"He was the worst singer that band ever had"

I've said this more than once: my life is an episode of Seinfeld.

You know the coincidental convergence of awkward events that just compound into a fusion bomb of uber awkwardness because they weren't expected and generally involve the red hot poker of shame? Yes, those kinds of things. My existence, and this blog, is effectively tile laid on my bathroom floor with vomit on it, strung together by the grout that is these incidences.

Picture last summer, will you, the Fourth of July. I find myself at a dive bar in Long Beach attempting to balance my attentions between several individuals whom I do not know. I am talking to a fellow named Josh, whom I don't know that well, but I know he has a major hetero-boner for Bruce Springsteen. Next to him, is Jab Uppercut. This was the first time I met Jab.

Jab is shithoused (what I know how to be his primo condition for joke telling and avoidance of social anxiety). He was telling a story that frankly didn't make any sense and I was attempting to get a word in to speak to Josh. I can't recall what I was trying to tell him, probably something about Obama or the Boss. They're both the bossman now. My thoughts were interrupted by Jab pointing in my general direction (though I was two feet away from him, he couldn't aim his arm all that well due to the libations) and interrupting his tirade on KROQ or whatever to exclaim, "...and you're hot..." then continuing on his verbal rape-a-thon of some poor corporate victim.

Now I know that when Jab gets drunk, he's a rather ethereal comic version of himself - a ghost if you will. He's like sitcom that ends with an orgasm rather than a moral.

I didn't think much of it because he was so intoxicated, but he pranced over to talk to me later on. He began to explain to me what he was doing with his life, which at the time was playing guitar in a band rocketing to stardom (they have since ceased rocketing as he left the band). I think he was giving me a chronology of his band memberships, at least that's what it seemed like, he and the story were losing their center of gravity.

He mentioned a band that rang a bell...a very coital bell.

"I was in This Engine Burns..."

My brain went stealthy transformed into Back to the Future Delorean mode to the year, oh I believe, 2002 or so. A year in which I was spreading my ego-laden marketing plasma all over the hardcore scene in Portland, Oregon (also known as "show booking and promoting"). I had made a sporadic practice of sleeping with members of bands whom I booked. C'mon ladies, don't say you ain't never done nothin' for the wang.

One such band happened to be, you guessed it, This Engine Burns. They had quite a striking singer named Chris. I bedded him and dyed his hair black. He had a fabulous phallus I must say, though that's one for the amorous memory 401k and this blog. I shan't worry about his wang any longer, nor did I ever speak to him again. He went back to LA and did whatever it was he did, which I'm guessing is loads of ladies.

With this firmly implanted in my mind I explained this connection in the most succint manner possible:

"HA! I totally fucked your singer years ago."

"Which one?"

"Chris."

"OH CHRIIIIIIST," Jab rolled his eyes and his entire torso in disgust, "he was the WORST singer that band ever had!"

"Shit, I wasn't making the decision based on singing...he was hot."

Jab wasn't in the band at the time, that would have made the story a great deal more humorous. So don't go thinking that I chose this fellow over Jab several years ago and here I am now enamored with Jab. No, no. No such circumstantial shenanigans occurred.

Later Jab tried to get into the vehicle of a man who had just been arrested for a DUI. Then his girlfriend got upset with him and he chased her, on foot, around Long Beach. This was one of the few nights I was not pummeled into alcoholic oblivion, so my driving services were requested to drive around town and try to find him. We found him, running like wolves were after him across a Chevron parking lot.

Since then, I've learned to be completely aware of how paths may cross in the future. At least if I am ready for it, I might be able to say something clever and snarky to remove my foot from my mouth...and in this case the bad singer's penis from my vagina.