On this particular Saturday, I showed up at The Rex around 1 pm to stake my claim on a good spot for Godboo and Rotundo at 3:30. Stan was sitting at a table, seemingly surrounded by empty chairs with half-empty glasses of beer in front of them. He told me later that he had ordered a beer for every spot he was saving so that people would stop asking him if they were free. By the time I got to chatting with him, he'd probably had the equivalent of about 5 beers. Okay, maybe not that many. But it was funny.
Three of his seats were actually free so I took one of them, and another familiar-looking couple sat across from me. They're from Georgetown and they frequently drive into the city and spend the weekend, hitting up The Rex when one of their favourite acts is on. We had a great chat about downtown condos and bidding wars and living downtown. The only thing that Steve could free up was this Starbucks card with $10 on it. If ever I am down and out, I can get a thing here and there just from the contributions to this journal. :-)
One of the Stan's seats was being saved for his son, who didn't show up until the second set. A friend of Stan's sat there for the meantime, a man who is a beer judge. A beer judge! How do you get a job like that?? I need to talk to that man some more sometime.
When Stan's son showed up, Stan accosted him for something from his wallet. Since he didn't have anything, Jason very subtley tore the label from his shirt and offered it up. Another first!
About a week later, I was back at The Rex to catch "Michael Herring's Vertigo featuring David Binney" and ... there was Stan (he was there for the preceding show, the Jivebombers). He was happy to see me and this time, he had his wallet with him. I think Stan gets the award for the prettiest hand-writing by a man.
Normally I block out emails and addresses and phone numbers, but I will take a cue from Stan's entry and I will leave this man's info displayed in case anyone out there needs some home reno work done.
Sitting beside Stan was a woman I have also seen many times at The Rex. My sister, Lynn, and I call her the Dionne Warwick woman. She looks a bit like Dionne Warwick, or maybe Ella Fitzgerald...??? In any case, she is a very beautiful lady and we remark on her every time we see her. As soon as Stan started asking me if I brought the journal with me, she wanted to know what was going on and before you know it ... she's fishing through her wallet, too.
On this evening, I almost felt like it was getting to the point that I would walk into the Rex and people would be approaching me about submitting something from their wallet. Many times, people who have watched other people make a contribution tell me they will have something the next time they see me, as was the case this evening - a woman named Linda was sitting beside me and promised to have something the next time she sees me. She thought the whole idea would make a great book and that one day I will be on Oprah and become a gazillionaire.....
Maybe one day .....
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