Oh, How Things Might Have Been Different

Speaking of Soul Coughing:

In the summer of 1996, Mrs. Rodius and I went to see Soul Coughing at the Hatch Shell on the Esplanade in Boston. We went because it was free, it was a beautiful day to be outside, some friends had invited us, and because we liked that song that was on the radio, that song that if you know any Soul Coughing at all, you know that song.

There were maybe fifty people lounging in the sun on the grass. It was fun. We didn't know the music. Most of it seemed too slow. It didn't really click with me as what I liked in the days when The Chemical Brothers were the coolest thing I'd ever heard.

After the show was over, our friends mentioned that they knew a couple of the guys in the band. They were going to go backstage, hang out with them, and probably smoke a fatty. Mrs. Rodius wasn't into that kind of thing, but I most definitely was. But the friends didn't think it would be cool for them to bring somebody else along. They were sorry. They hoped I'd understand.

Over the next few years, I learned to love Soul Coughing with a deep and abiding passion reserved for only a few bands, like Pink Floyd, Fishbone, and System of a Down. So now I can look back on that day as the day I almost got to hang out with M. Doughty. Of course, he's Mike Doughty now. He's cleaned up, and his music is much more Grey's Anatomy than Ruby Vroom. But oh, how would my life have changed if only I'd been able to smoke out with the man who wrote these immortal words:

Get onto the bus
That's gonna take you back to Beelzebub
Get onto the bus
That's gonna make you stop going rub a dub