So, the last two nights I've been at the Casbah. On Monday, it was to see Holly Golightly, one of the most underrated singers around.

I couldn't believe we had to wait until midnight for her to hit the stage. I mean, for cryin' out loud. It's a school night!

It was well worth the wait. But probably not to most. You see, many in the crowd talked. And wouldn't shut up! It was an acoustic show, and you hear more talking from the person next to you.

She snapped at the crowd before the first song, because they were talking as she was trying to intro the tune.

Later in the evening she mentioned that she was "trying to sing," when the talking got loud.

And her guitarist Lawyer Dave (who I doubt is a real lawyer, but it's a cooler name than the late Lonesome Dave of Foghat), who after playing some sweet bottleneck, said before one song "This is about suicide. It's a sad, slow song. Which means you guys will probably talk even louder during it."

The crowd eventually stopped talking. Probably because the songs were so good, they demanded it.

As the two sold CDs, I stole a joke from late comedian Mitch Hedberg. It was because they had a song about escalators. I started saying that escalators are great, because even when they're broken you can still use them. They just become stairs.

I was interrupted by their soundman. He told a story about seeing a guy fall thru an escalator and someone trying to rescue him losing an arm. I think he was trying to be funny, but the story (with his New Zealand accent), made little sense.

Tonight, it was Jonathan Richman. I figured with Holly going on at midnight the night before, there was no hurry. My friends and I showed up at 10 p.m. Ted Washington, the nicest doorman around, was working (catch his poetry/singing sometime...a little out there, but interesting). I heard Richman singing and asked how long he had been on. The other doorman said "About 25 minutes." We were pissed.

And, more so when during the first song I'm hearing, it's being drowned out by the yahoos next to me, talking about what beers were on tap.

The people on my left were talking about their favorite Modern Romantics album (that was his previous band, but most probably know him as the guy who did the wacky songs in "There's Something About Mary").

Since we only saw about 45 minutes of the set, we hung out and drank a little.

When I saw the drummer breaking down some equipment, I went up to say a few words to him. I put my hand on his drums and said "This is a nice set up you have. Last time I saw you, it was just one snare drum you had." He put his hand on the drum, as it slightly wobbled. He then looked at me like he wanted to strangle me for touching his kit. After a few seconds of an awkward pause, he sternly said "Yeah, I used to just tour with one."

I went back to the pool tables and told my friends. One of them is a drummer. He said, "You don't touch a dudes drums, bro. You just don't do it." I laughed and said, "How idiotic a statement is that? I didn't go jump behind it and start bashging them, doing the solo from In-a-gadda diva" (side note: Hollys band started to play that, and even mentioned Iron Butterfly being from San Diego).

I then had to listen to this drummer, who was downing Pabst, tell me about why you don't touch musicians instruments. And the more he drank, the worse his analogies got ("would you like someone to touch your computer while you were writing a story?" My response: "No. And, I won't touch a drummers kit while he's playing.")