Thursday, March 31, 2011

The 400 Bar

Life goes full circle in so many ways.

Last night I found myself at the 400 Bar on the West Bank of the Mississippi near the University of Minnesota campus. Girl-childrens' friends are in a band that got its first gig at the 400 last night, so off I went to listen and show support. They were great.

Molly and the Mistakes is the name of the band. Molly has a fantastic voice and The Mistakes showed that they are first-class musicians. Not only did they play well together, there were good instrumental solos. Look for them at Hell's Kitchen on Tuesday, April 26th at 6pm.

I couldn't help but tell the story of Arturo who, 25+ years ago came to visit when Pato and I were living on the West Bank. He had been an AFS student (from Spain) at my high school in Bloomington way back in the 1970s. The guy was astonished that he was in the same town as that high school in the suburbs (he liked the West Bank a lot). And then, in the most delightful example of linguistic over-compensation I have ever witnessed, he went to the bartender at the 400 and asked for a "two exes beer" because he didn't know that we call it "dos equis" in the U.S.

Nicole's comment was that we had been hanging out at the 400 before she was born.

Yes, dear, that's right. We used to be cool.

1 comment:

samanthix said...

When I was in Spain, I asked if they had "emme y emmes" at the store -- to which the clerk answered, "¡Sí! M&Ms." *sigh* Your night at the 400 sounds fun.