My Name's Not Mitchell Or Ness But I Throwback Like The Best Of Them

There is still a thin row of sweat going across my head. I keep coughing up what appears to slime in quarter and dime-sized increments. My neck is sore, and my back is a little off.

These are not stress-reduced ailments with the imminent return of the family; it's because I caught wreck again last night. I made a last second decision to go out again--empty house or not, it's still Friday night and I'm still 28, single, and semi-decent looking. I went to a one of my favorite usual spots and Jen the Hottest Bartender In the County had the night off at Confidential. Fortunately, the smoked bacon mini quesadillas were as good as ever. There was a cute girl named Megan in her place who's into baseball. (Previous sentence for Aaron.) I went down the block and as I stand on the corner someone asks me where Aubergine is. I happen to be going to Aubergine, so I get to lead them the rest of the way. It was hilarious for the four blocks we were together. I even pulled the "you kids back there better settle down or I'll turn this thing around and nobody'll go to Disneyland this year!" card.

And then we got there and then I had to pay. I hadn't paid a full cover in about 2 years. It blew. I jokingly brought it up to my DJing buddy, and he gave me half cover and hooked me up with some VIP stuff in the future. He put on "It Takes Two" when I asked for it, and I reciprocated with the Running Man.

Bitches loves the Running Man.

This sort of thing is what we in the writing industry call foreshadowing.

So Mikey kills his hour-and-a-half set, and the guys I made friends with bounce in the other room, and I make some friends in there, and I get my fill in before I'm about to bounce and catch the last bus back to the vicinity of here. But Mikey stops me, and then it happens.

We take a couple doors backstage, and then bang I'm on stage. The bass is ridonkulous. I can feel it vibrating through me. I gave a few head nods to my buddies at the front with a little "Hey, lookit me" smirk. And it's about 1, so the club is SRO at this point. Also at this point, I can see Mikey whispering to the DJ, Scooter, and he nods at me. In the immortal words of Tyler Durden, I knew the rest of the story before he even told it to me.

Let Us Take You Back To Earlier In The Night At Confidential, during which in conversation between pitches at the Padres game down the block I may have mentioned the Turk Dance seen earlier in the week at this site.

Now he slows down "Welcome To Jamrock" and naturally everybody starts looking towards the stage and it's Scooter on the decks, Mikey with a big shit-eating grin on his face, and me.

Fortunately for me, I'd had 4 beers.

The BBD groove hits and you'd think with like 500 people in front of you I would've focused on that but in my head it was all "Hit the steps. Hit the steps. Right over left." But I can say once I hit the hand clap and went behind the back the shit was officially on. It was nearly an out-of-body experience: the bass just creating a breeze, making sure early I hit the steps, hearing a metric shitload (scientific term) of people yelling GO GO GO at me. At that point, as everybody sang the bridge, it got to the chorus and it was Running Man time again.

This may be literally the most fun I've had with all my clothes on.

My friends in the front are about to fall over. This birthday girl Carmen who was friends with Scooter in this low-cut black top is jumping up and down so much I saw areola.

And I'm thinking to myself, "You know, I'm not the mayor, but I could probably fill in in a pinch."

So hopefully in a few hours, I get that feeling of joy back. And that first paragraph is going to magically disappear, if only for a while.

Alanis Morissette [MY HUMPS]