We Were Rock and Rollers

© 2010 Rob Krabbe



At the Troubadour, gassed up for

the two hundred and twenty first show

of the year, one funked up night,

five more in North Hollywood.

Bend a few, see what gives.

"No Smoking!" a good thing,

till we smelled the club in it's glory.

It was just one more dues-paying gig

and they all smelled like piss and beer.

Forty years of leaking drunks, uncovered

by a popular-but-not-around-here

greater LA ordinance, so my fellows,

"light up" we were pleading

way before happy hour.

Finally, an illegal herbal haze

was spreading in anticipation.

With the traditional mingling

of the herbs, bold cologne and fresh booze,

I pronounced the crowd "ready to ROCK".

Drummer Dave winked at me,

twirled a hog's leg, and smashed a rim shot

that could have launched the Titanic

right to the deep, and saved the ice for the booze.

Little Bear announced the band.

"Ladies and Gentlemen"…

a deep-pocket zen groove slammed

into my chest like a steady panic attack.

During this yet one more moment

we've all been waiting for:

"The Jake Collins Band!"

The room exploded and pulsed like a fresh heart.

I defibrillated and Jack-Horner'd

to the bassman's corner,

having lived too much life to

play center stage under the hot lights.

We had a young sexy front man for that

and he did aerobics and still slept

well on the bus at night.

I love to watch though, from

the 'best seat in the house' and,

baby, court was in session.

Posers, losers, and rock and rollers

hustling the want-to-be somebodys.

A leather wearing horny C.P.A. smiling behind a

cowboy pimp mask two decades too late.

His toupee flap-jacking to the beat, snapping his fingers

like he used to have some crazy power over women,

as he bobble-headed toward some forty year old

'single girls' at the end of the bar.

Looking damned cool doing it, I'd say,

as surprisingly he came on to cross-dressing Steve;

I guess he figured it out when Steve smiled, and asked

"did we just have a moment?"

Mr. Bad Hair Day couldn't leave quick enough.

Guitar-man erupted, swirling his blade fast,

high and wide, and cut everyone

in the room, leaving bodies everywhere.

Cool swaying masses of pulsating flesh, reeling

from the opening solo, rhythmically licking the blood

off each other, while singer Jake lays back,

straddles the mike-stand like a forty dollar hooker.

I rif on my bass and drummer Dave kicks into

the deepest pocket ever created by men, and

the foundation for singer Jake's smokey gravel

voice is in place; appetites are in peak season.

Making love to the microphone, Jake

lays the starving audience down onto

his bed, his gift: each person,

the only one in the room.

Mystic healer slinging a Ten-Penny

Hartford ale and sleazy lyrics

he found on a truck-stop bathroom wall

deep in the heart of the motor city,

back in nineteen-ninety-four.

The old song still does the trick however.

He promises nothing, ever,

but tonight he was a one-audience man.

He tosses lies at the crowd but his eyes

reach out, prying into the loneliness, and

breaking down the work-a-day walls.

The divided sheep and goats melt

into a massive collective soul.

Men, women and in-betweens, hypnotized by

the voice of the son of an alcoholic Midwest druggist,

they became one creed, one race, one people.

Jake eases into his lover, pressing the

first verse slow and easy, deeper, and deeper

all the way in, to the chorus.

A french art student faints and slides to the ground

screaming, lies there panting and wiggling

between boots and heels, trying to catch her breath,

dodging vomit drops and once again

tries to master gravity but fails.

Me, I'm downing a bottle of 26-year-old Scotch.

Bloody wasted that award winning hootch,

chasing a 'bakers' dozen' beers, the blues,

and a random chunk of tooth; I still don't know

where that came from, but afterwards I took

a long hot shower, and threw out my shoes.

Somehow, right after the third encore,

I woke up in the state of Arizona, getting off a

bus with no identification and

seven dollars in my pocket.

It was at that moment of discovery when

I found the note pinned to my jacket that read

"Write when you find work – like never."

I laughed because

we were having too good a time

to think about tomorrow.

We were rock and rollers.