Jeremy and I that we had plenty of time to get to Cincinnati and that he knew exactly where we were going, as he had been there several times before.

So we ate a quick meal and finally got on the road. With Jayne's impeccable direction, we managed to almost immediately get lost. Turns out he'd never actually driven to the club from Louisville, and gosh he had a really good idea of how to get there, but no one's perfect, ya know? With much grumbling from Jeremy and myself we managed to find Bogart's, where Henry was speaking. The show was an 8PM start, and we passed the marquee at 8:05. We were desperate to find parking. Jayne pointed out a Kroger's down the way, and said "Park in that lot. I've parked there before." I drove to the grocery parking lot and noticed a sign right at the entrance. This was not a small, nearly unnoticeable sign either. It was about six feet wide and four feet high. It proclaimed in rather large letters that parking in this lot was for Kroger customer's only. I asked Jayne about this rather large sign with it's rather large letters. "No problem. That's just to scare off the paranoid people."

At another time, I would have completely ignored this turd and found another place to park. But we had already missed some of Henry, and I was unwilling to miss any more. I chose to believe in Jayne, we locked our coats in the car because it was less than two blocks and we were off.

Henry was amazing. He was already well at it by the time that we managed to get in. I was about 75 feet from him, in the balcony, all the way at the back, standing up. And I stood there enraptured for nearly three hours. I literally didn't notice the time going by. When it was over I couldn't believe it was over so soon, and I wanted more. Sadly, no more was to be had for some time. The three of us met up outside the place and walked the short distance in the cold of the now late January night.

We got to the parking lot and of course, the only thing in the spot where the van had been was a lot of nothing.

"Where's the van Jayne?"

"Uh, they didn't tow us last time."

Around now I happened to look up at one of the light posts and noticed that each and every post in the lot had a small sign on it that read, "In case of towing, call XXX-XXX-XXXX to retrieve your vehicle."

We went in the grocery and spoke to the cop that was apparently watching the front end of the place. He laughed when we told him that our vehicle had been towed. "Must have been a show tonight," he said. After I used the pay phone to call the number, he was kind enough to give us directions to the shed where all the cars were being held.

So, because I was eager to see my idol and Jayne was a straight up dumbass, we ended up walking a mile and half through what turned out to be not such a great neighborhood in the freezing January cold at 11:30 PM. And we did it without coats, because it was less than two blocks to the show, remember?

Coming out of the grocery we hooked up with a pair of girls whose car had also been towed. Walking out of the parking lot we gathered even more. By the time we got to walking in earnest we had easily 15-20 people, all pissed and cold.

At the end of the walk I saw one of the most hideously opportunistic things I had ever seen. The Car Barn as it was known, was currently overflowing with cool young people's cars. Literally - they had filled a couple of vacant lots with the cars that wouldn't fit in the Barn. We walked up and this guy was standing there waiting, a big smile on his face.

"$80 a car. Cash only."

I didn't have $80. I didn't even really have $80 extra in my bank account that I could spend on this. Jeremy and I looked at each other, then we both turned and looked at Jayne. We informed him that since this shit was all his fault, he was paying or he was staying in Cincinnati. He rapidly agreed, but darnit, he didn't have $80 on him. The tow guy spoke up quickly and said that one of the truck drivers would gladly ferry Jayne back to the same Kroger we had just come from to hit the ATM.

While we waited I spoke to this guy about what was going on. He explained that Bogart's held shows all the time, and every time they did three of the Cincinnati towing companies got together and towed any car that was anywhere near the place and was illegally parked. Most nights they got 50-75 cars, but "tonight must have been someone good - we got over 100."

$80 a car X 100 cars. $8000 going to a bunch of dickheads who took advantage of urban Cincinnati's lack of available parking.

After a good half hour's wait Jayne returned with the cash and we hit the road.

We dumped him and grabbed Amanda around 2:30 AM, and made it home around 5.

I went in to work at 9AM, with about 3 hours of sleep.

It was all worth it.

The Best Phone Call In A Long Time

Occasionally at work I get the world's most awesome phone calls. Here is one of them, exactly as it was received:

Me: Geek Squad, this is Brandon.

Customer: I need service on my TV, we had a new line run after the storm and now our VHS tuner is out.

Me: Okay, what size is the TV?

Customer: It's an RCA.

Me:...Okay, how large is it?

Customer: It's a standard size.

Me:...Is it 25 inches or larger? Because if it is we can send someone out, otherwise you'll need to bring it in.

Customer: I don't know.

Me:...Could you measure it real quick?

Customer: You're going to have to speak to my husband about this.