The Faces of Bucharest

Tonight is goth night and I promised to talk about the guitarist from the two-man band I went to see last week. He's also a bartender at El Comandante so the first time Mark and I noticed him he was behind the bar looking like he could kick some serious butt. He's another one of those guys that inspire you to write a character. He has a tough-looking face that is chisled enough to really catch the shadows in a dim bar. The kind of face that surprises when it smiles and makes me wish I had the patience to be a painter.

He has very intense, dark eyes. I don't know what color they are. I'm not brave enough to get that close. I mean dark in the sense that they are very intense, like the eyes of a hawk. He shaves his head and ambles comfortably across the room when walking from the stage to the bar. On stage, he stands with feet apart and shoulders back, eyes sometimes traveling to his fingers as they move along the fretboard of his guitar. He holds a cigarette in his mouth and makes me wonder how much of music is visual. I always think in terms of “seeing” music. I can't hear a piano without imagining a particular character of mine seated and tuxedoed, his graceful fingers dancing on the keys.

One of the regulars has a rather striking face as well. I told Mark he looks like a historical painting come to life. He could be 35 or five years in either direction, with an old-world goatee, which is the only kind of goatee worth having if you ask me. It isn't square like so many guys wear their beards today, but sculpted to a point, with long hairs. The hairs of the moustache are long as well, and overlap each other, then reach down past the corners of his mouth. He has a crown of black curls and a prominent nose. He and looks as though he's about to break into a smile, as though he is sitting on a very interesting secret. He looks like a conquistador.

“That man ought to be in a painting,” I said.

“He is,” Mark said. “We saw a painting in a museum that looked just like him.”

Oh, and the other band I went to see—Laibach—is from Slovenia not Slovakia. Please don't abuse the writer.