“Have you heard the new Gwen Stefani song?” I asked Jay. We’re headed to Chicago to meet Jay’s L.A. friend, and I’m driving. Jay has not heard the new Gwen Stefani song.
“It sucks.” I tell him. “Without No Doubt, that girl might as well be Kelly Clarkson. In fact, I think I like Kelly Clarkson a little better.” We briefly discuss Gwen Stefani’s super-bland pop stylings, when her new single starts playing on the radio. As if to prove my point, Jay reaches to change the station within about 5 seconds of the start of the song.
“That’s the song!” I say. “It’s awful.”
He says: “I want to listen to it, since you were just talking about it, but it’s too horrible. I have to change the station.” We decide that maybe the song gets better after the first 30 seconds, but we wouldn’t know because we couldn’t stand to listen after that.
Later, we meet Jay’s L.A. friend and a friend-of-a-friend. We end up at Blue Frog, a karaoke bar in River North, which, surprisingly, has free parking. We park, rock-star like in front of the building, and head inside the divey bar, which is full of bachelorettes and hipsters boisterously singing karaoke standards. The playlist is heavy on Billy Joel.
We stake out an area in the back, in front of the men’s room. Another friend-of-a-friend meets us back there–a publicist, also from L.A. She has escorted her client to the Bud Bilikin parade, where she met Don King, who gave her tickets to a big fight at Allstate Arena. She arrives fresh from the fight, showing us the $250 ticket that she got from Don King. We are all duly impressed.
The men’s room at Blue Frog is a one-seater, with a door that doesn’t lock and a shower curtain on the inside for privacy. This leads to a lot of accidental pee-interruptions. We note that men do not feel the need to close the door, and many don’t even worry themselves with the shower curtain. We try to avoid watching people pee, but it becomes increasingly evident that many men are not washing their hands after their business.
Jay enters the men’s room, careful to close both doors, since he knows that L.A. Publicist and I have been critiquing the bathroom manners of the bar’s various patrons. After a bit, a skinny dude with spiky orange hair walks in front of us to the men’s room, and before I can say that the room is occupied (that’s not really my responsibility anyway, is it?), he enters. Jay leaves the men’s room. He claims that he was zipping up when interrupted, and that it wasn’t a big deal, but he accidentally leaves the door slightly open as he leaves. Luckily orange-hair guy closes the shower curtain, and when he’s done, he washes his hands. L.A. Publicist compliments him on his hand washing, and he proceeds to put his hand down the back of his pants. Classy.
As he exits the men’s room, he gets into a conversation with L.A. Publicist, and I notice that despite his youthful ensemble and punky hair, his skin betrays a guy closing in on 40 years old. Unnaturally tight (face lift?) with deep lines around his eyes. He walks away, and I’m about to ask L.A. Publicist how old she thinks he is, when she says, “I don’t know much about music, but was that the drummer from No Doubt? He said his name is Adrian.”
Now. I don’t know the drummer from No Doubt from the drummer from Green Day. I do have a vague memory that there is a guy named Adrian in No Doubt, and Orange-Hair Guy could certainly be him. Or not. Who knows? I don’t know for a fact that it *isn’t* the drummer from No Doubt, so we decide that it is him. Definitely. We ask a couple other people, who tell us that no, that is not the drummer from No Doubt. Apparently, the drummer from No Doubt is skinnier than that guy or he’s taller or something. Everyone seems to know the drummer from No Doubt well enough to definitively say that this Adrian is not the drummer from No Doubt. L.A. Publicist and I remain steadfast in our belief that Orange-Haired Adrian is the drummer from No Doubt.
We embark on a mission. We head towards the front of the bar, to the ladies room, and on our way back, L.A. Publicist decides to ask Orange-Haired Adrian where he’s from. He doesn’t answer per-se, but instead begins a story that starts with the phrase: “One time, Trent Reznor said something bad about my band…” Our suspicions all but confirmed, I sort of tune out the rest of the story, which involves Adrian the drummer from No Doubt giving the Stink Paw to Trent Reznor. We head back to our corner, triumphant.
Jay and I got home close to 4a.m. and immediately googled the drummer from No Doubt. Orange-Haired Adrian was definitly the same mohawked Adrian from No Doubt. So there you have it. In conclusion, the drummer from No Doubt washes his hands after peeing, and Jay and I hang out at cool underground celebrity-filled karaoke bars.