Previous Episodes: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 , 14 , 15

This is a sort of a continuation of last week’s post.

Newman booked a second show in C’ville. This time we were opening for Copper Sails at Outback Lodge. Just a quick show… start early, end early, drunk early = thrown the F out.

Smalls had been playing with us for a few weeks at this point. We’d done a few shows in Richmond and he was really beginning to find his role.  None of us really knew anything about Outback Lodge… or Copper Sails for that matter. It really didn’t matter, we only had to play for 45 minutes. The set we had prepared would be great anywhere, some funk, some blues, some rock, and a few covers. This show was gonna be short and sweet. We’d make enough money to pay for all our gas, get free dinners and beers from the bar, and figure the rest out from there.

We went on around 9:30 and played our set, almost flawlessly. I still listen to this show as I believe it was one of our best performances ever. When we were finished, we cleared the stage, and put our stuff off to the side. The small crowd that was there seemed very impressed, as was evident by the large number of additions to our mailing list, the pats on the back, and the two really hot girls that kept eyeing me.

I tried to ignore them for a while, pretending I was paying attention to Copper Sails, who was putting on quite a good show of thier own. Eventually, it just became too obvious and unavoidable, so I went over to say hi. I don’t remember the conversation, but I do know I ended up talking to them well through a setbreak and into the next set. 

After a while Copper Sails announced they were playing thier last song, and they broke into a funky version of Micheal Jackson’s ”Billy Jean”. Immediately, Smalls hit the floor with some of his best moves. He was a hit. People circled up around him, and cheered him on. He was loving the attention. He went on and on, hardly repeating a move. When he finally ran outa moves, he performed a strut and slide up to the bar next to me and chugged the rest of his beer. More cheering. Then he looked me in the face made a “can’t stop me now” face and neck waggle, grabbed my beer without losing eye contact, and chugged that too. Even more cheering. Then the dropped his right leg behind his left, did a 540 turn, faced his fans, and with one finger pointing at the ceiling, grabbed his crotch and thrust it at them, right in time with the last beat of the song. More cheering, but not only for him, people in the other room were simultaneously applauding the band that had just finished a terrific set of crowd pleasers. You could tell he thought it was all for him, as he walked to the center of the room, curtseyed and returned to the bar at my side, and introduced himself to the girls I had been talking to.

They complimented him on his preformance, both on stage and on the bar floor. The four of us stood there talking like strangers do at a bar, and eventually one of them said his “go” word. She called him “cute”. He hated “cute”, and everyone who knew him, knew it. At barely 5-2, he wanted to be anything but “cute”. Puppies are cute. Midgets are cute, and there was no way he wanted to be compared to a midget. I saw it in his eyes, and suggested that we excuse ourselves and go pack our equipment in the car. He agreed, and decided that all his dancing had worked up a serious piss. This seemed like a good idea to me, too, so I followed him.

There was at least one other guy facing the urinal in the bathroom when we walked in. Smalls pulled up to the urinal next to him, and I went in the stall. Not surprisingly, I was faster than both those guys, and I was able to wash my hands and get out there while they were both still standing at their urinals. As I was walking across the bar towards our equipment, Smalls’ pissing neighbor came flying out of the bathroom backwards and stumbles into the wall.  Smalls came walking out behind him. Pissing neighbor walked up and shoves Smalls in the chest, who staggers back into some onlookers behind him, and charges head first into pissing neighbor’s abdomen. One second later they’re on the ground.  Another second later, they’ve been grabbed by the monster bouncers and thrown outside.

I walk outside to see what the hell was going on. When I walked out, Smalls was standing at the base of the, in comparison, mountain of a bouncer, pointing him in the face and yelling vulgarities. I quickly grabbed smalls and pulled him away. To calm him down, I pulled my last joint out of my pocket and convinced him to hotbox my truck while the rest of us loaded up to go home. Which we did very quickly. After we were packed up, I spoke with the bartender to try and smooth things over, only to find out that he too thought, “you will probably never play here again.”  Awesome, that’s two of two for this town.

I eventually came to find out what had happened in the bathroom. Turns out, while they were standing there pissing, Smalls looked over the divider, stretching on his tip toes to look over and said, “it’s okay, my dad has a small dick, too.”  Now why would a guy do that? Clearly, he was just looking to get in a fight. Classic Napolean complex. He got what he wanted, I guess.

Eventually, we all decided that the liability Smalls brought to the table outweighed his compatability in our band, and we fired him. It needed to happen. Turns out it was all for the better. He’s been sucessfully persuing his own musical career ever since. Hopefully, he’ll stop by C’ville on his way up. Who knows, maybe he’ll dance a little, too.

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