>How not to party with rock stars

>In college, I had a few friends who started a band. Called The Mendoza Line, they were known mainly for drinking a few too many beers, going on stage and forgetting how to play their songs. Everyone in the audience would laugh and applaud and then the band would come down from the stage and drink some more.

Of course, now they’re like, famous. Seriously. They got signed to a record label, moved to New York, lost a few members, gained a few members, released some albums and just came out with a new one that kicks ass. Last night, they came to my town for a show and I got to see them for the first time in almost a decade.

And I behaved like a complete and utter freak. No really. I did.

I blame it on the “Cosmopolitans” served by the club. Judging from their taste, the bartender ran out of vodka and decided to make do with rubbing alcohol and pink Kool-Aid. Despite this (or perhaps because of it), I calmly drank three during the four hours we were there. Oh, and I ordered a fourth that I didn’t drink but instead allowed to remain on the table infuriating Hubs with its undrunken expensiveness. Anyway, at some point during all of this, the drinks’ persuasive powers convinced me that I was the World’s Leading Expert on Friggin’ Everything.

For example, after the first band, Elliott Brood, played an excellent set, I got up to go to the restroom and ran into the lead singer.

“You were really good. I just thought you should know that,” I said suavely.

“Thanks,” he said, smiling. “Thank you so much.”

“Yeah,” I continued. I decided he was in need of my Expert Opinion. “Yeah, I would say you were Jane’s Addiction meets The Dukes of Hazzard.”

His smile faded. Funny, I thought to myself. Hubs had laughed at that line. But this guy definitely wasn’t laughing.

“We don’t really get that too often,” he said slowly.

“Oh,” I replied with unparalleled panache. “Well, bye.”

I went back to my seat and told Hubs what I had said.

“What?!” he nearly spit out his drink. “You don’t tell someone to his face that his music reminds you of The Dukes of Hazzard. ‘Ooooh,” he mocked in a girly voice. “In that second song, you sounded just like Boss Hogg!”

You’d think I would’ve learned my lesson at that point. Oh no. I only got worse. After the second band, Great Lake Swimmers, played their set, I decided they too could benefit from my Expert Opinion.

“You guys were really good,” I told the lead singer and guitarist after I bought their CD. “I just thought you should know that.”

“Thanks,” they said in unison.

“I told my husband you guys are as good as The Shins, only you need a Zach Braff to make you famous.”

“Zach Braff?” The singer was puzzled.

“You know. Garden State.”

Silence.

“Scrubs.”

Silence.

“Oh come on!” I said. “Mandy. Moore’s. Boyfriend.”

“I’m sorry,” he said in a very practiced this-is-how-I-respond-to-drunken-groupies tone. “I just don’t understand your cultural references.”

“Oh.” I thought about telling them that their last song would’ve really been better if the guitarist had played a dum-dee-dee-dum-dum instead of that lame dee-dee-dee-dum-dum, but decided against it. “Well, bye,” I said instead.

Yeesh.

Finally at 11, The Mendoza Line took the stage. Nine-odd years of banddom had improved them; They remembered the words to every song. Better yet, they were fantastic. I pulled my camera out of my purse and congratulated myself for having remembered it. I took a picture. Unfortunately, the camera was set on ten-second delay, but other than that, I was taking pictures like a real pro, in my Expert Opinion. I wriggled around in my seat and took another picture from an artsier angle. And another. And another. And another. And then I left our table and took another. Front and center. On ten-second delay. Oh yeah. I was rocking the house.

“I think you’ve taken enough pictures,” Hubs shouted over the music when I came back. Huffily, I glared at him, put my camera away and gulped down some more of my Rubbing Alcomopolitan.

By the time the set was over, drink number three was finished and I was in rare Expert form. I advised one old friend, now a resident specializing in HIV research at a local hospital, on how he should go about finding a cure for AIDS. I informed my friend Tim that he needed to screw all this band stuff and give his new bride (the lead singer) a baby post haste. I think I even consulted with the guitarist on conversion van maintenance. I was completely out of my mind.

Once Hubs managed to stuff me, still waving my finger and babbling about the latest fashions in SoHo, inside the car, I berated him for, well, to be honest, I don’t really remember. I only recall that I felt very smug that so many people had benefitted from my Expert Advice. When I got home, I looked down and realized that at some point, I had gone to the bathroom and forgotten to buckle my belt. I had been walking around, doling out opinions, with my belt hanging open like I was some kind of deranged halfway house escapee. Brilliant.

Four hours later, Baby was awake and so was I. When I stumbled into a bleary-eyed Hubs, I apologized groggily for the dressing down I’d given him the night before. He started laughing.

“So you admit I’m not really a ‘nerdy nerd?” he asked.

“Did I say that?”

“Yes.”

I laughed weakly. “I don’t remember that.”

“And when I started laughing,” he continued, “You got madder and said ‘See? You even laugh like a nerd!”

Oooh. That had to hurt.

Essentially, I am doing very well convincing all of my oh-so-successful old friends that I’m much more, so much more than a suburban housewife these days.

I’m also a fucking idiot.

And I have the pictures to prove it.