Writing about the Festival so much sends me back to previous years there, back when things were Right, and we were in the Four Points Sheraton. Posh rooms, quality service, full access to a gym, pool and jacuzzi. This story starts there, the Jacuzzi. I just discovered Jacuzzi was a brand-name for hot tubs, but like both Kleenex and Band-Aid, have become the commonly used nouns for these products. Anyways.
Carlos was in the hot tub with us once. And instead of just sitting across from the other strangers in the tub, not looking at them or speaking to them, and engaging in mild low conversation with each other as we relax in the hot bubble streams...we did not that. We met Carlos and his lady friend Heather.
Carlos was an Irene Ryan candidate who’s scene I had seen. Quite a good actor, he stood a bit under six foot five, long black dreads, African American, and very muscular. He was from the Boston area, close to where Justice Train was, so they chatted up about that for a bit. We told him we were from Maine and his only comment on it was “I keep hearing you’ve got better weed up there than we do.” Which made us all laugh with that awkward breaking the ice with common ground material, in this case adolescent drug use. So we chummed about that for a bit before departing.
Carlos went on to the Semi-Finals, and then the Finals. He had some quality material he delivered with excellence. He had my bet, and was way better than the two fellows that actually won. After the Finals, there was a Dance.
Now. I must preface. There was.. Ireland. A girl. I had been crushing on her for a bit now and things were sort of happening about it at the Festival. We had a bit of history. You get the picture. She, Ireland, was there, at the dance, out of sight. Not out of mind.
Meself, Justice Train, Whitesnake and maybe some others were too, but it was really lame. Not anywhere near as cool as this year. We were kind of talking about things had been going with Ireland before Justice Train mentioned, “well hey buddy, things might not get better, some cowboy is moving in on your ranch,” or something kind of clever like that. I, confused, turned, to see Carlos dancing with Ireland. Dirty dancing. “Grinding.” Totally gross and inappropriate.
Ireland made eye contact with me, and her eyes essentially said “Help Help Help Help Help.”
Some men would have done nothing. Some men would have left. Some men would have let this stunning sexy pinnacle of male potential simply dance with the lady and sweep her off her feet. Some men would then go drink himself into a stupor over not taking a chance and doing something about it, soaking in his defeat and self-loathing. Normally, I would have been that man. But.
I am not that man. I did something.
I walked right on over to the dancing pair, Ireland’s eyes beamed, and I put my hand out on Carlos’ shoulder. He looked up to me.
“Hey Carlos, look... I’m sorry, but I’ve got to step in right here.”
This made him laugh out loud, flashing rows of white perfect teeth. I despised those teeth. Ireland laughed too, but I was keeping focus on Carlos, gauging exactly how he’d react to this. Bow down and walk away? Just say “No” and keep dancing while staring straight into my eyes with an intensity that could potentially combust my person? Suckerpunch me in the face? These are the decisions other people make that shape your life forever.
Instead:
He laughed, put his hand on my shoulder, but looked at Ireland and said, “You know what I like? I like how he said ‘Carlos, I’m sorry’ but I have to step in.”
Ireland and I both nervously laughed. But he said “Okay, man, peace,” and faded away. A wash of relief fell over me and then it was just me and Ireland standing there, semi-awkwardly, to a heavy hip hop beat. So we started dancing, with nervous laughter.
WHAM! Hand on my arm, I swivel and there’s Carlos with a grip on me. I look at him, eyebrows up, adrenaline rushing up and down me so fast I think he might have smelled it. Or maybe that was something else...
“Hey, man,” he said, smile still wide. “I’m sorry but I have to step in...” and he started laughing again.
I laughed with him right away and maybe a bit too loud and sort of said things like “yeah, man, yeah, funny, ha ha, yeah,” then turned away, and with Ireland, walked right out of that dance.
He appeared to be joking. Maybe he was testing to see if I was joking. Maybe he really wanted to step back in and steal her from me. I will never know his intentions. All I know is in a later conversation with Ireland that the whole encounter was quite awesome and she really appreciated it. Things with her didn’t end up working out due to the history unfortunately catching up to me and a truly poor decision on my part. I wasn't very cool. It’s a huge regret of mine. We’re still friends though, not as good as before, but still friends, years later down the road.
But on that one night, I was cooler than Carlos.
Showing posts with label dances. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dances. Show all posts
2.04.2008
12.17.2007
80's Night
I almost got in a fight last night. In the middle of a totally classic top billboard hit from the ‘80's.
The chorus was “‘Cause I don’t want to lose your love to-niiight!” but I don’t know whether that was the title or not.
It was 80's Night at Bubba’s Sulky Lounge, a slightly shady dance club in the Parkside area of downtown Portland. Every Friday night is 80's Night, and the people dress up and dance and there’s a costume competition at the end. My friend, hereby referred to as Charge, won 50 bucks one night. But tonight was the Finals Competition, where the winners came out, mingled with the judges, answered 80's trivia, and of course, had a dance off.
And I, of course, was there getting my boy’s back. Aviator’s and this brown and tan velour longsleeve with these retro stripes on the shoulders. PBR tallboys. My hair still had some gel products in it from the performance earlier that night, and was slicked into a major part.
Oh yeah, should probably mention Charge had also choreographed a piece for DanceUSM, a dance battle with themes from the 80's, early 90's hip hop, electro-pop and modern dance. I was part of Charge’s posse and we rolled up on my other friend, hereby referred to as Tails, I had this little bit where I sort of “announce” the dance battle drawing influence from southern LA’s krump dancing scene. It’s pretty intense, but this isn’t about that.
I’m at Bubba’s, busting some moves, too legit to quit, getting my drink on, supporting the intensely 80's-ified dancer extraordinaire ex-Resident Assistant of mine, having a great time. Tails is there. He’s having a great time. One of my best friends from high school, hereby referred to as Mothernight, is there. She is having a great time. Amelia Airheart is there. She’s having a great time too. There’s a large assortment of other random acquaintances of mine speckled about the light up dance floor. These are great times happening.
But things got not so great. Mothernight, a friend of mine in pretty much a sisterly sense, started to have not so great a time. This 17-year-old kid, hereby referred to as Douchebag, with a fake ID was dancing with her and coming on a little too strong. She was legitimately dancing with him and it wasn’t a huge thing at all yet, but I told her she just had to say the word and I would do my best to pretend I was every dominant masculine archetype I’ve ever seen on TV and tell this kid what’s what. Mothernight can take care of herself, but she told me my support was appreciated. I mentioned Douchebag’s unwelcome advances to Tails and he became very excited at the prospects of getting into a fight for something noble like a woman’s honor, and frankly I was too. We had a posse. This could go down.
That wasn’t the primary focus here. I was dancing with AA, grooving to the jams of a decade long past. A tumultuous and confusing time for our country’s culture. A lot of shit happened in the 80's we weren’t ready for. My roommate, hereby referred to as Juniper Bush, or JB, said that to me, and he’s right. Somehow in the mix, the young and hip started wearing big hair, acid washed jeans and fashion choices now considered vaguely homosexual. Reagan was in office, the Taliban was getting American funding to fight off Soviet Russia, a bunch of people were held hostage inside an airplane in Iran. The B-52's named an album “Rock Lobster.” On one dark morning, rain poured down over the bricks and asphalt of Portland’s building and streets, the streetlights incandescent, lightning struck, and in a fluorescent lit hospital room I was brought into this world. Oh, to be back in ‘86.
Instead I’m here, dancing like a dance machine with the children of this crazy era The same decade responsible for Cyndi Lauper. (But that’s okay, I fuckin’ love Cyndi Lauper, and would father her children and start a family with her whenever she desired. Cyndi, if you’re reading this, we belong together. I will be waiting. Time after time.) There is a trivia contest for the finalists only. Not every question is answered. Nobody here has studied Three’s Company extensively. Charge told me he got one right, and that made me proud. Then they had the dance competition. The judges were dispersed among the audience, only the finalists are allowed on the light up dance floor, and what does the DJ play? “Blister in the Sun,” by the The motherfucking Violent Femmes. I freak out. This rocks too hard. Charge did a damn swell job, the other finalists clearly did not dance much outside a drunken bar setting. The song ends, we all cheer, they tell us the winners will be announced shortly.
We all flood back onto the floor. The dancing recommences. And it’s not long before I see Douchebag kissing Mothernight’s neck, and deep within me the urge is summoned to simply approach the two and knock him directly in the face with my fist. But that’s just the testosterone and secret desire to see how well I’d hold up in a fight. I weighed the good idea vs. the bad idea and realized punching Douchebag in the face was not the appropriate course of action. I’m having a great time, I don’t want to get kicked out of Bubba’s, maybe Mothernight is starting to dig on him. So it gets brushed off into “Whatever. Just dance”
But Mothernight comes up to me a bit later, still peeved at this kid. She doesn’t want to be a bitch and tell him off, but also doesn’t want anything to do with him, and at this point he’s definitely getting the wrong ideas. So things are set in motion. Tails’s girlfriend moves in between the two, soon followed by Tails. I have Mothernight switch places with me, to my right, further from Douchebag, and given the crowded dance floor, there is some solid distance placed between the,.. I’m still dancing with and paying attention to AA, but some side glances tell me this kid is searching the crowd. He locates her and stops dancing and pushes his way up to her. Words are spoken, he begins to dance up on her again, but she pushes him off with a full two arm extension shove. Awesome. Grand slam. Ace in the hole. Peace out, kid. He sort of disappointed wanders off past me, and we meet eyes. This is my moment. I have slicked hair and aviator’s and do a silent and simple one, two head shake. A very clear and orderly "no way, pal." It looked pretty funny. Douchebag just smirks and pushes me to the side a bit and walks off. I laugh and continue with getting my dance on.
Five to ten minutes later, I check back around the floor. And there’s Douchebag, grinding up against this random taller chick than him and staring DIRECTLY at me. It was ridiculous sight and I grinned at him and didn’t see much of him the rest of the night.
They announced the winners, there was a Fancy Feet award, then a second place, then a first place, with a prize of 1,000 dollars. Charge nabbed second, and $500 big ones. The grand prize winners were this friend of mine Ben, and his other friend. They both wore dark blue biker suits laced with those glowsticks you can attach at the ends into necklaces, also interwoven into their bike helmets, and around frisbees they had. They danced like robots the whole night, and would throw the frisbees up and around and catch them in different dance positions. Real cool. They deserved it. Charge deserved his 500. I deserved not getting into a fight with a stupid kid way younger than me.
So I didn’t actually almost get into a fight. Kinda lied with my opening sentence there. But that’s the hook, y’know? If Douchebag kid had handled the situation differently, we might have thrown down outside in the slushy parking lot and cold winter night, or right there on the floor under and over the bright flashing lights in between everyone. Am I upset I didn’t get in a fight? No. Not really. I had an awesome time. There’s still the bottled rage testosterone wanting to legitimately fight a man urge, but maybe that will happen another time, in another place, hopefully over a lady’s honor, and then I’ll write a Travipedia article about it. Just for you.
The chorus was “‘Cause I don’t want to lose your love to-niiight!” but I don’t know whether that was the title or not.
It was 80's Night at Bubba’s Sulky Lounge, a slightly shady dance club in the Parkside area of downtown Portland. Every Friday night is 80's Night, and the people dress up and dance and there’s a costume competition at the end. My friend, hereby referred to as Charge, won 50 bucks one night. But tonight was the Finals Competition, where the winners came out, mingled with the judges, answered 80's trivia, and of course, had a dance off.
And I, of course, was there getting my boy’s back. Aviator’s and this brown and tan velour longsleeve with these retro stripes on the shoulders. PBR tallboys. My hair still had some gel products in it from the performance earlier that night, and was slicked into a major part.
Oh yeah, should probably mention Charge had also choreographed a piece for DanceUSM, a dance battle with themes from the 80's, early 90's hip hop, electro-pop and modern dance. I was part of Charge’s posse and we rolled up on my other friend, hereby referred to as Tails, I had this little bit where I sort of “announce” the dance battle drawing influence from southern LA’s krump dancing scene. It’s pretty intense, but this isn’t about that.
I’m at Bubba’s, busting some moves, too legit to quit, getting my drink on, supporting the intensely 80's-ified dancer extraordinaire ex-Resident Assistant of mine, having a great time. Tails is there. He’s having a great time. One of my best friends from high school, hereby referred to as Mothernight, is there. She is having a great time. Amelia Airheart is there. She’s having a great time too. There’s a large assortment of other random acquaintances of mine speckled about the light up dance floor. These are great times happening.
But things got not so great. Mothernight, a friend of mine in pretty much a sisterly sense, started to have not so great a time. This 17-year-old kid, hereby referred to as Douchebag, with a fake ID was dancing with her and coming on a little too strong. She was legitimately dancing with him and it wasn’t a huge thing at all yet, but I told her she just had to say the word and I would do my best to pretend I was every dominant masculine archetype I’ve ever seen on TV and tell this kid what’s what. Mothernight can take care of herself, but she told me my support was appreciated. I mentioned Douchebag’s unwelcome advances to Tails and he became very excited at the prospects of getting into a fight for something noble like a woman’s honor, and frankly I was too. We had a posse. This could go down.
That wasn’t the primary focus here. I was dancing with AA, grooving to the jams of a decade long past. A tumultuous and confusing time for our country’s culture. A lot of shit happened in the 80's we weren’t ready for. My roommate, hereby referred to as Juniper Bush, or JB, said that to me, and he’s right. Somehow in the mix, the young and hip started wearing big hair, acid washed jeans and fashion choices now considered vaguely homosexual. Reagan was in office, the Taliban was getting American funding to fight off Soviet Russia, a bunch of people were held hostage inside an airplane in Iran. The B-52's named an album “Rock Lobster.” On one dark morning, rain poured down over the bricks and asphalt of Portland’s building and streets, the streetlights incandescent, lightning struck, and in a fluorescent lit hospital room I was brought into this world. Oh, to be back in ‘86.
Instead I’m here, dancing like a dance machine with the children of this crazy era The same decade responsible for Cyndi Lauper. (But that’s okay, I fuckin’ love Cyndi Lauper, and would father her children and start a family with her whenever she desired. Cyndi, if you’re reading this, we belong together. I will be waiting. Time after time.) There is a trivia contest for the finalists only. Not every question is answered. Nobody here has studied Three’s Company extensively. Charge told me he got one right, and that made me proud. Then they had the dance competition. The judges were dispersed among the audience, only the finalists are allowed on the light up dance floor, and what does the DJ play? “Blister in the Sun,” by the The motherfucking Violent Femmes. I freak out. This rocks too hard. Charge did a damn swell job, the other finalists clearly did not dance much outside a drunken bar setting. The song ends, we all cheer, they tell us the winners will be announced shortly.
We all flood back onto the floor. The dancing recommences. And it’s not long before I see Douchebag kissing Mothernight’s neck, and deep within me the urge is summoned to simply approach the two and knock him directly in the face with my fist. But that’s just the testosterone and secret desire to see how well I’d hold up in a fight. I weighed the good idea vs. the bad idea and realized punching Douchebag in the face was not the appropriate course of action. I’m having a great time, I don’t want to get kicked out of Bubba’s, maybe Mothernight is starting to dig on him. So it gets brushed off into “Whatever. Just dance”
But Mothernight comes up to me a bit later, still peeved at this kid. She doesn’t want to be a bitch and tell him off, but also doesn’t want anything to do with him, and at this point he’s definitely getting the wrong ideas. So things are set in motion. Tails’s girlfriend moves in between the two, soon followed by Tails. I have Mothernight switch places with me, to my right, further from Douchebag, and given the crowded dance floor, there is some solid distance placed between the,.. I’m still dancing with and paying attention to AA, but some side glances tell me this kid is searching the crowd. He locates her and stops dancing and pushes his way up to her. Words are spoken, he begins to dance up on her again, but she pushes him off with a full two arm extension shove. Awesome. Grand slam. Ace in the hole. Peace out, kid. He sort of disappointed wanders off past me, and we meet eyes. This is my moment. I have slicked hair and aviator’s and do a silent and simple one, two head shake. A very clear and orderly "no way, pal." It looked pretty funny. Douchebag just smirks and pushes me to the side a bit and walks off. I laugh and continue with getting my dance on.
Five to ten minutes later, I check back around the floor. And there’s Douchebag, grinding up against this random taller chick than him and staring DIRECTLY at me. It was ridiculous sight and I grinned at him and didn’t see much of him the rest of the night.
They announced the winners, there was a Fancy Feet award, then a second place, then a first place, with a prize of 1,000 dollars. Charge nabbed second, and $500 big ones. The grand prize winners were this friend of mine Ben, and his other friend. They both wore dark blue biker suits laced with those glowsticks you can attach at the ends into necklaces, also interwoven into their bike helmets, and around frisbees they had. They danced like robots the whole night, and would throw the frisbees up and around and catch them in different dance positions. Real cool. They deserved it. Charge deserved his 500. I deserved not getting into a fight with a stupid kid way younger than me.
So I didn’t actually almost get into a fight. Kinda lied with my opening sentence there. But that’s the hook, y’know? If Douchebag kid had handled the situation differently, we might have thrown down outside in the slushy parking lot and cold winter night, or right there on the floor under and over the bright flashing lights in between everyone. Am I upset I didn’t get in a fight? No. Not really. I had an awesome time. There’s still the bottled rage testosterone wanting to legitimately fight a man urge, but maybe that will happen another time, in another place, hopefully over a lady’s honor, and then I’ll write a Travipedia article about it. Just for you.
4.14.2007
Gay Prom
The end of my freshmen year in college, the last day. Leaving day.
After quickly packing and exiting my beloved haven, myself and the three compadres of mine that came to fetch me, Ben, Chris, and Travis (Trav #2, for I am Trav #1), and I headed to the Maine Mall. We had plans to meet someone there and had time to kill. (Sidenote: on leaving my hall, a fellow on the floor called Pont presented me with a Nalgene bottle as a going-away present. The contents of the bottle, only filled a quarter of the way up, where what he said to be "Ice 101 mixed with orange something". "Ice 101", for those who are not alcoholics or college students, is 101-proof Peppermint Schnapps. I've never had it before, but it did not taste very strong. It, in fact, tasted delicious. I wasn't going to be driving at any point on my journey and would not actually arrive home until the next day. I made the executive decision to drink it all on the way to the mall.)
At the mall, we did some typical wandering and stopped by some routinely visited stores, such as Spencer's Gifts, Brookstone, KB Toys, Electronics Boutique, etc. I was feeling in quite a good mood, and enjoying myself immensly, to the amusement of my friends. The euphoric effect on my brain wore off while eating some McDonald's in the food court and conversing with some adolescents who were going to their high school prom later that evening.
At this point, I'd like to reveal that the reason we were at the mall was to meet several people I went to high school with, who, with us, were all going to attend the Outright Gay Prom at the Holiday Inn in Portland. Outright is a social community that puts on events for the Gay/Straight/Bisexual/Transexual/Etc. kids in Maine. It's pretty cool. I'm 100% heterosexual and 0% homophobic and 100% comfortable going to this event, as were my friends. Except Nate, who was taking his boyfriend.
But first, we ate.
We went to Bangkok, Thai foods. At least, I believe it was called that. We had to take our shoes off to sit down and Nate knew everything on the menu. Naturally, I was poor-ass broke. So were my comrades. Kaitlynn was nice enough to order some Fried Calamari, which she kindly shared with me. I met Nate's boyfriend, Nate, (ha), who talked to me about the reasons for his dress. Societal boundaries created comfort zones for people, where in their own seperate groups they felt more accepted. Some people rejected these boundaries and would dress however they wanted, but for people like Nate & Nate, they felt more accepted and comfortable dressing in typical "gay fashion", just as how not all African Americans dressed "ghetto" but most did, because they felt more comfortable that way. People feel most comfortable when they feel understood. Of course, no one's understood. My personal example in this case would be that I think my appearance gives off the "college student hipster" look, so I think people define me as that upon seeing me. I don't know that for certain, but it's my best guess. I'm comfortable being categorized as that. Okay, stupid tangent, back to story.
After dining, we walked through the Portland streets to the Holiday Inn. I had only one dollar to donate to the Outright representatives at the door, but I gave them my name and address (you had to sign in for them to mark your hands) and told them I supported their group and appreciated their postive influence on our local Maine community. Not quite in those words though. The room where it was being held looked frighteningly like the venue for both my prom experiences from high school. The dance floor, the lights, the dining tables, the refreshments. The only difference was instead all of the clique-y ignorant airheads of my graduating class dancing and milling about, there were a multitude of people who you would feel guilty about staring at if you saw them on the street. Overweight girls making out. Guys in flamboyant dresses. Piercings, tattoos, crazy "punk rock" hairstyles. Kids who were definitely treated differently then the other kids they went to high school with.
The first thing I immediately noticed was how comfortable everyone was. No one felt awkward or insecure at all about their image or appearance, possibly due to the fact there were people there taking the same image to the extreme. I saw some people who were still going to my high school and we sat down. I was introduced to a pre-op M2F transexual named Matthew or Sarah "whichever you are most comfortable with" he informed me. I, in jest, referred to him as "Sarathew" but I don't think it amused him, so I apologized. He said it was fine, since he still had a penis and predominantly male features it was understandable for people to think his desire to be a female as half-hearted or shallow.
I was quickly swept to the dance floor then by Kaitlynn, who demanded a "straight boy" to dance with. I'm not always comfortable about dancing around people, especially to hip-hop, but considering the crowd I decided to squelch my inhibitions. I like to dance. I had fun. Ben and Chris and Travis joined and I remarked to myself about how this prom was so much cooler than the one my school had put on. A couple of outrightly homosexual fellows began to dance with Chris and Ben, but they were cool about it and the fellows got the picture that they were straight soon enough. I noticed and eyed some pretty girls I saw all dancing with each other, but their sexual stance was up in the air, since they were at Gay Prom.
The DJ, a stocky woman with short bleached hair, then announced this next song as her graduating classes prom theme from way back, and the music switched from popular hip-hip/rap/r'n'b, to Limp Bizkit's "It's Just One of those Days". The crowd appreciated this. While I hold Fred Durst no higher than most leeches and ticks, I still promptly banged my head, threw up the horns, and jumped up and down like a lunatic. One of the girls I had been eyeing joined in. A mosh pit formed on the dance floor. This was to be expected of nu-metal-heads and normally I don't approve, but I considered this event an exception and jumped in. I played air guitar, did the "running man" and made several comical poses, as the group of fat girls with spiked hair and tall dudes with long hair all jumped up and down around me pushing each other. After the song, the pretty girl approached me and shook my hand without saying anything. I shook, but then began to perform an elaborate secret handshake of mine I only keep with certain people. She liked it, we practiced a few times, without saying anything, then resumed dancing with our separate groups of friends.
Now usually, I am not the most forward guy in the world. Actually, I will never ever be the most forward guy in the world. I wouldn't even be more than half-way between the most forward guy in the world and the least forward guy in the world, I am so not forward at all. But tonight, I decided to raise my rank. A slow song began, and I searched for the pretty girl. I approached her, still not saying anything, and offered my hand. We did the secret handshake. I asked her name, which was "Averil" and then asked if she were here with another girl. She laughed and said she and her friends were straight, but here with their homosexual friends. "Same here. Awesome. Would you like to dance?" I asked. She warmly accepted the proposal.
I introduced my friends to her friends, and she introduced her friends to my friends. We all danced to together and laughed and acted generally silly. Then she dropped the proverbial bomb. We were discussing musical tastes, and so far all we had covered was that we had both seen Saves the Day in concert. Then she asked:
"Hey, do you like Against Me!?"
My jaw dropped. I fell to my knees. My eyes widened to an unbelievable stare. Angels sang. Fireworks went off. I'm pretty sure I flat-lined for a little bit too.
Averil and I danced and talked some more, and my buddies could definitely see the interest blossoming like a flower. Ah, springtime is great. After the dance ended, we asked what they were doing after. They had no plans. Denny's? Yes. We drove them to Denny's. The car was kind of full from all of my belongings, but we made two trips.
Ladies and Gentlemen, my friends and I picked up chicks at Gay Prom. Straight chicks.
Denny's went well, I got a free meal because the silly people working thought it was my birthday and I'm a bad person. Chris drove the girls home but his car broke down on the way back, so we had to wait till 4 a.m. for Trav 2's stepdad to come pick us up. It was a long drive home.
I saw Averil again at the Against Me! concert a week later but we only really talked for a little bit. Then, years later, saw her walking a dog in a park on Pleasant St. but I do not believe she recognized me, but still smiled.
After quickly packing and exiting my beloved haven, myself and the three compadres of mine that came to fetch me, Ben, Chris, and Travis (Trav #2, for I am Trav #1), and I headed to the Maine Mall. We had plans to meet someone there and had time to kill. (Sidenote: on leaving my hall, a fellow on the floor called Pont presented me with a Nalgene bottle as a going-away present. The contents of the bottle, only filled a quarter of the way up, where what he said to be "Ice 101 mixed with orange something". "Ice 101", for those who are not alcoholics or college students, is 101-proof Peppermint Schnapps. I've never had it before, but it did not taste very strong. It, in fact, tasted delicious. I wasn't going to be driving at any point on my journey and would not actually arrive home until the next day. I made the executive decision to drink it all on the way to the mall.)
At the mall, we did some typical wandering and stopped by some routinely visited stores, such as Spencer's Gifts, Brookstone, KB Toys, Electronics Boutique, etc. I was feeling in quite a good mood, and enjoying myself immensly, to the amusement of my friends. The euphoric effect on my brain wore off while eating some McDonald's in the food court and conversing with some adolescents who were going to their high school prom later that evening.
At this point, I'd like to reveal that the reason we were at the mall was to meet several people I went to high school with, who, with us, were all going to attend the Outright Gay Prom at the Holiday Inn in Portland. Outright is a social community that puts on events for the Gay/Straight/Bisexual/Transexual/Etc. kids in Maine. It's pretty cool. I'm 100% heterosexual and 0% homophobic and 100% comfortable going to this event, as were my friends. Except Nate, who was taking his boyfriend.
But first, we ate.
We went to Bangkok, Thai foods. At least, I believe it was called that. We had to take our shoes off to sit down and Nate knew everything on the menu. Naturally, I was poor-ass broke. So were my comrades. Kaitlynn was nice enough to order some Fried Calamari, which she kindly shared with me. I met Nate's boyfriend, Nate, (ha), who talked to me about the reasons for his dress. Societal boundaries created comfort zones for people, where in their own seperate groups they felt more accepted. Some people rejected these boundaries and would dress however they wanted, but for people like Nate & Nate, they felt more accepted and comfortable dressing in typical "gay fashion", just as how not all African Americans dressed "ghetto" but most did, because they felt more comfortable that way. People feel most comfortable when they feel understood. Of course, no one's understood. My personal example in this case would be that I think my appearance gives off the "college student hipster" look, so I think people define me as that upon seeing me. I don't know that for certain, but it's my best guess. I'm comfortable being categorized as that. Okay, stupid tangent, back to story.
After dining, we walked through the Portland streets to the Holiday Inn. I had only one dollar to donate to the Outright representatives at the door, but I gave them my name and address (you had to sign in for them to mark your hands) and told them I supported their group and appreciated their postive influence on our local Maine community. Not quite in those words though. The room where it was being held looked frighteningly like the venue for both my prom experiences from high school. The dance floor, the lights, the dining tables, the refreshments. The only difference was instead all of the clique-y ignorant airheads of my graduating class dancing and milling about, there were a multitude of people who you would feel guilty about staring at if you saw them on the street. Overweight girls making out. Guys in flamboyant dresses. Piercings, tattoos, crazy "punk rock" hairstyles. Kids who were definitely treated differently then the other kids they went to high school with.
The first thing I immediately noticed was how comfortable everyone was. No one felt awkward or insecure at all about their image or appearance, possibly due to the fact there were people there taking the same image to the extreme. I saw some people who were still going to my high school and we sat down. I was introduced to a pre-op M2F transexual named Matthew or Sarah "whichever you are most comfortable with" he informed me. I, in jest, referred to him as "Sarathew" but I don't think it amused him, so I apologized. He said it was fine, since he still had a penis and predominantly male features it was understandable for people to think his desire to be a female as half-hearted or shallow.
I was quickly swept to the dance floor then by Kaitlynn, who demanded a "straight boy" to dance with. I'm not always comfortable about dancing around people, especially to hip-hop, but considering the crowd I decided to squelch my inhibitions. I like to dance. I had fun. Ben and Chris and Travis joined and I remarked to myself about how this prom was so much cooler than the one my school had put on. A couple of outrightly homosexual fellows began to dance with Chris and Ben, but they were cool about it and the fellows got the picture that they were straight soon enough. I noticed and eyed some pretty girls I saw all dancing with each other, but their sexual stance was up in the air, since they were at Gay Prom.
The DJ, a stocky woman with short bleached hair, then announced this next song as her graduating classes prom theme from way back, and the music switched from popular hip-hip/rap/r'n'b, to Limp Bizkit's "It's Just One of those Days". The crowd appreciated this. While I hold Fred Durst no higher than most leeches and ticks, I still promptly banged my head, threw up the horns, and jumped up and down like a lunatic. One of the girls I had been eyeing joined in. A mosh pit formed on the dance floor. This was to be expected of nu-metal-heads and normally I don't approve, but I considered this event an exception and jumped in. I played air guitar, did the "running man" and made several comical poses, as the group of fat girls with spiked hair and tall dudes with long hair all jumped up and down around me pushing each other. After the song, the pretty girl approached me and shook my hand without saying anything. I shook, but then began to perform an elaborate secret handshake of mine I only keep with certain people. She liked it, we practiced a few times, without saying anything, then resumed dancing with our separate groups of friends.
Now usually, I am not the most forward guy in the world. Actually, I will never ever be the most forward guy in the world. I wouldn't even be more than half-way between the most forward guy in the world and the least forward guy in the world, I am so not forward at all. But tonight, I decided to raise my rank. A slow song began, and I searched for the pretty girl. I approached her, still not saying anything, and offered my hand. We did the secret handshake. I asked her name, which was "Averil" and then asked if she were here with another girl. She laughed and said she and her friends were straight, but here with their homosexual friends. "Same here. Awesome. Would you like to dance?" I asked. She warmly accepted the proposal.
I introduced my friends to her friends, and she introduced her friends to my friends. We all danced to together and laughed and acted generally silly. Then she dropped the proverbial bomb. We were discussing musical tastes, and so far all we had covered was that we had both seen Saves the Day in concert. Then she asked:
"Hey, do you like Against Me!?"
My jaw dropped. I fell to my knees. My eyes widened to an unbelievable stare. Angels sang. Fireworks went off. I'm pretty sure I flat-lined for a little bit too.
(Sidenote: Against Me! is a self-proclaimed "anarcho folk-punk" band out of Florida. Think Dropkick Murphies, except not Irish and more raw. I've loved this group since my junior year of high school when I read Nothing Nice to Say and Mitch Clem gave them his highest review. Their first album "Reinventing Axl Rose" has changed punk rock for me forever. I saw them in concert at the Avalon Ballroom in Boston. They opened for Anti-Flag. In my opinion, Anti-Flag had nothing on them. All-in-all, Against Me! has never dropped from my top-five favorite bands of all time. They continue to rise in popularity, getting air time on the radio and even a video on MTV. I don't care if they sell out they are so deeply rooted within me.)Averil could have told me she kidnapped, murdered and ate children after that, and I still would have proposed to marry her. Luckily, I didn't propose. That would have been weird.
Averil and I danced and talked some more, and my buddies could definitely see the interest blossoming like a flower. Ah, springtime is great. After the dance ended, we asked what they were doing after. They had no plans. Denny's? Yes. We drove them to Denny's. The car was kind of full from all of my belongings, but we made two trips.
Ladies and Gentlemen, my friends and I picked up chicks at Gay Prom. Straight chicks.
Denny's went well, I got a free meal because the silly people working thought it was my birthday and I'm a bad person. Chris drove the girls home but his car broke down on the way back, so we had to wait till 4 a.m. for Trav 2's stepdad to come pick us up. It was a long drive home.
I saw Averil again at the Against Me! concert a week later but we only really talked for a little bit. Then, years later, saw her walking a dog in a park on Pleasant St. but I do not believe she recognized me, but still smiled.
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