Party like a Rock Star

I may not have had guilt, cigarettes and heavy metal music, as Aaron of Swig Tooth sings so nicely in "Dirty Numbers," but I was close.

And quite a surprise to a few people, me included.

But let me back up and give you, as Paul Harvey says, the rest of the story:

Friday afternoon I had a vasectomy. Started at 1 p.m., and I don't remember when it finished because I had a pain pill before the procedure, some IV sedation to relax me and some local stuff in the work zone to numb the pain. And it was all good, until a brief vagal episode in the doctors waiting room after the procedure where I passed out for about, oh 15-20 seconds and don't remember the doctor waking me up, and was kinda out of things but awake for about 10 minutes and sweating profusely, all of which freaked Kara the hell out, and understandably so.

And about an hour later, after my blood pressure stabilized (was like 88 over 62 right after I came back from the brief passing-out episode) I was home, resting, in bed.

With my old friend Vicodin.

And hoping to be feeling good enough to make it out to see the X-Rated Cowboys at the Short North Tavern.

Much to the surprise of quite a few people, me included.

Because the stage at the Short North Tavern holds, oh, about three people.

The full band was in effect Friday night: that's six X-Rated Cowboys: Quinn Fallon on vocals and acoustic guitar; Mark Nye on bass; Chris Skrobot on lead guitar; Bob Hite on the keys (but not the accordion, bummer); C. Douglas Wells on drums; and the sometimes-we-don't-know if-he's-still-in-the-band-or-not-anymore Andy Harrison on the assistant lead guitar.

So the stage was crowded.

And the Short North Tavern was crowded.

And the music was loud.

And the beer was flowing.

And I was gingerly walking, sitting and doing my best not to aggravate my injured areas.

But the Vicodin was in full effect.

And the three Budweiser drafts I had helped.

Yep, Eric was altered.

And had a blast.

Yep, I had Vicodin, Budweiser and X-Rated Cowboys music.

But I wasn't by my lonesome, I had Kara in control, and she had the keys.

And the Cowboys rocked.

And we finally got to meet Chad, who enjoyed the show, especially the not-too-often-played "Amazing Grace."

And saw another attention whore take a dive. I believe Kara called her a lollypop head because she had a stick-like body. I'm guessing she was a stripper (wait, I'm sorry, dancer) based on the way she was using the speaker pole and a support beam, and pseudo-lezzing out with her other dancer friend.

And as she was attempting to use the speaker pole to dance she kept turning the speaker.

Which totally pissed off Quinn.

And Kelly, the lovely wife of Mark Nye, who's also Brooklyn bound.

And Barry. (Hi Barry. Didn't say hi was too busy talking to Ron, Elliot and all the other people I seemingly run into everywhere I go like Fritz, like Jesse, who's band The Receiver is having their CD Release Party at Skully's on April 28th. Be there. And everyone else I forgot to mention, who I'm forgetting because my friend Vicodin is taking over my brain to deal with the pain.)

So I'm out.

To do, as Mark & Ron both said to me, "Dude, take care of your balls."