I’m afraid there aren’t any salacious details to report about my hot date on Tuesday night... but we had an excellent time and held each other hands and looked forward to seeing each other on Sunday, the next opportunity.

The ummmm... alternative group Naked Raven was doing a final gig in Melbourne before they go to live permanently(?) in Germany. A few weeks ago I was playing a gig at a church, and decided for a change to play the slow movement of Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto. Who should be in the congregation but a professional violinist I know? How embarrassment- playing (with not enough practice) a violin piece on the flute in front of a professional violinist! She turned out to be in Naked Raven and invited me to their gig, so I got out of choir practice several weeks in advance and planned to go, managing to miraculously turn it into a hot date.

(To clarify that last paragraph, that a very intelligent reader found confusing, the violinist in the band Naked Raven saw me performing at church a few weeks ago. The band is going to live in Germany. I resolved to go to their farewell gig, and happily Marion, who isn't in the band, was able to come. She’s not going anywhere... for the time being anyway)

The place was really crowded, which was difficult because Marion’s ummmm... not tall, so sometimes she couldn’t see. I have to remember that if I want to take a girl to something musical I’ll probably run into Carlie’s entire family (because her sister was filling in in the band), a girl from school and uni that I hadn’t seen for at least ten years, and someone else who I can’t remember now. All these people had to be chatted to, so Marion stood there amiably as I tried to keep the conversations short. And remembered to introduce her as well. Except for one time. I’ll have to work out some way of getting some sly no-one-else-around time on Sunday.

Last night I was supposed to go to a bucks night for Roberto, who is getting married on Saturday. I only got an email the day before, and had band practice, so I rang the restaurant and got his mobile number from the best man (he was a work colleague, so I didn’t have his mobile number). Later I walked over to Brunswick Street and tried to ring him, but he didn’t hear the phone in his bag. I looked around at a few likely places, but couldn’t find them, so I tried ringing a few more times, with no luck.

One place I tried was Bar Open. I went upstairs to see if they were there. Upstairs there was a ‘band’ playing. It seemed to be a bunch of girls from the same women’s football team. One of them had rudimentary drum skills and one had rudimentary bass skills. This was their first gig, and they called themselves Retarded Torso. There were a few others helping out on various percussion instruments, and a guy friend who was probably something of a musician. As I walked in they got to the chorus of their second last song, which went:

You’re a c*%@!!!!!

You’re a c*%@!!!!!

You’re a c*%@!!!!!

You’re a c*%@!!!!!

...in the style of their favourite thash/death/metal band. While their musicals skill were very dubious, and their choruses were repetitive, they made up for it with enthusiasm and decibels, and I hung around for another song. I didn’t understand the chorus, except for a certain word starting with F, but the blonde chick who had moved to drums (during a lengthy inter-song stage shuffle), was going absolutely spastic on the drums to the best of her limited ability and screaming the repeated line at the top of her voice. It was such a contrast to the bucks night I had been expecting (the groom is... I won’t say prudish, but he has a significantly lower rudeness tolerance than me), that I laughed heartily, completely unheard of course. That saved the night for me.

Here’s an interesting entry I’ve been reading by .

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