July 2007 Archives

"Did she actually use the word fat?" I asked. He nodded, and I was awash in the fear. My friend was a big dude, but not a fattie. If she thought he was fat, that probably meant that I was fat. I didn't think I could handle having to hear that, at least not on an empty stomach.

"Do you think I'm fat?" he asked, clutching himself around the middle and rocking back and forth. He made a frowny face and started trying to grab possible fat on his thighs. Since then, he's been having an inordinate amount of sex with strange women, in an attempt--I assume--to feel better about his purported obesity.

The next day I went to my appointment, with a stomach full of Snickers bars and dread. We did the usual things, the usual examinations. She chastised me about a number of boring things, and then made fun of my tattoo. Finally at the end, she told me to quick smoking and then started to walk out of the room.

"Wait," I called after her. She turned and came back to the where I was huddled in a paper gown, asscrack exposed. "So am I like, overweight or whatever?"

She looked down at her chart and delicately placed her finger against the BMI chart on the wall and slid it across. Firmly in the middle.

"Well," she said, with a look of slight disdain on her slightly-gaunt face, "you aren't overweight, but you could use some conditioning." In other words, you aren't fat but you're flabby. This is now my standard first-date dinnertime anecdote, finally throwing the time I was diagnosed with herpes out of its previous top position in my seductive stories list.

Somehow, I've fallen into a scene. Having been a perpetual scenester since my early teens, I've seen a lot. Overambitious gradesters hustling for GPA, intravenous drug-using punk rockers, riot grrls with questionable gender politiks, sexually perverse photography involving tennis racquets, grain-eating, therapy-loving "motivation" examiners--it's endless. But I'm not sure if anything I've been a part, or on the fringe, of, could possibly be as weird as what I've gotten myself into now.

Techno.

I know. Seriously, I don't think there's anything I can say to explain this away or even make sense of it. I can only being by saying moving to a new country is a very, very lonely time in one's life, and one's decision making abilities are often clouded by the desperate longing for human companionship and free drinks. Also, I think we all know that overall, I'm a miserable person. But the times in my life when I've been happiest are when I've had a gang and been on a scene. That's my best justification.

When I moved here, my only close friend was a DJ. Before I met him, I had been told he was one of the top DJs in Dublin --"Like being the best speller in your 3rd grade class," I later quipped to him--and thoroughly unimpressed, I proceeded to give him the notorious Lina stink-eye and brush-off when we first met. The second time, though, I said "So you're a DJ, eh? Do you know this tune?" I proceeded to list some of the stupidest songs I could think of, and he not only knew them all, he knew their 12" b-sides and the Razormaid mixes that sampled them.

Now, I'm known for having the most random musical preferences on the face of the earth. And not in a cool I-listen-to-60s-French-pop tunes sort of way, but in a kind of lame I-collect-Samantha-Fox-singles sort of way. So to find someone that although didn't necessarily support it, but at least knew it, was a breath of fresh air in this strange, new country.

Little did I know that this was like when the drug dealer gives you your first hit free. Talking about my favorite 80s new wave songs slowly brought us to italo disco, one of his--and now mine--passions. Italo is a word to describe music from the late 70s and early 80s, mostly Italian in provenance, and cheesy and wonderful beyond belief. Think Baltimora's 'Tarzan Boy.' I'm not going to write more about Italo right now because I have too much to say about it to do it all now.

Anyway, as it turns out, my new best friend is known for DJing two types of music, Italo and techno. Mainly techno.

It started slowly. Invited to a show or two, meeting a few people who became friends, getting perma-guestlisted at weekly clubs, but it wasn't until I had a shocking realization that I finally got into it. The predominant fan base at techno gigs are boys. Young boys. This in combination with the free ins I get to the clubs have made me a regular on the scene, albeit a ambivalent one. Don't get me wrong, I love anything with a synthesizer; I was there for the original Electroclash, after all, but I never thought I was going to be having idle chats about 808s with Dutch techno djs. Just last week I was talking to a German techno dj who was in town to play, about dubstep. I was telling him that I had heard it had to be listened to with a ton of speakers, festival-style, to be appreciated and I wondered what he thought about it. "I think if music is good, it sounds good at any volume," he said.

"Like Chris de Burgh, 'Lady in Red,'" I squealed happily, looking up for a sign of agreement.

"Uh, yes, like that."

So clearly I haven't quite learned to fit in yet. That night, I was in the club, leaning against a wall watching said German play. I was watching the dance floor as if it were a controlled experiment and I was a sociologist trying to sort of the relationship between man and ape. I can't begin to describe what really, really, enthusiastic teenage techno-heads behave like after midnight. I was standing with one of my other dj friends--I have about a dozen now--and finally he turns to me and says, "do you even like techno?"

He's caught me. My face turns red. "I just come here for the boys," I say, abashed. "I just come here for the boys."

Anyway. I have a lot more to say about what's going on musically in Dublin, and how last night, a DJ saved my life. Promise to update more.

Since I don't have time to update my page myself, I will just post copies of emails sent to me from abroad.

Here's one from my father, the poet, entitled 'The Marin County Fair":

the corn dogs actually advertised that they contained no trans fat obama was the only candidate with a booth
all the art was photographs of sea otters and bonsai
there was a group of mexicans dancing in native costumes with beer bottles balanced on their heads
the only big competition in the baked good were scones
there were about 600 people watching while a guy milked one cow