...actually, it's "hardly"...

(March 30, 2002)

I never made it to the underground party Saturday night. When I called Baldino back, he was at home, and furious. I tried to convince him (freezing out on the porch with my cell phone) to come to Brighton, to the party where I was. Finally, me and Anngelle went to pick him up in her car. After we got back to Brighton, it didn't feel right leaving him to go to the place that just kicked him out.

What really happened that night will never be known. First of all, everyone who was actually there has a different version of events. People who WEREN'T there are even offering their own opinion of what "must have happened" based on their friendship with Mike or with the Asciento guys or whatever. And of of the people who were there? Some of 'em have changed their story in the past week.

Great.

You wanna know what I know, Jungle reader? Mmkay. Baldino was either stone sober, a little buzzed, or falling down drunk. He either walked into the party alone, or walked in with Max. He either said to the doorman, "Hey, can I come in to review the show?" or "I'm Mike Baldino, I don't pay for anything" or "I'm fuckin' Mike Baldino from The Noise, maybe you've heard of me?" Whatever he said, he got in without one of the little blue passes and without paying the five dollar cover.

There's even less agreement about what happened next.

Baldino either creepily draped himself over the bar and wouldn't leave, or stood patiently in line for a drink, or went boldly behind the bar and stole a bottle. He then either ignored the bartender's query about what the problem was, harassed the bartender, or started pounding his chest yelling "Don't you know who I am." He was then either pushed by one guy, escorted by one guy, or carried bodily by two guys out to the street. Noise publisher T Max was either standing right there saying "You're being belligerent," standing right there saying nothing, or standing in a completely different part of the room and didn't see any of this. Baldino then either left right away, hung around outside being an asshole, or begged and whined to come back inside. The whole thing either took three minutes, five minutes, fifteen minutes, or an hour.

Isn't this great? I told Mike it'll pass into local rock legend and in twenty years an even younger, even goofier version of himself will stop the future aging Sceneboy on the street and say "Hey, didn't you used to be the Mike Baldino who gate-crashed parties and got thrown out all the time?" Our little local music community is positively filled with crap like that.

Let's make a Somerville cable access show called "Beneath The Music."