If Fish Were Sliders

Well first, I am happy to report that there have been not one but TWO comments to my blog here, and both of them have suggested ideas for stories. It must be more obvious than I thought that I have already run out of good ideas. Thanks for the suggestions and I intend to take you up on them. I like comments because it give me the illusion that people are reading these.


I understand that if you click on this, you will go to the place where I wrote this article. Amazing. They also have some other stories I wrote.

Okay. Now.

This one is going back into the dark and fuzzy vaults of memory. I am almost sure that it happened. If it didn't then it did anyway.

This is a little story about Uncle Pleasant's which was a bar in Louisville, and might still be, but I doubt it. It was the first place the mighty NDI ever played that wasn't within sleeping distance of our homes. The owner dude was named Uncle Mark and we liked him. He gave us our first real gig!

But this happened at maybe our tenth real gig, when it felt like things were a big ball rolling faster and faster downhill, and we couldn't stop it or even get in front of it, because it was us, getting famous. That would be impossible, to get in front of yourself. So we didn't try. We just rolled with the big ball of fame and tried not to get food poisoning or fall out of the van on the highway.

But this happened before we were the household name we are today. A LONG time before that. At this gig we were still making up songs as we went along, and not unrelated to that was the fact that there were about 16 people in attendance. But they were frantic. They were onto something.

At Uncle P's, on like I said maybe our tenth ever road gig, we had a nice idea. At the end of the first set, Skipper announced that we had decided to treat the crowd to a trip to White Castle. We had maybe 20 minutes between sets, and none of us knew where White Castle was or if they even had them in Kentucky. In those days we trusted things like that to the Rock Gods.

So we piled the entire crowd into the back of our undependable van and blasted off. It was empty because all the gear was on stage, and the crowd rolled and tumbled as GT drove us in search of our fast food goal. And do you know what? They DO have White Castles in Kentucky. The Rock Gods did not let us down.

We parked and the doors opened and the crowd spilled out and we rushed into the fragrant, affordable restaurant. Skipper led us up to the counter and a hush fell over the multitude and the counter guy in the paper hat said "Welcome to White Castle may I take your order" and Skipper held up one finger and said:

"One White Castle, please."

The paper hat said, "You just want one?"

"Just one," repeated Skipper.

Well, we got that slider and we got back in the van and we handed that little bitty burger to the crowd and everyone had a tiny bite and passed it on. No one went hungry. It was a little like Jesus and the fishes, if Jesus wore matching tuxes and fishes were sliders.

Back at the club the crowd went back in and we went back on. We were bonded for pretty much ever.

Okay let's let that sink in for awhile. More to come, and no mistake.