Raggorama Part 1

I’ve got the Hawaiian shirt on and I’m in the bathroom when I hear the wife say “take this to your father please” to the little monkey girl of my world. She troops up the stairs, not unlike a ..er..trooper, and she hands the phone to me. It’s my buddy calling from a payphone to tell me that the bus split without him. Fairly cheesy is my auto response and he agrees. I’m thinking that this will be a short night out fer me if we never get started so I tell him ill come pick him up and we’re on the way.

So after massive kisses to all the family and my love is known and acknowledged I’m off once again to see a band that I’ve had shoulder brushings with for about 10 years or more. Ragg. The only band I’ve ever heard that did a punk style rendition of somewhere over the rainbow. And I tell ya readerlings..it was a tasty angle on that tune.

On the road I went to an outlet mall center near where my buddy was ditched by the bus system in our area. For some reason, at least according to said buddy, the bus systems drivers had all left for their real jobs within the public school systems driving the big yellow busses and the public transportation system in the area needed to get some folks in fast for driving. Since that has yet to happen, buddy at a payphone at 7pm at night. I cruised by the store where he was at, talking to a friend he hadn’t seen in a long time, and he hopped in the car and we were off. I had one of those bizzarro malt liquor energy things and we shared it on the way with massive bowls smoked to the herb gods.

We hit the parking garage, the self same parking garage where the last time we saw a band at the same place we were going to to see Ragg we were not only hassled but also chastised for smoking some herb by a parking attendant that was I think MUCH younger then I. He said things like ”I expect it from these young kids (tried not to laugh at that one) but I figured you guys were smarter.” Now I don’t know about you but when I get lectured by people about the intelligence of smoking herb versus drinking and destroying my liver I want to ask them if they thought George Washington was stupid. Or Thomas Jefferson, or Benjamin Franklin, or any of the founding fathers not to mention all the music and art and literature that was and is a direct result of heavy drug use and debauchery. The one thing that supremely irks me out is an uneducated public that believes the propaganda that their own government uses to dumb them down. So, we parked there again, and when the heights where climbed in our minds, off we set for the bar and Raggs performance.