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Morning Glory and the Chai House
Chapter 1 @a1-shroom-spores/morning-glory-and-the-chai-house-chapter-1
Chapter 2
Next thing I knew the morning sun was beating down on my face: Shining though a crack in the blinds. I groaned and rolled over. My eyes were still closed and my head felt funny. Every muscle in my body was sore. I could barely move. Somewhere in the distance my phone vibrated.
"Hello?"
"Are you coming to practice tonight?"
"What do you think Ringo? According to my watch ... I still have 5 hours to make it. Besides, you didn't think I was still sleeping did you?
I held the phone to my ear with my shoulder. I slipped one pant leg on while I sat on my bed. Daniel droned on about how he could tell I was still sleeping. I opened up a drawer with folded tee shirts.
"Even If you could somehow prove my yawning meant that I just woke up: You can't prove that I would have missed the band practice if you hadnt called. I might have still woken up in time. There's no way to really know. It's a classic time paradox. Have you read the fourth Harry Potter?"
"Listen Miles: I don't give a fuck about Harry Potter. Just get over here and don't stop at the Chai House." Click
Daniel was always sort of a hardass when he was angry. Usually he was very relaxed and down to earth. Of couse, I was his bandmate and one of his best friends, so I knew every button to press. He HATED songs with the word "daniel" in it for some unknown reason.
"Hey Danny boy?"
"What miles?"
"The pipes, the pipes are calling."
Daniel had long blonde hair like a metalhead. Jet black jeans and several tee shirts from local metal bands. He smoked cigarettes constantly.
We practiced in Ballard off 85th Street: Inside this old two story house in the basement. All the band members lived downstairs. It was one of those old basements that was built really far underground. You couldn't even see out of the windows they were up so high. Everything downstairswas made of wooden paneling and concrete. During the summer heat waves it was extra cool down there.
Daniel was sitting in his swivel chair in front of a keyboard: With one of those headsets telemarketers use. On the screen were all these weird dragons and giants battling and casting spells. He was hitting all these weird keyboard combinations in rapid successions.
"Daniel, I said." He whipped off his headset surprised and turned around. "Ohh it's just you", he said. "Thank goodness." He turned back around to the game and started playing again. "This campaign is super important." Daniel jestured towards the shelf in front of us. "Take a cigarette out for us. Rip the filter off first."
"Where Sid and Jim?," I asked. Daniel was staring at the screen and tapping the space bar over and over. "Out getting cigarettes," he finally blurted out.
Jimmy's room was damp, dark and it smelled like incense. If any ghosts lived in the house: They lived in Jim's room. It reminded me of harry potters room under the cupboard, except bigger. There were these weird paintings all over the walls. They were framed oil paintings of alien greys and some kind of bearded Jesus figure. They were extremely creepy.
Daniel, Jimmy and I were sitting in seperate chaits like we were in a miniture theater. On the television screen: The cast of Red Dwarf were bumbling around the spaceship with their usual antics. Kryten the robot, a slick haired vampire and a man with an "h" on his forehead. 'I don't usually smoke cigarettes in the house," Jimmy said. "It's against the house rules." He lit up a Marlboro and some incense sticks. It was like "Mystery Science Theater 3000." We sat there smoking cigarettes and talking loudly about the Red Dwarf episodes.
There was a knock on the door. "Hello?," said a voice. "Who is it?," Jimmy yelled at the door. "Sid. Can I come in?" "Yeah hurry. There's a towel under the door." Sid slid into the room quietly and sat down.
Jim flipped the lights on. I covered my eyes with my hands. "Geez I guess the movie is over," I snarled laughing. In the corner of the room there was a drumset, an old bass and Sid's backup electric guitar. The band was Jim Funktastic and the Plastic Meatheads. Sid and Jim wrote all the songs. Sort of like a misfit Simon and Garfunkel. They had gone though a couple of drummers and a millions different bass players. Our set list was something like this: Dancing with aliens: 5 seconds till midnight: Traveling with spacetime: hooker Handie and several others. Daniel played the drums and I played bass. We sounded pretty damned good.
Across the street from the Seattle Center was this abnormally large sign in the shape of a killer clown with razor sharp teeth and a little top hat. Underneath was a tiny dive bar with a little sign that said: THE FUNK HOUSE.
I crossed the street and walked around to the back alley. My bandmates were all huddled there: standing around the equipment. "I have a present for you," Daniel said slyly. He shoved the bass guitar case into my chest and I grabbed it. "Thanks."
The bouncer opened the backdoor for us. He was in jeans and a tee shirt. He informed us the concert would be late because of trouble with the P.A system. Inside the bar was much more normal than I expected. I expected a scene from "Eyes Wide Shut." Instead there was just a strangely empty room. There weren't even any rock posters or stickers on the wall. There was only around 25 people in the joint. The "bouncer" told us there was free beers in the back for bands.
We kicked off the concert with a down tempo version of Hooker Handie. Sid took a smoking electric guitar solo that drove the crowd crazy! My bass kept cutting off during the show. The cord to the amp was clearly busted. People would shout "MORE BASS!" I just kept jiggling the cord between bass licks. All the regulars cheered anyways like we were Led freaking Zeppelin. It's like they had never heard of rock music before then saw the Beatles for the first time.
After the show; all four of us crossed the street and sat on the concrete ledge by the Seattle Center lawn and smoked a joint. We were like a knock off Rolling Stones. A fab four of sorts. "Jim funktastic" {as I called him} was explaining how we were going to have a gig in every major city. Of course this was our one and only show with the "Daniel Miles" line up, but it was a piece of Seattle music history technically.