Last night, I went to The Note for a mellow night at the Vic Ruggiero show. The audienced managed to coax a couple of Slackers songs out of him, but it was mostly his brand of laid-back music, and it was amazingly nice to hang out in a bar in Wicker Park that wasn't overrun with scene-seekers, but just nice people looking for good music.

During the course of the evening, I did have a brief cell chat with my outrageously patient publisher, admitting right away I was on a cell phone in the ladies' room of a bar. I know, my level of professionalism is staggering, I realize. Luckily, when this call came, I was only a couple of sips into a Corona and had a giant glass of water in front of me, so I didn't feel compelled to shout "hey-remember-that-one-song-that-went-like-la-la-LA-bum-bumbumbum-la-la?" to him or anything, which would have really, really been professional.

Anyway, Vic Ruggiero does a good live show and gets chatty with the audience and seems humble and cool, which is always a good thing to encounter. As the show came to a close, though, a blonde waitress started passing out (read: strongly encouraging people to consume) "sample" shots of tequilla and the minute the VR show ended, the bar switched over to dancey house music. Um, wha...?

Needless to say, that was my exit cue.