Que Sera Sera

Spotlight ON! Joey, Pt.3

Installment the Third: Friends; Bob Pollard’s Shot Glass

SB: I think one of the best benefits of our relationship was how all of our friends came together and intermingled and got along. It was like doubling the roster. All of my friends loved you.

JZ: I know that everyone I knew was pretty unanimously happy about our courtship. I mean, Tony introduced us, and Phil made out with like 4 or 5 of your friends, so it was good for him. I think the only ones who might’ve been a little unhappy were the girls from my crew in college… I don’t think they were ever catty about it, but it’s been revealed to me over time that almost every one of those girls had a crush on me at some point in time, and I think you coming in and wrecking it for all the others was kind of a bummer for them.

SB: Yeah, it didn’t occur to me until a lot later that once you and I started dating, it was the girls from my school pairing up with the guys from your school, and we must have totally cockblocked them, but at the time I was like, “Oh, new lady friends!” I am le retarded.

JZ: But on the flipside, all my guy friends just totally adored you. Like Henry and Mikey and David, man, they just ate it all up. I guess they weren’t used to me dating a girl who was cool and smart. And when you’d drink with ‘em, they’d just flip out, and yell things like “HEY JOEY SARAH’S DOIN’ SHOTS WITH US WHY DON’T YOU EVER DO SHOTS WITH US YOU PUSSY!” I distinctly remember the vibe after we broke up, and they were all like “Wow, that sucks. OK, well I’m gonna go hang out at Caz’s with Sarah, she’s a lot more fun than you. See ya!”

SB: Well, it wasn’t just me they were into. What was it those guys called my roommate Christina? Sir Pintor? Explain that one again for the GI Joe impaired.

JZ: Yeah, my friends immediately fell in love with Christina when they met her. They said it was almost like she was too hot, and they cooked up the theory that Christina was like a college-girl version of Serpentor, the evil mastermind from the GI Joe cartoons. Serpentor was manufactured using DNA from all the most evil geniuses of history, and Christina was apparently fashioned from all the best women of all time. She was really hot, super-intelligent, and smelled like apples. They were totally under her command.

SB: She was really good at soccer, too.

JZ: And she made a lot of oatmeal cookies.

SB: Anyway, the Christmas after we broke up, all those guys came into town and called me and wanted to know the hanging out protocol, and I was like, “Just because Joey’s under new management doesn’t mean we can’t still hang out!” That was so hard, though: divvying up the friends after the breakup. Especially Tony and Emily, who were like our other halves.

JZ: Yeah, that was like Kramer vs. Kramer. And then we both were trying so hard to be fair that neither of us ended up hanging out with them at all, and like a month after the breakup, Tony called me and was like “What is the deal here!”

SB: I remember that. He called me too, and we went for this long drive and talk and I cried for the first time. I think T&E might have taken the breakup as hard as we did. I remember that once you and I started speaking again, like a year later, you complained to me that they didn’t seem to like your new girlfriend, and I was like, “Don’t feel bad, they didn’t like my new boyfriend either!” Not that they really didn't like him; it's just that our dynamic was so rare. It probably made every one else want to vomit that in college you and Tony were roommates, and Emily and I were roommates, and we were all best friends and would go grocery shopping and on road trips and it was like a fucking sitcom. It was so fun, though.

JZ: My favorite road trip we took was probably to Columbia, Missouri, to see Superchunk open for Guided By Voices. The trip was really long, and you and Emily passed the time trying to out-ethnic-slur each other, and I was seriously speechless. But Tony cracked me up by repeating “fireworks, fireworks” in that crazy voice every time we passed a sign for Big Jay’s Fireworks Stand, which was every 50 feet. We all shared a room at some third-rate motel with a heater that wouldn’t turn off, and before the show, while we were all watching Rock’n’Roll Jeopardy, you looked at me and said “Daddy, who did Eric Clapton play with?” And you had no idea you had just called me Daddy.

SB: Oh God. I’d forgotten that! You guys all started laughing at me, and I was like, “what?” I had no idea I’d even said it. Also, before you tell me: I know, it’s the Yardbirds.

JZ: Then the show was awesome, but honestly too loud, and I think you and Emily left early, and went back to the motel. But Tony and I went to go get food, and decided to catch the tail-end of the gig. The concert was letting out, and this crowd of people was just milling around the venue, so we decided to go inside and hang with the loudest musicians in all of Missouri. We were chatting up Jon Wurster of Superchunk, and then I spotted Jim Macpherson, ex-Breeders drummer, who’d played with GBV that night. Man, that guy was hammered. I was talking to him, and he seriously starts to wrestle me, and we end up on the floor. The scuffle ends, and he pops right back up, and says, “I’m gonna go get more beer, you guys stay right here,” and we took off. We ditched Jim Macpherson! We got back to the hotel, and excitedly, I yelled “Hey look, Sarah, I brought you back the exact shot glass that Bob Pollard was drinking from!” and you just kind of rolled your eyes and replied “Great. I just wanted a sandwich.”

SB: Okay, namedropper, I remember that a little differently, and I think Emily Lytle will back me up. The show was SO LOUD, like ears bleeding loud, louder than Joey’s drumming loud, and after a few hours it just disintegrated into Robert Pollard being everyone’s Drunk Uncle Bob, which is funny, but we were tired and hot and starving, so Emily and I said, “We’re going to walk back to the room, but when you come back, will you bring some food?” and you guys said, “Sure!” So we waited up until 4am in that furnace motel room watching some boring softcore movie, starving to death, and then you and Tony busted in all drunk and excited, shouting about wrestling and ditching some guy named Jim Macpherson, and we were like, “That’s great, but DID YOU BRING SANDWICHES?” And then you made a huge production out of giving me Bob Pollard’s shot glass, and I was like, “Great! Thanks! Maybe I can LICK IT FOR NUTRIENTS!” Which is a really bitchy thing to yell, but man, I was so hungry and annoyed.

To your credit, Tony and Emily and I all passed out, but you went out looking for food and got lost, and came back when the sun was coming up with some little chocolate donuts as a peace offering, to which I just rolled over and went back to sleep.

JZ: I think that was the beginning of the end.

SB: Yeah, I think so too. Sorry, Daddy.

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