Binghamton NY and misc jazz

On Wednesday evening Spencer & Jerry Rowan had a combo-show to do at the Holiday Inn Arena in Binghamton, NY for a trade show. I was invited to come along, primarily to do sound for them.
Hotel room and meals were all paid for us! (Plus Spencer paid me for the work.)

We went up Tuesday afternoon -- Jerry drove. Got to the hotel around 6pm, dropped our stuff off in the room and went to the banquet room & did some tests (sound tests, etc). They had rented & set up a 20'x16' stage, and a sweet sound system!
Got dinner at the hotel restaurant, talked with our cute waitress (who coincidentally is visiting College Park this weekend).
Jerry isn't used to staying up past normal hours (since he has 2 kids), so Spencer & I spent some time at the hotel bar when he went to bed. We did magic for the 2 chick bartenders & some of the patrons. But the hotel bar closed at 11pm. We asked one of the bartenders if there's anything to do around the area and she directed us to an Irish bar called Dillingers a block away, dropped her name & the name of the owner & a bartender for us.

We left the hotel and thought we were following her directions, but turns out we headed the exact opposite way. A chick stopped us on the sidewalk asking if there was anything going on that-a-way and we told her we didn't know & where we were trying to go. She led us to Dillingers, giving us the tour of the only drinking block (State St.), and we popped in (she headed elsewhere).
We ordered 2 shots of Apple Jacks and the bartender said $5. "Was that $5 total, or each?" we thought aside. (Each is what we're used to in Baltimore.) Spencer handed him a twenty, and got $15 in change. Sweet!
So we decided if drinking in Binghamton was that cheap (and it is!), we were gonna bar hop, doing shots along the way, just like we never do. (We never do, actually.)
We hopped along a few bars with a few shots until we came to a place that was our style and stayed there -- "Flashbacks."

Flashbacks is an eccletic mix of stuff from the 50s-70s, including Blue Brothers statues and a multi-colored light-up disco dance floor like I've never seen in person.
There weren't many people in there, which was fine. We quickly made friends with almost everyone in there including the bartender, and not just by doing magic (which we were).
We stayed there till close (@1am, familiar?), and actually didn't leave till ~1:30am when the chick I was talking to was ready to leave.

So, interesting details:
A lesbian gave me her number. Whoa baby. 8-O
A cool, well-spoken black guy gave Spencer & I his number. He wanted us to come to his girlfriend's bar, and she'd give us the hook-ups. ;P
And the cute chick with glasses I was talking to traded txts with me. [Spencer & I intended to come back to Flashbacks after our show Wed night; though we only did to get a quick shot before getting pizza.]
Tasty pizza at a pizzeria called Big Daddy's -- yeah, "Big Daddy's", I love it. =)

We jammed & played around Wed afternoon; Jerry juggling, Spencer card-throwing, I was practicing my coin sleights & tricks.
The show Wed night went well; good crowd, no technical problems.
Hob-nobbed & drank for free afterwards at the hotel bar with some of the trade show goers, did a little magic there too. Fun times.
Got up at 7am to come home Thurs morning. It had lightly snowed overnight. ^_^


Sara & I hit Arundel Mills in the evening, and I got two shirts from Hot Topic.
The first is a black hoodie I've wanted since before Christmas: it has Gir in his puppy dog suit big on the front, and the words "DoomDoomDoomDoom" down one sleeve. They only had one left on the clearance rack, my size, marked from $45 to $18!
The second is a black T-shirt with a large green 4-leaf clover on the front & the number 13 in the middle of it in black. It looks painted on, with splatter. I love it.
I miss my Lucky shirt from college -- it was bright green with a shamrock and just the word "Lucky" on the front, underlined. Not "Get Lucky" or "I'm Lucky," just "Lucky." I liked the simplicity of just the one word, which could imply multiple meanings. ;P

I've already made a great playlist of Irish & drinking songs for St. Patrick's Day.
Shamrockin'! c8--