The Ballad of Chicken Wing Face
(Photo by Gurumustuk Singh)
….so there I was at Eastside Mario’s in Cambridge last night. I highly recommend the joint - great food, great atmosphere and fantastic service, which is quite often hard to find in a chain restaurant.
I’m on the patio watching Robbie Hancock and Dennis Napper performing (by the way, these two guys play very well, both together and in their other respective combos) and enjoying a pint of my favourite chilled, hop and barley flavoured beverage, when he appeared.
I don’t know his name, so I’ll call him Chicken Wing Face. It’s appropriate, trust me. He got up from his table, where he was sitting with his buddies, and swaggers-slash-staggers up to the ’stage’, waving a half-consumed chicken wing bone over his head, sauce dripping. From his nose to his chin, and pretty much almost ear to ear he had chicken wing sauce smeared everywhere. Not sure the flavour, and I wasn’t going to ask him….or lick his face to find out. He looks back at his friends, convinced that they should be impressed cuz he’s got the ‘mojo’ and the ‘moxy’ to actually speak to the performers.
Then, with an air of a dictator decreeing the new law of the land, he suggests that the band should play ’some ZZ Top’.
Now, before I continue, bear in mind that this is a singer/songwriter duo with acoustic guitars, on a restaurant patio.
“Sorry, no, we don’t know any ZZ Top.” says one of the performers apologetically.
Looking like a child whom had just had someone pee on his puppy, Chicken Wing Face makes his way back to his table, head down, partial chicken wing held dejectedly at his side.
And people wonder why I don’t like to go out in public that often. I won’t be able to eat chicken wings for 2 months now thanks to him. Unless, of course, somebody offers me one. Mmmmmm……chicken wings……and ZZ Top…..
Stevie Z
