A club called El Matador at the edge of the French Quarter! The Moldy Peaches! A hot and steamy night! Gorgeous male escorts! Have you ever heard of anything so lovely?

So the guy sitting next to me at the bar is the only guy who might be cute in the whole place except he's wearing this dumb-ass headband, a big white one, over his forehead, like maybe a bike messenger might wear to keep hair out of his face, but he's not a bike messenger, he's in a bar, and there's no wind blowing as far as I could tell.

Still, Jonno agrees that he's maybe cute, and there was nothing else going on, we checked and everything, so I chat him up for a second. He's got his pinky in a bandage so I ask him what happened. He's just moved to town from Kentucky. He's 26. He's renovating a house. He cut his finger while doing dishes, he tells me. He's already slurring his words.

Sexy!

He reminds me of this guy I used to know in Seattle, Donald, a neighbor from when I used to live in the little house, with the lesbian I went to high school with, her two cats, and an ex-Navy guy who lived in the basement and would bring home dumb girls to fuck loudly every weekend. We could hear it through the ventilation system. He must have packed quite a wallop. That house had the best backyard.

Donald was from Redding, California. He drank too much and would do stupid things like drive drunk and, worse, get caught doing it. He took jobs like house painting, always convinced that it would lead somewhere big. He would date 19 year olds he thought he was going to marry. He wore his heart on his sleeve. He liked Pearl Jam. A lot. He was a nice, dumb kid.

So this guy at the bar, Sam, I think his name was, he wasn't too bright. He cuts his fingers, wears stupid headbands, and drinks to get drunk. But he had tears in his eyes when he asked me about the WTC bombing, and then he bought a beer for a girl across the bar, and asked me what to do, should he talk to her, and I don't know, I took pity on him, so I told him to take his headband off, and to go over there, and just be himself.

"You have to give me your number in New York. You're so cool!"

"Yea, that'll happen," I said.

And then, after a while, I just wanted him to go already. He was getting really drunk. So he went. I watched him out of the corner of my eye while the crappiest art school band in the world - Is it funny when a guy in white face paint calls his female bandmate an "Asian bitch," or not? Is it appealing when the same guy in white face paint screams a cover version of a Phil Collins song, or not? Methinks not. - played.

The girl didn't like Sam. He sat, miserably in the corner next to her and her friends. I stopped paying attention. Later he came back to me, and started banging his head on my back, muttering, "That was the worst ever, dude," and I said, "Can you not do that head banging on back thing?" And then he left.

Finally The Moldy Peaches played. I had seen them once before, the tail end of a performance, when they opened up for The Strokes on Halloween. I didn't like them much then, but I couldn't see them, and could barely hear them. They sounded like fucking hippies actually. It was way too big of a venue for a band like that.

But this time they were so much fun I couldn't stand it. There were maybe 75 people in the room and I had a seat at the bar so I could totally see them and they were funny and in control and cute. Jonno was crushing on the 12-year-old lead singer like the dirty birdie he is. I just thought they were all fabulous. They were kids, and they needed baths, and they just wanted to sing. I liked them.

Later on I talked to one of the band members and told him I was visiting from New York. He was so young and dewy. He looked at me and said, "Oh we get to play much bigger places in New York. So much better that way. Bigger sound."

You fool, I thought. Stay small. It's so much better that way.

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