Streetside: A First Friday block party, Star Trek, Death Cab, Jon Hamm

A real jolt to the local economy,” my friend Big Booth said wryly, as we passed through the empty Crossroads streets early Saturday night. Granted, the marquee All-Star Game events were still a few days off. And the Crossroads isn’t really a major nightlife destination. But Big Booth had a point. It seemed, both Friday and Saturday nights, as though there were actually fewer people in Kansas City.

Blame the heat. It was 106 degrees Friday afternoon. That’s 100 degrees, plus six more degrees! After work, I walked over to 19th Street and Baltimore, where local label Golden Sound Records was hosting a block party. Food trucks bracketed the street, and at the end, in front of Mildred’s, the Caves were playing. There wasn’t a single person in front of the stage. I’m not even kidding. Not one. Man, bummer for the Caves, I thought. But as I drew closer, I saw a healthy crowd watching the band. They were all huddled in the Mildred’s parking lot to the north of the stage — the only part of the block that offered the shelter of shade.

It made little difference; it was still too hot to be outside. I devoured an entire Good You hamburger in about 45 seconds and headed back to work, where I spent an hour basking in the air conditioning and researching the climates of other U.S. cities where I might conceivably move. When I returned, Cowboy Indian Bear was onstage, sounding very epic and Arcade Fire–like, and the block was packed. I was impressed by the huge, professional stage that the Golden Sound guys had hauled in for the event. The drum kits were elevated, like at an arena rock show. “The Judge Judy, I call that,” said my boy Crilly.

The heat threatened to break Saturday night, and so, instead of sitting cross-legged and blank-faced in front of my window unit, I hit up the Brick to see My Brothers & Sisters. The last time I saw the band, which is led by former It’s Over frontman Jamie Searle, it contained something like 18 people. On Saturday, it was down to seven, which seems more reasonable. The brass section is apparently new; while introducing the band, Searle forgot two of the members’ names. “Our first practice was yesterday,” he explained. The set was upbeat and old-school — Searle has a bit of an Elvis Presley–Chuck Berry frontman thing going on, and the horns added some lively drama to the mix. Afterward, attention turned to the Brick’s TVs, which were showing Star Trek: First Contact. Jean-Luc Picard was shirtless.

“Patrick Stewart is cut,” I said to my friend Briny.

He nodded. “This is actually a pretty good movie,” he said. “This and Wrath of Khan. The rest are terrible.”

“What about IV?” the bartender interjected.

“The Voyage Home?” Briny said. “With the whales? That movie is terrible.”

“Yeah, but it’s terrible in a good way,” she said.

I glanced back at the screen. It looked like Data was maybe dying.

“Does Data die in this?” I asked.

“Let’s just say he makes a sacrifice for the greater good,” Briny said. He paused. “Come to think of it, not unlike the sacrifice Spock makes in The Wrath of Khan.”

“Does Spock die in The Wrath of Khan?”

“Well, now we’re getting into Star Trek III: The Search for Spock …”

The bartender returned to rinsing a pint glass. Two friends announced that they were headed to Westport. A crowd at the other end of the bar got up and left. We were clearing the place out.

“We should probably just kill ourselves after we leave here,” I said, and ordered another bourbon and soda.

Death Cab for Cutie is not a band that has ever greatly excited me, and it’s unlikely I would have attended its show Sunday night at the Grinders stage had I not been invited by the good people at Yahoo, who sponsored the show and hosted a very nice party in the old Scion Lab space behind the stage for Very Important People like myself. But I think I might have a newfound respect for Death Cab. They let it rip live — the three-minute lead-in jam to “I Will Possess Your Heart” had me bobbing my head and looking around like, Are you guys feeling this like I’m feeling this? I’m going to have to let my thoughts simmer for a little while, but it’s possible that Death Cab would have been one of my favorite bands if the singer’s voice didn’t make me feel like such a pussy.

The party had free food and alcohol, so I had no intention of leaving until somebody who worked there asked me to. After the show, I filled up a plastic plate with tater tots. I had a drink in my hand, and there wasn’t a surface nearby to set it down, so I brought the plate up to my mouth and ate the tater tots straight from the plate — like a dog, or a pig. It was as I was doing this that I noticed Hollywood actor Jon Hamm standing against a wall talking to a couple of other men. He was wearing a black Cardinals hat, khakis and a plaid shirt. It was around 11 p.m. by then, and probably only 50 people were left at the party. If you were ever going to talk to Jon Hamm, this was the time.

I didn’t. I respect Jon Hamm too much to subject him to my drunk self. But I did watch him. How could I not? He’s so famous and handsome. A little later, I was out on the patio, and Jon Hamm walked out. Within a few minutes, almost everybody at the party had moved to the patio. A cute girl came over and started talking to me. She had just talked to Jon Hamm and was obviously using me as a prop while she hatched a plan for how to talk to him again. I glanced over toward Jon Hamm. He was sitting down at one of the picnic tables with some local dudes I recognized. I looked back at the girl. Her eyes were bulging in horror.

“Your shirt!” she said.

There was a gigantic cockroach crawling up my arm. That seemed about right. A grotesque monster covered in bugs — that’s basically what it feels like to be a man at the same party as Jon Hamm.

They kicked us out at midnight, and Jon Hamm walked straight out the front door, up Oak, left on 18th Street, and then disappeared, alone, into the night.