They Was Watchin Yo! MTV Raps, What's The Haps On The Craps?

As I head into work today, wondering what I will consume to cover the lunch portion of my full shift, I notice there's a new Subway in the vicinity of the building. I knew of it, but hadn't gone, and do so. Six inch roast beef only $3.49 today'll work. I note on the way out they're open 9 to 4 on Saturdays. A 19-hour day. At first, I think of the downside: who's going to come from On Broadway down to behind the stadium for a footlong Philly cheesesteak? But then I realize the economic upside--the fact that they can may attract people. Look at how the pizza places turn into the 8th through 10th most populous cities in the county at 2!

On to work.

Which is work--with seven events eventually going on during the course of the day (you read that correctly--the benefits/curses of having an 8-block building) I get off light with the last major day of the one meeting on the west side of the building. A woman I helped out Thursday is happy to see me, and gives me a compressed T-shirt for something or other; I still don't know what, I haven't busted the plastic. It's a perfect cube. I marvel at the cubeness of it for a good two minutes after she's gone. Subways open till 4 in the morning and cubed shirts. What an age we live in.

The most evil of my bosses lets me out two hours early. Everything on the east was covered, and while I could've stayed nothing to do lets me out easily. I change into club attire, since it's Saturday and I expected to be across the street and off at 10:30. With the extra time? I decide to reward myself. I go up to Ghiardelli's, order a sundae, and sit right on the main street--5th Avenue--in the Gaslamp Quarter on a Saturday night with a game in town. And the fudge IS on the bottom, and lends a nice texture contrast to the chocolate chip ice cream. I eat joyously and babewatch between spoonfuls. Good times.

After that happens, I go down to the Gaslamp Strip Club where they know by sight, if not by name, and visit my favorite DJ. I tell him about Vegas, 54, and DJ P. He looks both awed and depressed he missed out by the time I'm done talking to him. As I get set to hit Henry's he announces he has something for me. The last time I was there we'd been talking about Rakim being the best MC not to die with shrapnel in him, and he announces he's gone to some people.

This is a journey into sound.
A journey which along the way will bring to you new color, new dimension, new value...

The Coldcut remix of "Paid In Full", a seven-minute epic that even now ranks amongst the best remixes of all-time begins. As we begin to execute a six-step handshake, something happens.

Namely, the fiancee from the bachelorette party hears the Indian woman start singing, and hops up on a table and begins dancing. I know she's got soul. I stop at Step 4 to get his attention, and she dances for about 4 minutes. Did I slip a dollar bill down the front of her shirt? Of course not. What sort of heathen do you think runs this place?

Don't go looking for contradictory footage, neither, 'cause it ain't there.

Now I go to Henry's. I start comparing my library of Fresh Prince-era steps with some other guys, and all of a sudden I see a cute brunette. This happens on the semireg so I don't even think about it hard, until she turns towards me and I see her whole face. This cute brunette--this is a cute brunette I know. From where, though, and in what capacity?

High school.

And the bar down the road, the day before Thanksgiving in '03. (It's very easy to remember a date like that considering it's rarity and the fact it was the last time vomit was induced--that'll teach me to mix drinks.)

So Illusion recognizes me, and we get to talking about the last time, and she, too, is stunned by the fact I go out to the clubs alone sometimes. I have no idea why this is so jarring: my friends are vestigal organs in this case. It'd be nice, but at the same time they're not wholly necessary for me to have fun. And Ivan & Aaron, I totally threw you under the bus about Studio 54, too. IKIR--I Keeps It REAL! Besides, I say, once I start doing the Running Man, that's when all the honeys come running and I don't need them.

She thinks I'm kidding.

During "Ice Ice Baby" (no, really) she finds out I'm not.

She talks to the people who she came with, but once "Pass That Dutch" comes on, she ditches the guy she's with (a move that both stroked my ego and empathy glands) and practically bounds over to me. After an half hour of dancing, she announces she has to go. I get her number, and she gets me promising I'll come swing by her work by the old school at some point, and it won't be another damn two years we don't see or contact each other. Another Latina I went to high school with in my graduating class. If I had the money to have a psychiatrist, they'd have an absolute field day. We'll see on the dating front, though it would really help chase away the demons if she wasn't pathologically jealous and insane, though.

Jo mentions she's met the drummer from the Killers, which is unassailably cool. I probably would've ruined such a moment by declaring that I had soul, but I'm not a soldier.

The Padres, who were down 0-5 and to their last out, somehow win in the 13th and the place goes batshit during "You Shook Me All Night Long".

So that lets me get back to Ryan, who I was dancing with before Illusion. Ryan goes to SDSU, looks like Sarah Silverman, moves like a Kelli apprentice, and actually remembered the Ed Lover dance. I know she said she goes to Henry's a fair amount, but it's then I'm going to have to get her number because during one of my excursions to the bar we got seperated and couldn't find each other after. Just as well--a note to Aaron with the bad luck he's gotten hit with this week declaring that if he was having girl problems I feel bad for him, son, I got 98 problems... probably would've had him lobbing a Molotov through the plate glass on my left.

I go down the block for recuperative pizza afterwards, and then back to Fumari for recuperative hot chocolate after that. It helps sober me up, and I plow through a good portion of Small Town. I get back to the homebase, and when the cabbie says "Have a good night" in earnest, I tell him it's already happened.

And that's before I find out the laundry's done, all good-smelling and folded. I wanted to throw in my jeans, but I had no idea it was going to happen.

And I sit in this chair, and I realize for all the tens of things wrong with my life, it's a day like toyesterday that makes me rerealize there're hundreds of things right with it.

All right, 5 a.m. Time to go to bed--after all, I've got football to watch in a matter of hours!

This post is brought to you BAH: "Say Hello, Wave Goodbye" as covered by David Gray