If any of you remember, a while ago I shared with you my list of potential celebrity husbands, at the top of which is of course Future Husband John Krasinski. But I forgot one crucial celebrity, and that is probably because he is not yet...well, a celebrity. He is this guy:
And he was in this T-Mobile commercial.
His name is Kyle Bornheimer. You may also know him as Advertising Guy from the Office episode, "Local Ad" or you may know him as Main Character Guy from That Show That Was On Some Channel Probably NBC That Was Almost Good But Not Quite And Oh Wait Wasn't Olivia Munn In That? Yeah Yeah I Think I Saw An Episode Of That Show.
But I know him as T-Mobile Voicemail Guy SLASH Future Husband. I mean, look at him in that ad! He's so nervous and snuggleable! I want to do crosswords over breakfast with him and then later go out to dinner at Benihana.
What can I say? I dream high.
ANYWAY, now that that's out of the way, let me tell you about my adventure yesterday. I went to a punk rock show at a bar in Logan Square. As someone who openly admitted to liking Maroon 5 and Avril Lavigne in high school, you can imagine this was a typical night for Emily.
The reason I was there was layered. At the top layer, I am friends with a band member's older sister. On a layer underneath that, I am trying to go do more fun things with a variety of people instead of being a Netflix-watching hermit in my apartment with my cat at all times. When I went, I didn't know it was a punk rock show. But I figured it out when I saw people with mohawks/pony tails/worn black t-shirts. I won't lie. I was scared. The last experience I had with Punk Rock was the video I watched of a mash-up between Slipknot's "Psychosocial" and Justin Bieber's "Baby", which had the affect of a child singing in a horror movie. If this was the night I was in for, I was going to need someone to hold my hand on the way home.
We stood in the back, so as not to offend the true punk rockers. Our colorful clothes and chipper attitudes really would have killed the mood. However, this meant that my view was obstructed by a man who was roughly 6'6", 300 pounds. His pony tail fell to the middle of his back. Jean shorts. He was the kind of guy you'd want with you at Six Flags purely because you would never lose him in a crowd. He probably either knows everything about either Star Wars or Star Trek but definitely not both. You get the picture.
He was the only one dancing. And by dancing, I mean nodding his head. There was no swaying or bopping in this bar, only diligent listening. Each band seem to be in competition with their own bandmates for how fast they could play the song, which led to songs so fast that each one lasted thirty seconds. No real words ever came out of the singer's mouth, just a gutteral string of vowels with the occasional f-bomb. Think "Master of Puppets" but without the genius talent and ten times faster and louder.
I loved it.
See, since Joe has left, I've quickly developed an eff-it attitude about what to do with my time. There's no longer a "Why am I here when I could be snuggled up on my couch with Joe?" thought running through my head at all times, pulling me back toward home.
So I was there. And I was determined to enjoy myself. What I found was that even with this loud, Adderall-filled music you begin to hear the nuances. So, you know when you turn on the radio and it's the middle of a Lady Gaga song or some such nonsense and at first you're like, "What fresh hell is this ruckus?" But give it a second of listening and you get into the rhythm of it? That was the deal with this music, too. You start tuning out the screeching and reverberations of too-much drum bouncing off the matte black walls and you start to hear the melody. And it's not that bad. But then you try to listen to the lyrics. And that's where it all goes all downhill.
My particular favorite song was from the opening band, a song we dubbed, "F-ck the bullsh-t" in which the lyrics were "F-ck f-ck f-ck, f-ck the bullsh-t." It was a deep song. I was amazed that we made out those words. Otherwise, words like "instigator" and "mashed potato" were completely indiscernible from one another. My second favorite song was the one about Mayor Rahm Emanuel being a mashed potato.
The singer for the opening band also kept dedicating his songs to other dude friends, with names like Kyle and Scott. You could tell he had never gotten a girl to listen to more than a second of his favorite music, let alone request a dedicated song to her.
I spent about an hour and a half listening to this music, observing, chuckling, legitimately enjoying the music at 4-second intervals. It was the kind of night that made me realize, I really need to let go and do stuff. Without that nagging thought in the back of my head that I would be happier at home. Sure, I was yawning despite the in-yo-face music because it was 11:30 on a school night and I am old. But I had a good time. I didn't need to feel like I fit in or like I was doing something accomplishing (although I knew I'd get a half-assed blog post out of it--AND HOW!) in order to have a good time. When my time lately has been spent watching movies and drinking wine or WISHING I was watching a movie and drinking wine, it was nice to remind myself that it's not the only way to be happy. I needed that.
