In Dog Years, We Are All Dead

Western Settings - Caskitt - The Bertos (3/12/15 @ Tower Bar, San Diego CA)

I'm not going to spend a lot of time "reviewing" the music portion of this show (Because you know, I normally totally do). It's Caskitt and Western Settings, if you can't figure it out by now, well I feel bad for you son. I got 99 problems but shitty punk ain't one (that was weird. I'm so very tired)

I have several life adventures coming up that is going to require a bit of money to be saved (see you soon Seattle, Portland, San Francisco and Las Vegas) , but it seems every time I go into money saving lockdown mode, I immediately just start spending more money like an asshole. This time I decided to fuel a 3 day work-drink-work cycle that I am super not regretting this morning. You see, I work at 6:30am Monday through Friday, and I'm getting old. I'm definitely not a math wizard or numerologist, but I believe that: (late nights)(old age) + Booze/waking up early = weird shits and angry mornings. Feel free to check my work on that, that new common core math is confusing. Needless to say, even after 2 cycles of work-drink-work, I was already drained. But when a human as lovely as Justine has a birthday party show, you suck that shit up and cruise it. Plus I recently rediscovered taking naps in my car during my lunch break. Sweaty sweaty naps.

But its only Thursday!: an adventure in 4 parts

Part 1: Whiskey

I picked up my friends Kenny and Rich and we headed to North Park. We decided to go a little early, because honestly, why the fuck not? The only problem was, we didn't really have an end game plan. But like all the best things, the decision was made last minute on the fly. Rich looked up "bars" on his computer phone, and the closest one was a little place called Tiger Tiger. We decided to do a drive by check out to make sure it would suit our needs, but upon further investigation, the place looked a little out of our price range. Which is the nice way to say it looked fancy as fuck and we poor. So we went with plan B, which was a place called Seven Grand. The selling point was it is a whiskey bar, which pretty much spoke to my soul. Everyone knows parking in North Park is fucking bullshit, so after circling the block, we finally found a prime spot 4 or 5 blocks away in front of an AA meeting place. Oh, the irony (or at the very least Canadian irony). We walk into this whiskey bar, and holy fuck. It was dark, freezing, and the bartenders wore vests and bow ties. But alas, behind the bar, behold! At least 300 different kinds of whiskey! Did I get beaten to death by the police and somehow sneak into heaven? My white skin and lack of stealth abilities says no, this is real life. We all took a seat at the bar, and pondered if this was the meaning of life. Kenny and Rich both got whiskey sours, which somehow came out looking creamy (or frothy?) and fucking delicious. Normally I like to drink whiskey 7's, but in an establishment such as this, you can't drink that piece of shit, so I went with an Old Fashioned. Probably one of my better decisions I have ever made. That was a tasty beverage. We slow sipped our fancy dranks like the piece of shit posers we are, and then it was unfortunatley time to move on.

I should know sir, I've always been here

Part 2: Foooooooooood

We left the place I will probably someday drink myself to death in, and ventured off to find food. Again, we didn't really have a plan except to "walk that way until we see something." Sushi, sushi, vegan sushi, PIZZA! Duh. We wandered into Berkeley pizza and grabbed a couple slices and a beer. Now don't get me wrong, this place was no Luigi's, but it was still pretty damn good. The slices were deep dish style, so while they lacked overall size, they more than made up for it in depth. Which made them dangerous. You look at it like, "oh that slice isn't that big, I could easily pound a whole extra large pizza by myself." That would be a mistake you fat piece of shit. I was hurting after 2 slices. A Peperoni and a Pesto Garlic, both very delicious and very filling. Thank god we had a hike back to the car, because I had to seriously walk it off.

Part 3: X Gunna Give It To You

Around this point we started to grow weary of fancy things and wanted to venture back into our more familiar "seedy" scene. So off to Live Wire we went. I'm not going to lie, I was a little jealous of Kenny and Rich's Whiskey Sour from earlier, so I decided to get one here, make it a double. Well, the thing about that is a fancy whiskey bar will put some time and effort and love into making said drink. A dive bar puts only hatred into it, which amounted to whiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiskey and sour mix tossed into a pint glass. Which I personally love, but I'll admit was a little disappointing after seeing how the 1% drink theirs. We met our friend Ly Yen and had some in depth conversations about shitty movie remakes, Punk Rock Bowling, and how DMX, Ja Rule and Mystikal all need to make comebacks, preferably together as one yelling, gruff voiced super group. Also I learned DMX sang Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer once, which is absolutely as ridiculous as it sounds.

 

Part 4: The Show

 Ah, the reason we all went out in the first place. We headed east to the Tower Bar a little later then expected, but shocking! It was OK. The show hadn't even started yet because the guest of honor hadn't yet arrived. Once Justineysomeany arrived, the party started. First up were The Bertos, or the only band I hadn't ever seen play. They consisted of that guy I've seen working at Luigi's on guitar, Ricky the bass player on drums, and Davey Tiltwheel "Mikey Erging" on bass and drunk rambling about ketchup and stuff. They played short fast typical pop punk songs and were super rad. Definitely check them out, they totally made my list of bands to investigate further. Caskitt played next and were awesome as always. They even covered AFI's "Days of the Phoenix". Stoked. Finally Western Settings played and I once again found myself outside. Seriously, what the fuck? Every time. Its becoming a real problem. I righted that wrong, and went back inside to watch them, because they seriously fucking rule. After making the bar sing Justine happy birthday, they finished the night off with "Kicking and Screaming" and everything was right in the world.

Western Settings, now with 25% more Japanese robots!

Epilogue: Don't Let Go, You've Got the Music In You

Fuck, waking up this morning blew. The only thing that got me out of bed was the fact that it was burrito Friday at work. But I mean, in the end its all fucking worth it. I made a decision a while ago that I will not let work dictate my life. I mean, I'll complain about it all day long, but fuck it. You only YOLO once. Am I a worthless piece of shit today? Yeah. Did I write a blog entry when I should have been working? Also, yeah, but its Friday, who gives a shit. And it could always be worse, at least...I'm not fucking dead... nailed it.

 

Pomona and Las Vegas, get your shit together you have Western Settings, Gentlemen Prefer Blood and the almighty DFMK coming your way. Get into it.