Part 2 Java Junction-The bands big debut

 Having already given Joey several "squeezes" I had made it on his list of women he would most likely bone.  This is not flattery for me.  I imagine it was a long list and had a very flexible criteria and there would sadly, for him, never be any "real sex" happening.  Ever.  

"Do you think coffee's a good choice for you Joey?" God I fucking loved Emily!  She was one of those skinny girls with huge boobs that could get away with saying anything.  Her delivery was very subdued and monotone and even being told to fuck off had a hypnotic affect on people.

She was right.  Joey was always visibly sweating and trembling a tad.

"Did you guys think of a Band name yet?"  Joey couldn't have asked at a better time.  The cafe was full and Emily and I are both are huge fans of awkward moments.  We exchanged glances and I nodded at Emily.

"It's actually 'One Hard Nipple" She was a straight facer and delivered it perfectly.

Joey smiled and adjusted himself in a creepy way. "That's rad! Do you guy need swag?"

"Yeah!  Could you make us tee-shirts with one polka dot on the mid upper part of the shirt?" I smiled at Emily who laughed and continued.

"Yeah with like a halfmoon line about two inches below it!" Mind you all of this is going on while we are taking drink orders and working the coffee bar.  Some customers laughed and others rolled their eyes.

"I'll see what I can do!" Said Joey. I gave him his obligatory side squeeze and really thought about what Emily had said about the coffee, now conscious of his dampness.

"You guys have a band?" One of our customers, Kelly, overheard the exchange. She had a brother Adam who was the drummer of the band The Expendables. They were a big deal, I guess.  I had always thought this was a funny name considering it was something you could do without? 

Kelly was 18 and already a pretty big partier.  She had a Jetta with an automatic trunk lock on her key chain that made it pop up when she pressed the button.  When she used to get too loaded to drive she would pass out in her trunk, close it and fall asleep. In the morning she would pop the trunk and head to work. (I know this because years later I was her boss and it was a regular thing.)

"Would you guys want to come to my party this weekend and play? What do you guys cover?"

(Nothing...we cover nothing.  But performance comedy insists on saying yes and so...)

"We do a reggae cover of 'Under the Sea" from the little Mermaid. It's pretty sick."  Also delivered full straight face by yours truly.  

"Oh shit!" Emily laughed "Yeah we do!"

(we don't but will have to now...)

It was enough for Kelly.  We officially had a gig.

We practiced every night and told a bunch of people in the cafe about the gig.  We mistakenly decided that we should probably have a TM song and went directly to a ballad. We experimented with reading some angry poetry to just chords playing in the background (it gave very angry lesbian, which was pretty popular in Santa Cruz 2001) 

Gig night rolled around and after having gotten more stoned than any person ever should doing gravity bongs, we decided to wrestle instead.  Literally. Nate had come over and asked us who would win in a fight. We put boundary tape on the rug and it ended up being this whole thing!  I learned that night that Emily is super fast and scrappy and that I underestimated her tremendously.

The door opened, "Weren't you guys supposed to play at Kelly's?"  Emily's house mate Mark had come home from Kelly's party.  Mark was a womanizer and had brought a girl home with him. They both sat next to Nate on the couch who filled them in, "They decided to wrestle instead."

"That's so weird." The girl giggled.  She and Mark watched for a couple of minutes before going into his room to have sex.  It started to get uncomfortable with all the noises so Nate, Emily and I all left and went to the cafe for snacks, sure to avoid Kelly's party.  

The next morning Joey showed up with a thousand bumper stickers for us to pass out.  They read:

One Hard Nipple-Pinch the other one!

"Had to pull a few strings...but my boss thought is was a pretty sweet name!" Joey was so proud to help.

Kelly never forgave us for not showing up and told us we were "Super lame." But in the end being flakey and unpredictable was a really great style for our band, so nothing was wasted.

https://open.spotify.com/track/05sSctzktCeQs5SZ5nnHI0?si=ce62b235f0ff46a5