Days of Lore

House Party 17 I’ve become such a homebody over the last two months. I recently relocated to a one-bedroom apartment, which might be one of the greatest moves I’ve ever made. Now I find myself coming home after work to an empty apartment. I don’t have to make small talk. I can sit in my underwear and eat Frosted Mini Wheats out of the box. It’s beautiful.

I don’t have a TV, so I’ve been listening to more music (The Reigning Sound, Monotonix, Willie Nelson and Mastodon’s Blood Mountain in heavy rotation) and—gasp!—reading more (You Can’t Win, by Jack Black … no, not that Jack Black).

However, I have made it out a few times in the last few weeks—usually to check out shows I thought might be interesting, or to work a show and sometimes even to play a show.

That’s where the trouble starts.

It’s way past my bedtime There’s not much good that can come out of being up past 2 a.m., well … unless you’re getting laid. However, the last couple of times I’ve been up at that hour have been far less productive.

After the “show of the year” that involved one band with the words “electric” and “pie” in it, and another whose name pits a large salmon-breathed mammal (U. a. horribilis) against a small tree dweller (Sciurus carolinensis), I ended up at a small gathering via taxi cab.

I met a young woman and we talked about how her hair sort of resembled that of a young Morrissey, and she told me how she’s always mistaken for being a lesbian, which she insisted she wasn’t, and I believed her.

Before I knew it we had conceptualized two new rock bands that were going to conquer Chico—an all-female band called The Wieners and an all-male band called The Vag’s (or is it Vages? Vagiz?). We decided that The Vag’s would open up for The Wieners. It seemed so brilliant at the time …

Another occasion when I found myself up past my bedtime I was in San Francisco being kept up by a friend of a friend who insisted that “Aqualung” was the heaviest song ever recorded. He had a record collection that covered his entire wall, which is great, but he used it for evil that night, playing Steely Dan records and ignoring my polite requests for KISS.

Give a hoot Since I’ve already talked about wieners and vag’s (or is it vages? Vagiz?), I may as well talk about hooters, too.

A couple of weeks ago I received a hot tip (the sexual innuendo never ends!) from someone who said they’d heard a Hooters restaurant might be going into the old Krispy Kreme building near In-N-Out.

My curiosity was aroused, and I called the city’s building division and sent off an e-mail to Hooters headquarters. One person at the city said they had heard the rumor but that no permits had crossed their desk. A few days later, I received a response from Hooters.

Dear Mr. Lore:

That was the response I expected, and I left it at that (although I did call the Hooters in Sacramento to see if they knew anything … still nada).

But, just a week ago, I received another e-mail:

Mr. Lore,

OK, it’s still a little vague, but that last sentence gives us all a glimmer of hope that Chico may one day have a place where women can live out their dream of becoming a Hooters Girl and men can ogle them over a 20-piece chicken-wing dinner and a bottle of Dom Pérignon.