By Artie Capshaw

“I have this friend,” Augustus tells me. “A big movie star. If I told you his name, you’d know it right off.”

Don’t you hate guys like that? Like we’ll endanger Augustus’ tenuous grasp on friend-of-celebrityhood  if he deigned to reveal this secret identity. It’s namedropping, only just the dropping part.

Anyway,  this unnamed name, Aug sez, “had to do what they call a cape and tights movie” [we’re pretty sure that’s NOT what they call them], some agreement with his manager that he couldn’t get out of, and I’d hear him whine for months about this crappy popcorn movie he didn’t want to do. Then he actually goes and makes the thing, and his whole mood changes. ‘I think this will be one of the good ones,’ he says. ‘It’s OK if it’s one of the good ones.’ and that’s my new attitude about this project—as old Augie segues  smoothly into the latest facet of his own checkered career, his sense of his own importance amplified through his news-item’s proximity to an anecdote about a famous pal.

“It’s one of the good ones. Yeah, I’m sure of that.”

Which, to make a meaningless and detail-free anecdote short, means that old Aug is now fronting a tribute band. Yes, he needs a few self-delusions and justifications just now. Given the other talent in the band (who are all pretending to be the talent from a whole other band, naturally), there’s a good chance this will in fact be one of the good ones—unlike Augie’s friend’s film, by the way. Thing is, Augie won’t let us reveal who his bandmates are yet. Says he’ll save that surprise for their first gig sometime next month at Dollaires.

Can we even hint at what band is being tributized here? Sorry, but we’re sworn to “Secrecy.”

Enough with the obfuscatin’—here are some notes with a purpose: Whiskey Bar is at Daniels’ (ahem) whiskey bar every Wednesday until folks stop noticing… Train Kept a Rolling has a similarly serendipitous house gig at Klink’s Rink…. Happy birthday to Czar Cygnus! What, no public party this year? Oh, yeah, you stopped drinking that time…