Despite the fact that this post is nowhere near current and timely anymore, I feel the story is absolutely worth telling. So here it is.

In late August, we headlined the Downtown Get Down in Louisville. While the show ultimately went down as an overwhelming success, it will most likely be remembered by everyone in attendance for the street brawl that occurred after the show, resulting in the cops coming to break it all up.

Sadly, I have to take responsibility for this unfortunate melee, since I brought the instigator to the show. In order to protect the identity of the shameless, I will give him a pseudonym – “Maxwell House.”

Maxwell House and I have been friends for a very long time, dating back to our years living in Vail in the late 90s. While I consider him a very good friend, I do recognize that he rubs others the wrong way at times. When he drinks, a monster is unleashed leaving massive amounts of carnage in its wake.

Sometimes this carnage is caused by the monster simply flexing its muscles and breathing fire in the direction of everyone in the vicinity. However, frequently this carnage is the result of his magnetic attraction to fighting.

Ironically, Maxwell House insists that he doesn’t look for these fights. They just seem to find him. I don’t know how I feel about that statement. I’ve been out drinking w/Maxwell thousands of times over the years, and not once has one of these fights found me. They always seem to find him, and more often than not, he ends up getting thumped by 3-5 people. But it’s always the other person (or people) who seem to be drawn to him. Never his fault.

Recently, Maxwell House has seemed to have calmed down a bit. He is now married and has a baby boy, and it has been several years since I’ve seen the beast unleashed. But I suppose you can never truly keep a monster locked in a cage forever. Sooner or later, it will figure out a way to escape, and then watch out.

Late in the afternoon, I needed to drop off PA gear at the Downtown Get Down for the other bands to use. Unfortunately, the gear was all in Nicole’s car, which is a stick shift. I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I am somewhat challenged when it comes to driving a stick. Maxwell House became my stick shift coach on my mission to drop off the gear. Two hours, about 6 beers (for him), and many stalls of Nicole’s car later, we got back to my house so that I could get ready for the gig.

When Maxwell told me he wanted to take the ride back with me and hang out at the Get Down, my natural response was, “Sure.” We had laughed our asses off while I struggled to drive that stick. I felt like we were in it for the long haul that night. Little did I know what that meant.

When we got back to the Get Down, an incredible transformation took place before my eyes. Within a matter of minutes, Maxwell went from drunk but in control to loud boisterous drunk to sloppy drunk to belligerent drunk. The beast had erupted before my eyes.

Maxwell House sat by the stage and heckled the band before us for about a half hour. Finally, I was able to drag him away from the stage so that they could finish their set in peace. I thought the crisis was averted, but soon Jababa would be playing and the beast would be left to its own deviant ways with no one to keep an eye on it.

From what I’ve been told, Maxwell House was cut off by the bartender shortly after we started playing. He then became quite angry and started shouting at the bartender, demanding more beer. He eventually snuck behind the beer stand and stole a pitcher of beer. But stealing a pitcher wasn’t victory enough for Maxwell. He had to drink the entire pitcher right in front of the bartender, daring her to do something about it. If she wasn’t so petrified of him, she probably would have kicked him out right then.

During the rest of our set, the seeds were sewn for the melee that would eventually erupt at the end of the show. Miraculously, one of these fights happened to find Maxwell again. I don’t know how this person knew to pick on him, but apparently Maxwell did nothing to provoke it, as usual. He was just minding his own business and the fight just found him.

Well, he picked a winner this time. Maxwell House started brawling with a guy who was a black belt in karate, a jujutsu master, and an ultimate fighting championship fighter. Can you guess who had the upper hand in this one?

When I finally arrived at the scene, Maxwell House was pinned on the ground, and the other guy was in a position to break his arm. There was a huge crowd there pleading with the guy to let Maxwell go, but he didn’t want to do it. Finally, we told him that the cops were on their way. Instantly, this guy released Maxwell from his vice grip and walked away before he could get arrested for his part in the fracas.

Here is when the story really gets unbelievable. When the cops came, there were only a few of us left at the Downtown Get Down. The cops asked us if anyone here had been involved in the fight. Todd and I began to say, “No,” when for some strange reason, Maxwell House raised his hand and said, “I was.”

He was off the hook. All he had to do was keep his mouth shut, but instead, he brought on the shit storm.

It seems that Maxwell’s many run-ins with the law have taught him to be polite and compliant, something I’ve never seen before when the beast is unleashed. As a result, they took pity on him. He blew a .18 on the breathalyzer, and instead of just arresting him for disorderly conduct, the cops offered him the choice of spending the night in the drunk tank. Maxwell House wisely chose option B.

He was held in the drunk tank until 2pm the next day. He apparently urinated all over the floor in his holding cell in the middle of the night, and when they let him out, his BAC was still .12, which means he probably topped out somewhere between .25 and .30 during the night (most likely while he was urinating on the floor).

Needless to say, Maxwell House has become the first person to officially receive a lifetime ban from Jababa shows. Thanks for the memories, Maxwell.

“The Jababa Chronicles”: All musings, anecdotes, philosophies, ramblings, rants, and tirades written exclusively by Andrew Martin unless otherwise specified.