this should be a short story, but it's gonna end up long, so bear with. saturday night i went to see the fabulous poison okies at the deli. they were really really great, and i'm not just saying that cause rockabilly dave is a good friend. but it was one of those situations where you know someone pretty well for a long time, and you always see them at school or something just looking all normal, then one night you see them on stage dressed all in black rocking out on the guitar and wailing into a microphone. and doing it well. extremely well. i mean, i knew dave was a musician and all, and i figured he was good (purty good, actually), but i wasn't really prepared for him to be such a total rock star!! and the worst part was, i felt like such a MOM! i mean, dave's really not that much younger than me, but i was so totally excited and thinking, "that's my boy up there! ain't he great?!" i mean it could have only been worse had i actually been elbowing the old lady sitting next to me and saying, "that's my little davey. he's my pride and joy!"

so anyway you should check the poison okies out if you like any of the following, a) drunken rockabilly boys, b) stand-up bass (complete with enormous husk of corn painted on the front - i'll have to remind dave to tell you that story), c) really kick-ass music, d) drunken rockabilly boys, or e) pomade.

well, my motherly response to the situation made me start thinking about an accusation once made by a friend of mine regarding my hiring practices. see i used to run a multimedia lab and was in charge of hiring students to work as monitors (where rockabilly dave worked with me). she claimed that i had a "knack" for hiring a certain "type" of student ... that being very cute yet troubled young men. and they mostly shared the same trouble ... specifically taking anywhere from eight to ten years to graduate from undergraduate school. now don't misunderstand me, i did not hire these boys merely for their entertaining personalities (and of course not for their looks, i swear), it just happened to turn out that way. lucky me. and they're all going on to great things it seems, and i always share in their successes in just that motherly way. you can always pick me out of the crowd; i'm the one elbowing the old lady next to me and saying, "that's my boy up there!!"