Well, last night wasn't the "night off" I had hoped it would be. Instead it was a drunken romp around the neighborhood with friends and new foes. The evening started when I went to meet Johnny Shitrocket at The Library for a couple of post-work drinks. He wasn't in the bar, but guess who was - Greg! And Greg is always out of control awesome so it was a great run-in. He humored some drunken dude named Giles who explained that he'd been drinking since 10am. This explained his sloppy drunk demeanor and his relative difficultly with the pronunciation of the English language. At some point a guy came up to the bar and began to talk with this Giles fellow. Then Giles bought the dude a shot of whiskey. At this point I realized it was Anton from The Brian Jonestown Massacre. He was totally out of control, and just as I imagined him to be in person - a completely intense loose canon. Eventually he felt challenged by Giles who didn't know better and said the wrong thing to Anton which prompted Anton to put him in a headlock while threatening to burn his eyebrows off.

Somewhere in this shit show, Shitrocket walked in, grabbed a Bud and sat back with me to enjoy the show. Greg was no help as he continued to try and convince Giles to go outside and accept Anton's challenge to wrestle him. Eventually one of Anton's crew came over and persuaded him to step out front for a smoke. The situation was diffused or so it would seem. Giles realized that a portion of his eyebrow had been singed and wanted blood. The poor guy could barely stand up, and to reiterate, he didn't realize the character he sought to provoke was a bit intense - to say the least. So off went Giles to give Anton some more shit.

In the matter of a couple cigarettes a scuffle ensued. Beach and I saw it from the window and quickly popped outside to find Anton climbing off Giles. Giles rolled around on the pavement for a few minutes before Greg and Anton helped him up. Anton's friend told us that Giles made a move at him so Anton took him to the ground and rubbed his face on the cement. We both laughed in disbelief, but it seemed all to familiar after watching DiG! a few times. Giles cried a bit of Victim River and started to get pissy again, but thankfully Greg got between the boys. Anton was ready to hurt the kid. The bartender came outside to persuade Giles back into the bar while Anton yelled something about him suing Anton.

Once Giles was out of the picture, Beach and I got a first hand account of the wonder and amazement that is the spectacle of Anton. He wouldn't stop bitching about how he dinged up his binoculars in the scuffle until his friend handed him some tobacco to roll one up. This is when he told us that all guys hate him because he writes love songs for a living. He also made some comment about the Chinese, but I can't remember the context. A lot was said about ass kicking and then he commented on how he sharpened his finger nails so he could bring "Panther Style" to any of the dudes who fuck with him. Anton showed me his hand which looked a bit mangled, but well groomed. He wanted to "tattoo" all the fuckers out there with a wolverine style face slash. Anton proceeded to run his nails across my hand to prove he wasn't fucking around - I assure you he wasn't. At this point we tried to calm everything down, and retired to the end of the bar where Tumbleweed and Lucy set up camp. Kreegan showed up with tickets to the gun show so after a couple of beers and some conversation I returned home with a healthy buzz.

Christie was supposed to meet me around 8:30pm for a quick bite, but she ran super late so I got enthralled by Eddie Murphy's Distinguished Gentleman. After a space out, she called from around the corner so I went down to meet her. It was nearly 9:30pm so we decided to skip dinner in an effort to keep our collective buzzes rolling. At Nora's request we popped into Fat Baby to indulge in the 2 hour open bar. In the hour and a half we were there, I must have slugged six drinks which is a lot on a Wednesday. We caught up with Jerry, Angela and Kevin throughout the course of the night. By 11pm we were both tossed which prompted us to pull the plug. It would be better to battle on another night.

A quick note about the new club - Fat Baby - it's quite fancy, but without all the pretension. It looks and feels like a lounge (read: a place for Hawkins to hang his hat), but it has enough downtown edge to avoid the curse of Libation or some other shitbag environment. From the outside its very unassuming, but once you are inside, the room has a very warm inviting feel. Patrons walk into the bar area that has long bar on one side. Once you make it past the bar area, you can either step down into a lounge area with black leather couches and stools or step upstairs to an open balcony with the same style furniture. The first level's wood floors smell wonderful which lends the joint a homey feel that is sure to be snubbed out over time by poaching smokers. On the opposite side of the balcony rests the DJ equipment which I understand comes standard for the real and fake (read: Jay Good Times) disc jockeys. The best part about the balcony is the red carpet that reminds me of a seedy casino or a snooty hotel. The show room is in the basement along with the super cramped rest rooms, (a hipster could barely pull off oral in one of those things). The room doesn't lose any of the class that characterizes the upstairs (sanz the concrete floor), and it even has a smaller bar and ample seating. The bands play at the far end of the room surrounded by what looks like an amped up system. I don't know which band we saw, but they sounded good besides the volume being turned up way past anything mildly dangerous. All and all I was really impressed by the decor and the general feel of the club. Kudos to the brains behind the operation.