On AM, Movie Moments, Leagues, and Cab Rides

But first, a digression on me having a laptop now, and having DSL installed in my grandmother's apartment. Generally speaking, I like it. With my work schedule such as it is... I gotta download just to keep up with my shows... and this winter, it's going to be a doozy.

Rome on Sundays... and 24, Heroes, and Studio 60 all on Mondays... it's a lot of content considering I don't finish on Mondays until 10:30pm. The upside is that the torrents should be up by the time I finally commute home.

And since I've gone out my way in the past to say so... not last year, but the year before and also the season before that...

WATCH THE NEW 24 TONIGHT, OR JACK BAUER WILL GO HACKSAW ON YOUR GOOFY ASS!!! 8pm, Global/Fox.

So last night a *scratch* DJ AM *scratch* saved my life... his mixing, not mine. Perhaps the tale of the evening should begin at its beginning... I'm new in the office, but I've fallen in with my coworkers pretty quickly, and wanted to keep that up, so I decide that yes, this socializing with coworkers thing is a good idea, and I drop 20 bucks for a ticket to see DJ AM. The plan was for myself and Scoletti to get a ride to Jacob(?)'s place, where everyone was meeting and from whence we'd be cabbing to the club. Sully(my boss) was going to go his own way and swing by with his ladyfriend later on in the evening... but the three of us(myself, Scoletti, and Sully)were all that was left in the office.

So we started pregaming. We sniped a couple beers and a bottle of cheap rum from a fridge and it was on. Went to Jacob's, had another beer... and it was off to the club. I recall telling a bad joke or two during the cab ride.

I was looking forward to seeing new parts of Boston... as I only know small chunks of downtown Boston thus far. In principle, seeing the club district would be a cool new thing for me... except the place was on the Boston Common... which is the one place in Boston I know. So... that was a minor bust. The club was quite nice though, and I suppose it's the canadian in me that makes me think 5 bucks is a perfectly acceptable price for a beer at the club, since my coworkers seemed to think it rather expensive.

I saw a prime opportunity to get some photos of myself silhouetted against some lighting panels, so I took a few, one of which is now my new facebook photo if you're wondering. The opening DJ was pretty decent, not doing anything fancy, but laying tracks on top of tracks, and exercising generally good taste. I was pounding Bud Lights pretty steady until AM himself came on.

If you've been to the dance cave... or maybe if you've just been to a club that happened to have a DJ playing who was really good... you may have had that moment where you just stop giving a fuck about the people around you and start screaming along with the songs, dancing spastically with hands in the air and all that jazz. AM delivers that without the constraints of genre that can sometimes hamper an evening at the dance cave when you think, as much as bloc party and bowie et al kick ass... sometimes you just wanna hear some 50 Cent. Not a lot, but some. Perhaps laid on top of the new Beatles album being played in reverse, and despite sounding awful on paper, it works beautifully.

I started sobering up at roughly the same time I realised the place was a damned sausagefest. 4 or 5 to 1, easily... and I realised I wasn't going to meet anyone. I played the desperation card, half-throwing myself at a couple of larger girls which didn't work as I was sobering up and in no mood to willingly chase that which I knew I didn't want. The mindset was that of, "Should I throw myself on a grenade to see if I can still feel anything at all?" and the answer I provided myself was, "No, no you shouldn't." I was kinda okay with that and more than a little disappointed when a girl dug her heel into my toe.

She apologized, I said no big deal, and I started walking onward when her friend grabs me by the shoulder. "My friend likes you, she thinks you're cute. Go for it." So, presented with that rather conclusive evidence, I go for it, we get to chatting... and I find out the following: Her name is Susan, she's an architect, and she's 24, originally from Virginia, and up for salsa dancing sometime. Blister In The Sun comes on, and she goes over to another friend of hers... this one's been being hit on by a guy who looks about 275 and in his early-mid 30's. Not Susan's friend's type, presumably... but is Susan protecting her friend? Not really, as Susan seems more interested in me(and who can blame her?). Blister In The Sun ends, AM starts a transition into something I instantly recognize, and in the span of this 5 seconds... Susan's friend who was getting hit on flees her pursuer, grabs Susan, and they're both gone before I get the chance to ask for her number. AM finishes his transition:

Ah, now I don't hardly know her
But I think I could love her
Crimson and clover

The song, one I consider among my all-time favorite love songs, and Susan's rapid departure, timed and combined so perfectly as to have been ripped from the movie version of my life, hit me with such force as to nearly render me a blubbering mess in the middle of the dance floor, a shell of a man filled not with man, but with sadness and regret. And then the lights came up and she was still gone. And I was... not happy with how effected I was by all this. At least, I was unhappy with the effect, which was to make me unhappy. Had she and I made out during Crimson and Clover, I probably would've been beside myself and giddy with joy, thinking that this was it and that she was the one. And as I'm standing by the exit, thinking about what just transpired, and how the hell I'm going to get home, I'm told...

"She's not going to be impressed if you're all slack-jawed like that."

Her other friend, the one not being hit on by the big ol' creep, the one who originally told me to go for it, was there. And I was slack-jawed, although I was probably telling myself it was shell-shock at the time so as to console my lack of being a man with manly phraseology.

Fun Fact: The Shins, who I'm sure many of us know and/or love, misspelled the name of their band. They're named after the mayor and his family in The Music Man, a family I can attest from personal experience is spelled Shinn. So... yeah. Phraseology.

Anyway, I ask friend of Susan if she's still in the club, and she says yes, and I really need to go for it because Susan's a really nice girl and can't make these moves for herself because she's really shy and not the type to make eyes at a boy the way she did at me, apparently. Susan shows up a few minutes later, and I get her number, and I tell her we're going to do salsa sometime. And I hope we do... because she's exactly the kind of girl I think I should be dating at this point in my life: established, attractive, smart, all that good stuff... that should make her rather unattracted to a guy like me: making good money, attractive, smart, but still in school and currently living with his grandmother.

The only rationale I can come up with is this: It doesn't matter if you don't think you're in her league, as long as she thinks you are, all other considerations are kinda moot. I ask her if she knows the song Crimson and Clover, she says she loves it, I assure her I'll call her, wish her a good night, and she's off to take care of the friend that was getting hit on by the creep.

So now I have to take this girl out for dinner and dancing, which is an opportunity I relish, and think should be a lot of fun. And then it hits me: How the fuck am I getting home? My grandmother lives as close to Boston as anyone in my family... she lives in the burbs, kinda... more or less the equivalent of Keele campus as compared to downtown Toronto.

Boston, it seems, does not have a vomit comet service. So I cab, alone, and it's just shy of 35 bucks with tip. This is not fun, I dare say it's unfun, and future outings will no doubt involve investigations into how late the subways run. I know the last commuter train is just after midnight... so it doesn't bode super well... but hopefully things can be done or hotels can be booked or she has an apartment downtown and I'm sufficiently suave that she wants to invite me up.

More as it happens, and I suspect more will.