THE LOUSIEST BAND WE’VE HEARD IN YEARS

I have been falling behind in my blogging activities over the last few days, thanks to my recent business travel to the City o’ Sweat and subsequent weekend out of town in Savannah. So let’s catch up a bit, shall we?

She Who Must Be Obeyed and I were joined Thursday evening by our friends Steve and Sue from Northern Virginia, who could very well have rented a tractor trailer to schlep all of their luggage for their four-day soujourn. We (and by “we,” I mean SWMBO) managed to cram all of the luggage into our semi-dinky-ass car and make the four hour drive to Savannah with no incident. Once there, we hooked up with the Mistress of Sarcasm, who accompanied us for many of our activities. The ones involving eating and drinking, anyway.

Our typical weekends in The Lady with the Dirty Face are fairly business-like affairs. We come in, feed the Mistress a few nice meals to provide welcome variety from her usual diet of yogurt, ramen noodles, and salad, hit the local Wal-Mart / Target / Publix up for assorted Household Crap ’n’ Food, buy every loose scrap of clothing on Broughton Street, and head back home. We’ve been there often enough so that we’ve already seen or done most of the touristy-type stuff.

That’s what made this weekend so different. Steve and Sue had never been to Savannah, so it gave us an excuse to play tourist - trolley tours, nice restaurants, the works. And it was fun. For once, we did not go to Wal-Mart or Publix - not even close. Better yet, instead of staying at a hotel per our usual practice, we rented a townhouse in the historic district - an easy walk to just about everything. Not that we actually walked...but we could have.

Ahh, Savannah.

This is a city that takes its drinking seriously. They do not ask a visitor what church he belongs to, as they may do in Macon. They do not ask a visitor where his family comes from, as they may do in Augusta. They do not ask a visitor what he does for a living, as they may do in Atlanta. No, in Savannah, the first question a visitor is asked is, “What’ll you have to drink?” And in this town, the To-Go Cup is practically a religious icon.

We spent some time down at Bay Street and River Street for the benefit of Sue and Steve. I doubt if we saw two or three sober people the entire time we spent in that part of town, and it wasn’t even Saint Patrick’s Day, when Savannah’s citizenry becomes especially well-acquainted with alcohol. Based on the nice folks we saw, I would say that drinking does not make you appear more intelligent. Even if you think it does.

Steve loves him a good jazz or blues club, and we tried to oblige. We found ourselves downstairs at Savannah Blues, over at the City Market, but for some reason, blues were very thin on the ground. Instead, we were treated to a set by the Most Gawd-Awful Band We’ve Heard In Years.

Holy crap, did these guys suck. I have no idea what the band’s name is, so they’re safe from being trashed in any meaningful way, but I decided to call them “Punk Floyd” based on the artists whose oeuvre they were trying to emulate when we came in.

Hey, I’m no stranger to loud, non-melodic music. My CD case is packed with the fine works of Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart. But these guys were something else. They sounded a little like a truck carrying a full load of angry, sweaty hogs, locking up its brakes at 80 mph while driving though the Lincoln Tunnel. In a hurricane. Of live steam.

So we left after about an hour.

Say, how was your weekend?