Saturday morning, Becca and Annie went to the country market down the street and discovered that they could get farm fresh eggs (and by fresh, we mean straight from a chicken’s butt into our happy hands) as well as some of the best pancake mix, maple syrup, and coffee that we could have possibly stumbled upon. There was some debate on whether or not we should get scrapple as we are more or less vegetarians but: is scrapple meat? We didn’t get it. And so we started our day with delicious coffee, pancakes, and fresh eggs over-easy. Once we were sufficiently fed and caffeinated, we practiced for a couple hours, recorded our whole set, and inadvertently renamed one song (Wet Virginia? “That’s disgusting”, says BK.) And with that, we set out to Rehoboth Beach.
First stop – Tough Luck Tattoo. Annie decided she’s going to get another tattoo this summer and is going to go to BK’s tattoo artist Kris. But he wasn’t there. He was at THE chili cook-off, we were informed. So we moved on. Next, we went to the boardwalk. We did the usual boardwalk activities – ducked in and out of shops, tried on funny sunglasses and hats, found a really cool (and mostly unaffordable) store called The Treehouse (we were drawn to it by the fact that it indicated it carried “sustainable luxury” which seemed like an oxymoron of sorts to us). We ate ourselves silly with boardwalk food – candy, burgers from Gus & Gus, fries from Thrashers, and soft-serve frozen custard from Kohr Bros. BK sort of fell in love with the Eastern European girl who served us ice cream (i.e. he wanted to put his p in her v i.e. have unadulterated sex with her). We tried unsuccessfully to find a bar that would buy our story about Michael leaving his ID at home. Finally we gave up and went to Dogfish Head and three of us enjoyed some really delicious beers while we narrated the trials and tribulations of an unlikely couple at the bar, and then went home with some more beers to enjoy and a bottle of their vanilla vodka. We stopped at a beer store for BK to get his Natty Bohs and hit up the Food Lion for dinner ingredients. Before going back to the house, we stopped back at the tattoo shop – Kris was there this time and Annie put down a deposit to come back in July (and Annie decided she wants Kris to put his p in her v).
Back at the house, we sat down for another practice. BK introduced some song ideas he has been working on and finally sang for us (it ended up being a terribly sweet duet between him and Becca). We worked on our latest cover idea, Eleanor Rigby. It turned out to be much more complex than we had originally anticipated, but promising nonetheless. We stopped playing at eight and switched gears to focus on food – Becca made a delicious white wine clam sauce for the angel hair pasta (though the boys had shrimp with theirs instead), and we made garlic bread and salad. The four of us working together in the kitchen was a very, very domesticated scene to say the least. We sat down to enjoy the fruits of our labor, which we washed down with beer (and Dogfish Head vodka with coke for Michael). After dinner, we kept right on drinking, watched funny videos on YouTube, Michael gave Annie a much needed lesson in Lady Gaga, Becca fell asleep after unsuccessfully trying to rouse the troops to play board games, and Annie, BK and Michael ended the night in Annie’s bed telling stories (Annie told her Canadian border story) before Annie fell asleep mid-conversation and the boys went to bed.
Sunday morning – we needed more eggs. So Annie and Becca went back to the country market. But this time, the farmer was nowhere to be found. The girls, deciding that leaving without delicious farm fresh eggs was not an option, opted to break into the hen house and take some (YES we were going to pay for them). So they left a note with $5 on the counter [insert picture of note] and prepared to attempt to slip into the hen house without letting all the chickens out. As a last ditch effort, they decided maybe they should knock on the door of the house that was on premises just to make sure there really was nobody around. Well, good thing they did because the farmer actually was home (AND one of his workers pulled in not two minutes later). While the farmer went into the hen house, Annie ran back into the store and removed the note and $5, the girls paid $1.50 for six eggs (we were planning on leaving $5 for 4 eggs), and went on their way. We had a similarly delicious breakfast, this time with veggie sausage that Becca had brought. All the plates were in the dishwasher however so we ate out of bowls and the breakfast garbage bowl was born – take a bowl, put two pancakes in it, add a veggie sausage, top with two eggs over-easy, pour maple syrup over it all, and enjoy.
After some clean up, we returned to the boardwalk. The day before, we visited one of those old timey photo places and came up with the idea of doing a band picture – in drag, and with instruments. So we returned on Sunday to carry out this plan. But there was a wait when we got there. Well, here we were on the boardwalk, with our instruments, why not play a couple songs and see what happens? And with that, we found an empty bench and set up shop. We put out Annie’s violin case, thinking we might get a couple of bucks. The first question was: what to play? After deciding that none of our songs are particularly “approachable”, we settled on We(s)t Virginia. So we played it, and people were throwing money into the case! Like, way more than expected! So we just kept going, why not play our whole set? And play it we did. BK broke a string, Becca changed it and broke that string again, and finally replaced it with an electric guitar string (hey, we were playing on a boardwalk, it did the job). We played our whole set, repeated a couple of songs at the end (the beauty of playing on a boardwalk is you have a constantly changing audience so you can do things like repeat songs) and then headed back to the old timey photo shop.
This time they were ready for us. Well, maybe they weren’t ready for us all being in drag, but at least we didn’t have to wait. The boys got some lacy, busty dresses to change into, and Annie and Becca got decked out as a banker and cowboy respectively. BK got very uncomfortable when the girl working at the shop went to tie the back of his dress (“She was touching me!”). The boys got completely accessorized with fishnet stockings (to which BK remarked “These are very airy”), feather hairpieces, and pearl necklace chokers. They arranged us with our instruments, and Becca with a gun and lasso. The pictures came out…amazing [insert pictures here]. While getting packed up and ready to go, Becca counted the money and we had made $56 (!!!!!!) So naturally, we decided that we needed to go do another set on the boardwalk.
We set up on a different part of the boardwalk this time and ran through the songs more or less the same as we had done earlier. We added a couple of impromptu covers. We talked to a guy with a boxer that can smell when he’s about to have a seizure and warns him (he hasn’t had a seizure since because he takes medication when the dog warns him – isn’t that crazy?!). We chatted with a woman who took a bunch of pictures of us. Oh, and did I mention, SEVERAL people were taking our picture during both sets. In this set, we made $44 plus a $20 that the woman who took our pictures had found earlier on the boardwalk and wanted us to have, giving us a grand total of $120 (!!!!!!!!!!) We also got a business card attached to one of the dollars thrown in from someone from the local paper (on the back: “you play violin beautifully…unless it’s a viola”). So, we can pretty much consider that to be Wise Old Lion’s very first gig. Don’t worry Rehoboth Beach, we’ll be back.
We ended the day with lunch at the Ale House, more soft-serve frozen custard from Kohr Bros. (paid for from the Wise Old Lions kitty – we earned it though soft-serve Eastern European girl didn’t even talk to BK and his heart broke a little) and then finally back to the house, packed up the car, and now we’re headed back to DC a good four hours later than we had initially planned (but then again, we didn’t initially plan to make $120 either). So that’s it, our first band trip, and Annie got to kill the first hour of the trip home by writing this. Oh, and your mom, and that’s what she said.
