A blind guy got mugged on North High Street a few days ago. As I walk through the streets, I spot a guy and wonder, "maybe this creep robbed a defenseless blind guy who's just trying to get on the bus and buy groceries". My neighborhood has mild and erratic crime, like when kids took my Olds for a joyride. Every few years we have a doozy. Like that time that transvestite was murdered with a samurai sword, or that elusive serial rapist, and of course our highway sniper. Or when that jealous bank teller killed a woman, her husband, and their baby in their home. Apparently she didn't love him or something. The last one was when a few drug dealing college kids were tied up with electrical cords and executed. Lately I have been just finding lost cats or dogs, which breaks my heart all the same. Walking to pubs is the responsible thing to do, but the walk home can be somewhat creepy.
The new bar down the block is so hip. People have described it to me as, "it doesn't suck." I wasn't ready for a huge space with new pool tables, great pinball, comfy booths, fantastic pizza, and Sun Ra on the jukebox. It gets pretty packed on weekends and the crowd is very young and ultra cool. Murder My Darlings ripped through ripped through their set while scantily clad girls wiggled and smiled a tipsy smile. The band reminded me of less sloppy Gaunt fifteen years earlier. The next band, Closer Than Far, were actually giving away a CD at the door. I was alarmed at this precident. Does a band actually have to give it away these days? On the way out, I saw three of them in the garbage can with the pizza boxes. Maybe it's better to charge a dollar to avoid that kind of insult.
I left the up and coming to check out the geezer punks. Back in the 80's, The Bizarros were doing it up right. There was something about Ohio punk that reverberates the misery of factory ghost towns and spilt beer.
Even though they now look like your dad's friends, they chugged through a 25 year playlist. The local punk rock scholars were there in force and guys in who are currently in bands saw their future. It wasn't a triumphant reunion and it wasn't depressing either. All one can ask for is to do a good set and hopefully a few people wants to hear it. Youth culture becoming nostalgia is nothing new.
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