Real Guitars Are For Old People

I spent most of New Years Eve playing Guitar Hero, which is basically one step up from air guitaring, but with scoring and a whammy bar. The best part is at the end of each song, the TV announces "YOU ROCK!" I do rock!!

(This morning, my son and his friend are playing, and it makes my heart soar to hear them singing and playing along to Metallica.)

We wanted to go out to see real music, but Otto's Shrunken Head wouldn't let us in without scanning our ID, even though the grizzly man at the door has 2 working eyes that can see both our wrinkled faces and our drivers licenses to prove we are old, he wouldn't make an exception. So we headed over to the second choice - Lakeside Lounge, but they had a cover charge, and even though at 11:30 the place was not even close to being packed, they wouldn't waive it because "you get free champagne at midnight." It's not free, it's $10. And we didn't plan on spending enough time there to make it worthwhile.

So we wound up at B-Side, which had a place to sit, paper horns to blow, glittery tiaras, a downscale crowd and a charming young couple that we had a long discussion with about the philosophy of reality TV and grad school. It also features Pabst Blue Ribbon, which was, in my college days, considered the crappiest of all beers. The husband, who grew up in the beer capital of the US, said that in his day and in Wisconsin, there were many, many worse beers than PBR. The tides have clearly changed as it was quite favored, with one guy saying he thinks it's the best canned beer made.

The first five minutes of 2009 consisted of nearly every person in the bar texting or talking on the phone, which says to me that they would have rather been somewhere else.

Happy New Year!