In My League

After a year of college (=university for British readers), it's been good for me being back home spending time with the family and them with me. I hadn't seen any of my friends at LSU in the longest, so I finally carved out a little over 24 hours to go "hang" over there this weekend. I'm glad I did.

Friday night I slept 30 minutes, due to a rare case of insomnia, followed by a 6:00 a.m. -- 2:00 p.m. cashiering shift, 2-hour nap, and eventual car trip to Baton Rouge Saturday evening. It felt good to be on the open road again, not putting around Slidell, but blaring the radio and going 75 down the interstate. Seeing LSU deserted was weird. I could have pensively walked the beautiful campus in melodramatic fashion, but I refrained. My post office box, which I hadn't checked in ages, was full of mail. The first order of business was the primary reason for heading out to B.R.: a concert at Cafe Chi Alpha.

Over 3 hours of music, 3 great bands, 3 dozen coffee beverages floating about (well, actually not floating, held in people's hands). It was a great night of music. Most of all, it was great getting to see all the familiar faces at the Cafe and catch up on everything with people. First was Jake Smith Band, an acoustic group with a worship leaning, sounding a bit like Gavin Degraw at times. Great lyrics, innovative melodies.

Next up was A Soup Named Stew, a band that is creating a new genre: "humorcore." This is seriously the funniest musical performance I have ever witnessed before. Look no further than their "All Punk Rock Sounds the Same," a parody of the very music they make, but a witty statement about modern music, as the name suggests. The literal show-stopper is the piece they always close with, "She Broke Up With Me," a parody of "emo" music. It sounds like emo, it's got the familiar wa-wa cry of lost love like emo, and it's downright hilarious. At the song's climax, the singer, David Loti, decides to "listen to my Dashboard Confessional CD" and the drummer screams emotional lines like, "MY PARENTS ARE RICH!!" My personal favorite is "Robot Dentist," the typical meaningless song they put on with funny lyrics. I could go on and on: the drummer's habit of putting giant cookies on harmonica stands and eating them while playing, David's habit of jumping off the side of walls and throwing his guitar around while mocking music genres...Just look at the bumper sticker they're currently selling: "A Soup Named Stew -- Making you feel better about your own band."

Lastly was the refreshing B.A.Holloway, which I love. This is no humorcore. This is acoustic rock at its best, with a blues leaning at times, with funky bass lines and guitar ... and at other times reminiscent of a reworked John Mayer, with Chris Simmons' soaring vocals. I've seen this band many times live before, and will many more times. They were on top form as usual. What can I say? They're a favorite of mine, and since I know all the band members and even went on a missions trip to South Africa with one of them recently, ...i know we're cool.

After the concert, Zeke, Will and I played some... the return of the... PERFECT DARK FOR N64!! Um..actually till 5 a.m...

I crashed at Zeke and Timo's house. I awoke sometime around 11 a.m. to the sound of Timo's girlfriend banging a spoon around, which I later learned was the cooking of grits. I went back to sleep and awoke a few minutes later, on the living room couch, to see Timo and Shelley eating breakfast a foot away from me on the other couch. I yawned out a conversation with them for a few minutes. It was like a weird talk show, like I was hosting two celebs from my bedroom. Except it was a living room. And now I'm not making sense. Because they were hosting me, as it was not my abode.

Slept some more, awoke at 2 p.m. Yep, I would have to catch a night church service. Zeke, Timo, Shelley, Tollie and I hung out all day and watched movies, played video games, and chatted. I caught an evening service at the Chapel on Campus. I eventually left and just got back home around 3 a.m. Monday morning.

Yep, it's been good being home for the summer, but I'm in my league ...when I'm independent. I'm ready to go back. I mean, a shopping trip yesterday summed it up. Jumping in a shopping cart and being pushed around the store is my thing. And telling everyone that Timo and Shelley were my parents as I "misbehaved" reaching for store items and trying to convince the cashier to scan me at the checkout...nope, none of that could compare to making an aerial entry into the car once we got back into the parking lot, literally going through the roof. Hey, I didn't even climb the side of the apartment complex to the second floor this weekend. Timo said Shelley doesn't like that. I leave you with the words of A Soup Named Stew's "Robot Dentist": Every town needs a robot dentist, someone the robots can relate to...Is a robot dentist a dentist for robots, or a robot who's a dentist? Who knows if they even have teeth? No one knows, NO ONE KNOWS!!