The Sad Tale Of 80's Night

80's night was a total dud. 

The turnout was dismal despite my advertising efforts.  There were a few moments when no one was in the room except for me.  I kept thinking "People are coming, they just haven't arrived yet."  I thought that the whole night.  At one point, I put on the song "I Think We're Alone Now" and it was way too appropriate.

And here I was hoping to pay my rent off of the money from the door charge.  I ended up making enough to buy either two small lattes or an over-priced sandwich.   

On the bright side, it made me realize once again that I have some really wonderful friends.  The sort of friends that will spend three hours dancing in an empty room in order to make me feel less stupid.  Naturally, these friends were The Fonz, The Poet, and The Fallen Nun (who isn't really a nun).  The lady that lives across the hall from me came down for a bit too (wearing an elaborate Madonna costume).  I was extremely thankful for the moral support, even if I did end up yelling at The Fonz at one point because he tried to sneak into the DJ booth to get rid of the song "Square Biz" (all was well again when I played "Nasty Girl" by Vanity 6 and announced into the microphone that it was his theme song). 

So I had fun, but it was the sort of fun that I could have with three friends in my own apartment.  I don't think I'll be trying 80's night in that particular venue again any time soon. 

I don't even know if the booking agent thing is going to work out.  I'm not giving up on it yet, but everything is proving to be more trouble than it's worth.  I need to shift my focus to getting my own musical career off of the ground. 


Note to self:  Figure out how to get musical career off of the ground. 

For Better Or For Worse, Techno-Folk Night Is Now A Thing Of The Past

First off, on Tuesday I wrote a guest post of sorts for my friend Allison. She's in England right now and asked me to cover her weekly playlist for her. You can check it out here. You should check out the rest of Allison's blog while you are over there too.

Now that we've got the shameless plugs out of the way, I can tell you that I got through techno-folk night and lived to tell about it. It wasn't necessarily a raging success, but it didn't bomb completely. On a 1-10 scale, my stress level was probably at about 11 the entire night, but that's fairly normal. I think I did an alright job at playing it cool. Though the conversations I kept having with my boss didn't always help:

Boss: So, it's your first time coordinating an event...are you nervous?
Me: (lying through my teeth) Nah, I've totally got this under control.
Boss: You're not nervous at all?
Me: No.
Boss: Well you should be! This is all depending on you!

I have never smoked in my life (and don't plan on starting), but at that moment, I really could have used a cigarette or something.

I did more last night than most people realize. I took care of the musicians when they arrived. I ran all of the sound-checks and got everything sorted out on the technical side of things. I played the role of The Bouncer during the show (though there wasn't a huge crowd or much alcohol to monitor). I bussed the occasional table at the order of my boss.

I was also the liaison to the surprise belly dancing act that somebody booked without telling me. I'm still confused about that part of the evening. One minute I'm jamming out to a strange techno remix of a Beatles song with The Poet and the next minute my boss is introducing me to some chick in a belly dancing costume.

Because a line-up involving the world's most enthusiastic banjo player and a techno guy that comes equipped with trippy movies on a projector is really not complete without belly dancing. Gah.

Tonight will be better.

Which reminds me, I need to get my final playlist together. I've never really DJ-ed anything that wasn't a private party or a college-related event, so I'm slightly overwhelmed. Especially since I had a humbling conversation about software and equipment with the techno guy last night and realized that I really have no idea what I'm doing.

But life is a learning curve, right?

I plan to spend most of the day in my sweatpants and transform into my ultra-hip DJ persona just in time for the event. This week's model of my DJ persona will be wearing a dress that belonged to my mother in 1980something. To your left is a picture of the last time I wore that dress (which, by the way, was a million years ago).

Not quite as good as the leather pants that The Chef had on last night, but it's difficult to compete with that man's fashion taste.

Anyway, there are currently twelve hours between me and 80's night and I've got a lot to do. The first thing on the list involves going back to bed. So I'm gonna sign off for now. Hope everyone is having an absolutely groovy Saturday and hopefully next time I pop up on your blog roll I will have some good DJ stories to tell.

Witness The Whiteness

So last week was a little rough. By the time Friday rolled around, there was really only one thing I wanted to do: GO 80'S DANCING.

I know, I know, I'm such a cliche white person. I'm pretty sure 80's dancing is on the official list of stuff white people like, if not at the very top. But there's a great place downtown that has a little something called "80's Video Dance Attack" every Friday night. Once a week, young hipsters with side-ponytails, middle-aged Billy Idol fans, and old people in 80's prom dresses line up around the block for this 80's night.

I couldn't allow myself to have another night of eating ice cream and surfing the musician want-ads on Craigslist, so I called up my friend Mariah and met up with her downtown. She had recently been talking about how she never goes out, so I felt that it was my duty as a friend to expose her to the glory of 80's dancing.

The club was packed and we ended up waiting in line on the sidewalk for awhile. We finally made it past the bouncer around 11 and found ourselves in a large room full of drunken white people attempting to dance to "Come On Eileen."

Mariah, who was new to this sort of thing, looked fairly uncomfortable. "You go onto the dance floor, I think I'm just going to watch people for a bit," she says. I wasn't about to let her get away with that. After all, I truly believe that everyone in the universe has a secret desire to dance to bad pop music from the 1980's. So I pulled her onto the dance floor and soon we were breakin it down like a chemical compound.

The DJ played MC Hammer's "U Can't Touch This" (which was technically released in 1990 but it still worked at 80's night) and I had to succumb to my obnoxious white person nature by showing my friend that I know almost every word of the rap. I noticed a guy eyeing me from the side of the room but I didn't think much of it. Then "Footloose" came on and the guy pushed his way through the crowd and came over to us.

This man had to be at least 35. He had a beer in his hand and the world's cheesiest grin on his face. "Ladies, do you mind if I dance with you?" he asked in a British accent.

I shrugged and said, "Sure, why not." The three of us proceeded to cut footloose. Our British friend knew every word and danced way too well to be heterosexual. The next song came on and he recognized it in about three beats. "Woo! I love this song!" he exclaimed. He knew all of the words to that song too. I couldn't look at Mariah for fear that we would both start laughing.

He danced with us for the duration of a few songs (always screaming at the beginning of each one and declaring his love it, of course). Then he announced that he needed to take a break, blew us a kiss, and went back to the side of the dance floor. He stood very close to a man. Mariah and I had a laugh and kept dancing. I figured that would be the last of our British friend.

But when Mariah left for a minute to get a drink of water, he was back! He had a new beer in his hand and was incredibly excited about the song the DJ was playing. I felt like it took Mariah forever to get a drink of water. She returned to find me and my British friend dancing to this song:

	Human League - Don't You Want Me .mp3
	Found at bee mp3 search engine

Naturally, he knew all of the words and was quite enthusiastic about singing them to me. Which was all fine and good until he attempted to grind against my leg. Apparently he wasn't as gay as we thought he was.

"It's all in good fun!" he stammered when he saw the disgusted look on my face. He then tried to grind against Mariah and got a similar negative response.

"Okay, I get it, you ladies have bubbles!" he said. We continued to dance, but he kept getting closer and closer to me and it was becoming slightly awkward. I finally ducked out to go use the bathroom, dragging Mariah with me. It was getting late, but we decided to return to the dance floor for a few more songs before heading home.

"But let's go to the other side of the dance floor," I say to Mariah. "Let's get away from that British Guy."

We make our way towards the other side of the dance floor and quickly turn around because Awkward British Guy is sitting at the bar right in front of us. We scuttle back to where we were earlier and are just in time for "Thriller." We're having a blast watching people try to be Michael Jackson when suddenly we have a visitor.

"Fancy running into you ladies again!" says Awkward British Guy. I swear, he magically teleported over to us or something.

The DJ spins an awful old school rap song and our British friend proceeds to demonstrate exactly how white he is. He busts out all of these "gangsta" moves that should never be done in public and raps along with this fine piece of music:

	Digital Underground - Humpty Dance .mp3
	Found at bee mp3 search engine

I think it was about that point that Mariah and I decided it was time to go. We told Awkward British Guy that we were leaving and he thanked us for dancing with him. "I had a lovely time ladies, maybe I'll run into you guys another night and we can dance again." He then offered to give me a very enthusiastic fist pump. It was all I could do not to laugh.

80's dancing is the best. Really. If any of you ever find yourself in Portland on a Friday night with nothing to do, call me up and I'll drag you over to 80's Video Dance Attack.

Hahahaha. I'm so white...

Getting My Act Together (Or: One Of Those Slightly Introspective, Read-At-Your-Own-Risk Type Of Posts)

Today was kind of a big day.

It started out like any other day. I woke up, made coffee, and turned on my computer to see what was happening on the Internet. I was scrolling through all the usual Facebook updates when a picture caught my eye and made me almost drop my coffee cup.

The picture was of a guy I know - well, a guy I kinda know, a guy I might have gotten to know better if things had played out differently. He was holding a guitar, wearing a hat, and looking smug. And he had his arm around Jason Schwartzman.

Yeah. Max Fischer. It's no big deal. He's only THE LOVE OF MY LIFE.

Okay, maybe I'm being a little melodramatic. But really, it's JASON SCHWARTZMAN.

The worst part is this: If I had been willing to go out on a limb and be a little bit insane, I might have been in L.A. posing for pictures with Jason Schwartzman last night. But no - I was at my parents' house waiting for my phone to make noise. Fail.

Like I said a couple of days ago, I think I've been putting too much energy into keeping everyone around me happy. As a result, I think I've been missing opportunities and neglecting what I want. Maybe it sounds really selfish, but I think I need remember what is important to Lauren. I need to focus on what I want to do and not on what I feel like I should do.

I also need to get off my ass and make things happen. The world may be mine for the taking, but it's not going to just fall into my lap and say "TAKE ME NOW!"

So I'm making things happen. I'm working on writing comedy sketches. I'm working on "Goat Man" (by the way, thanks so much for all of your encouraging comments regarding that project). I'm polishing up old articles I've written and thinking about sending them off somewhere. I'm writing songs like mad.

And I'm going to work on being more spontaneous and doing things that seem completely illogical, only because I know that if I don't get the urge to travel and be impulsive out of my system I'll never be happy settling anywhere for very long.

I'm also thinking about getting a real job.

After all, I did sign a lease today. I might need a steady income in the near future.

Yeah, I signed a lease. Shortly after I decided that I was going to take control of my life, an email popped into my inbox announcing that my application for the artist's community had been fully processed. So I drove down over there, picked the room I want, and made plans to move in on October 1st. That gives me a month and a half to focus on my writing and be irresponsible in general.

And tomorrow night, I'm going 80s dancing. You can dance if you want to. You can leave your friends behind. Because your friends don't dance and if they don't dance then they're no friends of mine.

Okay, I'm descending into Men Without Hats land. Must be bed time. Congratulations if you've made it this far through this post. You get a gold star.

Goodnight, amigos. (Or, good morning, for those of you who are reading this from the other side of the globe.)