The Collected Life: HarCo

Looney's Pub North

January 10, 2014

Bel Air, MD

Under the Covers

Getting Under the Covers on a cold January night

"Maybe... you're gonna be the one who saves me..."

The ladies and lovely birthday girl.

Be sure to say hello to Mr. Bourne and Mrs. Baker the next time you see them.

Early each January, Lauren Angelini gets to celebrate another turn around the globe. For her birthday, these past few years we've been celebrating by going out on the town and shaking it at Looney's Pub North, a loud-as-shit, sensory-overload sports bar that dominates the shopping center at the corner of Route 1 and Main Street, in downtown Bel Air.

This year our event wonderfully coincided with a homecoming show of Under the Covers, a local cover band fronted by ex-school teacher and cohort of mine, Mr. Brian Bourne. I'm not sure anyone in the band actually calls Bel Air home, but it is where Bourne hails from as a youth, and where he started his chops as a singer. (I wasn't there, but I hear there was a stellar performance at a Battle of the Bands some years ago at C. Milton Wright.)

If you haven't seen Under the Covers, GO SEE THEM. Especially if you've got a hankering for radio hits of the 90s, you've gotta go see them. Who else is running up and down the DelMarVa and PA seaboard playing that one song from James (you know it: "You think you're so prreeee--ttttt--yyyyyyy eeeeeeeeee!"), selections from The Killers, Oasis, Pearl Jam, Lady Gaga, and the Counting Crows? I'm pretty sure they played that one song by Third Eye Blind. You know it: "Doot doot doot... Baby, baby - I want something else..."

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The last time we partied down for LaurenFest was actually a couple of years ago and the cover band was not UTC. They were good; I can't remember their name, but something else memorable did happen.

We were near edge of the dance floor gathered around a high top table observing the other party goers of the night. I catch glimpse of a former co-worker whom I didn't know very well, hoping to avoid him. Unfortunately, he recognizes me and slurs my way, "I'm in so much trouble... I'm in so much trouble..." In trouble at his job? In trouble with the women he was dancing with, one of whom I assume was his wife? (There was a lot of affection being shown amongst his group of friends; I could not tell who may be a couple.) "I'm just here with some old Calvert Hall friends..." Indeed, they were. These once athletic, handsome, lacrosse-playing men had come to the bar after a week's work to loosen their ties, unbutton their oxfords and untuck them from their pleated khakis. Let it all loose. They had become red-faced and doughy. Their women, although a bit heavy with product, were attractive and maybe a fraction less sloppy. All, however, a bit toasty.

After some drunken, friendly chitchat, he returns to his crowd and I turn back to my husband.

Josh and our friend, Rob, are giggling.
"What?" I say. What's so funny? Was my coworker silly and entertaining to them? I felt mildly uncomfortable and feel slightly dirty after our hello; what's so giggly about that?

Josh said, "Look over there," and directed me to my coworker's friends. They were dancing. One of the friends had a drink in his hand; both hands were raised as he contorted his post-peak body between two women. He was loving the music, loving the attention, eyes half open, heavy-lidded. And he had a massive erection just hanging out under the pleats of his pants dancing along with him.

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LaurenFest 2014 had no visible boners in attendance, at least aside from the figurative boners who lasciviously hang out in sports bars. I didn't see any former coworkers (other than the Bourne Ultimatum), but I did see former students. There's nothing like seeing your former students at a bar and having them do a double-take when they see you. Don't worry, kids, I won't embarrass you on the dance floor.

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