A Night at the Therapy Lounge

One night in May of last year, a group of my friends (the Texas ones --Angela, Nick, Tim, Cynthia) and my sister went to see Angela's brother perform at a club in Dallas called the Therapy Lounge. I hadn't been to Deep Ellum (the area where the club is located) since my friend Hank died (we had a night on the town memorial for him the day after his funeral) and was looking forward to seeing it under happier circumstances. The Therapy Lounge is a great place, the kind of gritty bar that makes you happy that gritty bars exist. I'd never seen Brad perform live in this incarnation, which is to say his Chant project. He does a one man show on the drums which is more spectacular than anything I've ever seen. I'm relatively conservative when it comes to music, most of it culled straight from my 1970s childhood, and I am never one of those people who know the hip new bands. This said, I am certain Brad's music is this very thing, which is to say fresh and of the moment, brilliant and piercing, the kind of undertaking that excites people and makes them understand that there are great things out there if they look. I'm wearing a Chant t-shirt in this picture -- Brad came up with the graphic himself. After the Therapy (as I took to calling it), I couldn't hear anything and everyone was yelling in that great way you do after a concert. The irony was that being deaf for a little while made me feel younger than I had in years.

Michelle's Spell of the Day

Drum Kit (the color comes from the glowing material that Brad uses during his live shows -- I have no idea what it is in the shows, but it is so cool!)

1 part vodka
1 part tonic
1 part green melon liqueur

Serve chilled.

Benedictions and Maledictions

First published in Staplegun

Crush

My pool manager, Marshall, used to throw me in the deep
end as a sign of affection, no matter how much I tried to
get away. Twice my age, twice my weight, and half
my hair, he would yell – you be the victim today, kiddo –
and I would endure it because I liked him and his kids
who stayed with him in the summer as part of a new
divorce arrangement. One of his sons followed me
around my stations, his first crush, until Marshall
came up and put his arms around me, saying, "What
do you think? Could she be your new stepmom?"
His son looked as if he’d been thrown in the deep
end without expecting it, and I laughed, the choked
sound of someone who had been underwater too long.