Life After Connecticut College

....On Friday, I celebrated our nation's 809th birthday (my historical ignorance is matched only by my mathematical ineptitude) by heading up to beautiful and mountainous Sharon, NH, for Wes's annual In-Depends-Dance Day party, where all guests are required to shake their groove thangs whilst wearing adult diapers (I'll let you decide if that's true or not). In addition to the Huggie Shuffle, there were plenty of fun activities, including a wiffleball tournament (The Steaming Manholes and I came in third), a game of HORSE where you had to incorporate a popular culture reference into each shot, swimming, splashing, sliding, sunning, a brief Welcome to Florida performance, fireworks, and no fewer than eight different pasta salads (by the end of dinner I was so full of carbs that I could barely keep my eyes open and my mouth closed). It was a long drive home back to New Londy, but it was definitely a fun day.

The weekend before this past one, WTF played it's first three-show weekend in recent memory, including a double header on Saturday (I felt a little like a professional baseball player, except that I didn't have to wear a belt for no reason and I was actually doing something that involved physical activity). I was most excited about our Saturday-night headlining slot at Harper's Ferry, our favorite club to play in Boston, but I was still pumped about the other two shows.

Our Saturday afternoon show was at a venue in Manchester, NH, at which we had never played, so I was a little tentative about it. Fortunately, when JZ and I arrived we found it to be a huge place with a great stage and sound system. Unfortunately, there were FIVE other bands, and to our surprise we had last choice in choosing when we wanted to play! Knowing that we had to be down in Boston at 7:00 to soundcheck for our "real" show (sorry Manchester fans), JZ realized that we had to do whatever necessary to get a slot that would let us leave by 5:00 at the latest. We figured our best bet was to befriend the door manager, whose age and attitude seemed roughly equal to our own. So, thinking quickly, we bonded with him over Angelina Jolie's hotness and before long had our pick of starting time.

Duncan was experiencing some pretty serious throat problems, so we stuck to Wes songs so that Dunc could rest up for the big show in Boston later on. Interestingly, a majority of the audience members were 14-year-old girls, so they were incredibly excited that the set was so Wes-centric (let's just say that he doesn't exactly look like he's 23). One girl in particular kept taking photos of me, which I found quite distracting due to the resultant mental image I kept having of pictures of myself appearing on some abbreviation-laden e-teen-zine (I can see the headlines now: "OMG, CR is such a QT-pie!"). The biggest burn of the gig was that the venue only gave us $1 for each person that showed up to see us, despite the fact that it cost $10 for each of them to get in! The place's booking agent e-mailed us after the show saying that we sounded great and that he'd love to have us back again real soon, but something tells me that is not too strong a possibility (if I wanted to make 25 cents an hour by letting someone listen to me sing and tell jokes, I'd just resurrect the old Vaudeville act that Mitch and I toured the chitlins circuit with (in order to make it as authentic as possible, we demanded that we get paid at the same rates that performers in the 1890s did)).

Being the professionals that we are (uhh....), we turned our frustration over that show into pure rock and roll ferocity (umm....) during the Harper's show. I'm happy to report that Duncan manned up, sang through the pain, and sounded great, though he could barely talk after the show (an unexpected but much appreciated side effect). All in all it was a fun night!

Well, I'm a little blogged out for today, but I'll be sure to update y'all with more recent happenings from my life as my work schedule eases up later this week. Keep it funky!