Story Time!!!

This is a true retelling of events that happened to the brother of a close friend of mine, reprinted here with his permission. In the interest of disclosure, I have edited out a small part of the story to avoid the possibility of offending anyone, and that part is marked. Also, the names of the people and locations have been changed. I'm pretty sure that wasn't necessary, but I did it anyways since I'm not sure the level of anonymity he would have preferred. The changes are in bold. The rest of the story is in it's entirety, his. I'm posting it because, well, it's hilarious. This guy is a damned good writer. Enjoy

"So as for the story-

Over the past couple of weeks, our shows exploded. Last time we played we had the bar over capacity by 8pm. That's 500+ people. Even the stairs going up to the mezzanine were packed. You seriously couldn't move. This has never happened before in the history of the bar.

I am pleased.

One of the 500+ people in attendance happens to be a local reporter from "Fake Newspaper." Within the week, we had a ½ page article on us- page 3. Mike brought it to my attention Thursday night. The exact words out of my mouth were "This is terribly great." It's publicity, but the moron calls it a live power hour in the title, gives the name of the bar and our names as well. We are instant exiled heroes, just add press and watch us grow!

By Friday morning, I receive a call while in class. The mayor of Fakeville or someone high up in his cabinet would like to speak with both us and the bar management. I have to tell my professor the story quickly so it can count as an "emergency absence" (this being the coolest emergency note ever) and run to the bar to attend this impromptu meeting. So I get there and Mike and the manager are just sitting there with some dude in a suit. This dick of a puritan shoots me the look from hell as I am unshaved and unshowered and look quite hungover from being up all night writing my 3rd six page paper of the week. He introduces himself and proceeds to tell us how what were doing is wrong and dangerous to the student body. The manager and mike don't say a damn word. They sit there and let this jerk-store bend them over a table. Finally, I step in.

I must warn you: while the following may seem like melodrama, it is in its entirety completely true and unexaggerated. I had been sitting there biting my tongue for roughly five or so minutes while this asshole rambled on. Finally I could take no more. I excuse myself and interrupt him. I proceeded to tell him that at no time did the bar, mike or I EVER advertise or condone this so-called "power hour." In fact, we never even advertised our shows or mentioned it onstage. We simply played 60 songs in 60 minutes and left the decision up to the crowd. What they choose to do was there prerogative. It was all word of mouth. His retort was "The city doesn't support binge drinking in any form." My reply was neither do we, but if a patron chooses to come to a bar and get intoxicated, as long as he is not a danger to himself or others, that is his choice as a consenting adult and it is the individual bar staff's decision to refuse the patron service (which he knows in a college town takes quite a bit). At this point I order a pint, right in front of this asshole, just to piss him off. Keep in mind that it is barely past 12pm and the bar had just opened. He is visibly uncomfortable with this gesture, but the kicker comes when he tells us that the city would prefer that we not play live anymore.

I am less than pleased.

I tell him straight to his face that he has no solid grounds to keep us from playing live as long as we abide by Fakesville city ordinances which we have always done. At this point Mike and the manager are utterly worthless to our cause- *Edit* "They had no idea what kind of shit was about to go down" (Bob Dylan); they are deer in the headlights of this guy's Mack truck. The prospect of the bright beams from city hall benumbs them, thus preventing them from articulating a successful argument. I tell this guy "we always have the best interest of the patrons and university in mind, but if they try and shut down live music at the bar, technically we could sue the city for discrimination because this would put the bar at a disadvantage to their competitors through no fault of their own. If [he] shuts us down, there can't be any live music within campustown. Either way all [he is] going to succeed in doing is push it underground to parties where it cannot be responsibly regulated." Also, I remind him that all his information is completely unreliable and thus his argument unfounded. Our article comes in the same periodical that advertises musical condoms and Photoshops pictures of people's faces on animal's genitalia; a less than reputable source. At this point I take a very large pull of my beer, emptying roughly ¼ of its contents. This guy is defeated and he knows it.

I am Achilles to his Hector.

He responds with some bullshit excuse for needing to look into the matter further and parts with "we'll be keeping an eye on the matter over the coming weeks." I neither stand nor shake his hand as he leaves, but instead proceed to pinch my eye in an Uncle Rocco-esque manner while maintaining an ear to ear smirk and sipping on my beer (which I didn't even want, I ordered it simply to piss him off). The invisible man in the suit walks out of the bar with his tail between his legs.

I drag his lifeless corpse around the gates of Troy for all to see.

In doing so, I instantly become a hero to the entire crew of the bar and its management and get asked to go on the employee bar crawl with a free bar tab compliments of the staff.

All this debacle succeeded in doing was creating more publicity for our already growing fan base. I said it before and I'll say it again: "Despite my best efforts, we are becoming successful." While I'm not dumb and harbor no delusions of grandure, I still look out for my best interest before that of the bar or anyone else. So, we're going to give the 60 in 60 shows a rest for a while. Maybe after generic event we'll do it again, but we're probably going to get shut down. My view is that since we're going to get shut down anyway, we may as well go down swinging and get the beer garden open, get about 600 people out there and do 100 songs in as many minutes. If they try and shut that down they are going to have a horde of drunk frat guys on their hands. Thats the spirit that beat the Japanese!!"