Watertown Ghost Town

In my last post I had mentioned that I have been terribly wary of meeting people that I had met solely on the internet. Even with a semi-bad past experience from when I turned twenty-one, it still just comes back to my own personal insecurities. Aside from my absolute belief that I’m nothing more than an “average” looking girl, half the time I’m being modest in the extreme or I honestly don’t believe any of the crap that a guy is trying to shovel at me. Deep down I cling to the cold hard fact that a girl who knows she is hot is a bitch. That’s just what happens. I don’t want to be that kind of person.
Now granted, most of the time when it comes to meeting someone; whether you’ve met in person before or just have talked via the internet, it’s all about first impressions. Just remember that the root of impression is the need to IMPRESS. It doesn’t matter if there are purely platonic reasons behind the meeting or if a one-night-stand hangs in the balance. It’s still about appearance and attraction.
Each and every time that I’ve met someone at a club I’ve been scared to the point of cancellation whenever the moment rolled around to meeting up again for a first date. As if first dates weren’t nerve wracking enough, the idea of meeting someone you’ve danced with at the club already has a set of standards that are hard to duplicate, at least in my estimation. A girl gets all glamorous to go dancing in the first place. A first date is suppose to be a little more low key than that. Yet the guy’s memory of you as he dials those hastily scribbled digits is totally based on that first and probably brief glamorous encounter.
But all of that is just generic musings on the topic. I need to back up and explain from a more personal standpoint. I’m really a different story when it comes to getting “hit on at a club”. Most of the time I am far too intimidating of a dancer for men to even approach me (or so I’ve been told a million times). For all my complaining that a man’s first impression of a girl met in a club being a glamorous vision that is tough to reinvent; this really doesn’t apply to me. If I’m remembered as some attractive bit of fluff in the guy’s head as he punches in my digits, he was either blind drunk or never bumped into me at one-thirty in the morning.
By the end of the night I am not a glamorous creature. I’ve put my heart and soul into my dancing only to become the embodiment of sweat. My face is flushed and dripping my make-up away, my clothes are damp to the touch, and my hair has been wrestled carelessly into whatever kind of pony-tail or bun I can achieve in order to cool off and keep dancing.
In the short time after the bad ending or “discontinuation of affectionate intentions” that my brief relationship with Dominick had, I went on a string of terrible dates all garnered from men I have met at one club or another. After a while it did start to become old hat. I know now that the person is probably an asshole if he had the balls to call me in the first place, and that nothing more than a “short lived sexual encounter” seems to be all the male population of this area between the ages of 21 and 30 are after. I got sort of bitter. Can you tell?
An internet situation is a whole other ball of wax, and more often than not a bigger game of “smoke and mirrors”. You can put off whatever personality you want. You can reinvent yourself with carefully selected pictures and attitude. Look at the rise in child-stalking on the internet alone! Just because this person has posted Abercrombie and Fitch pictures that were carefully cropped to look natural, and stated himself to be a kind, sensitive male of about twenty-five years of age; absolutely NONE of that can prepare you for what the honest to God physical truth of the situation is when you finally run into it head long. That should be enough to the scare the shit out of anyone!
With all that being said, one can get the general idea of what went through my mind in rapid succession when DJ Lifeguard casually emailed me and mentioned that he’d be hanging out at Watertown, possibly spinning, and he’d really like to meet up for drinks. The strange thing of all was that even though my spiral of self depreciating nonsense started, it stopped rather abruptly. It was a place that I had been to before, and it wasn’t like we were going to be one-on-one. It was totally casual, with plenty of options for me to bale out at any moment. All of that aside I really wanted to meet and talk to the guy in person. After all the things we had randomly connected on, I really had no doubt that if the environment allowed for much conversation, it wouldn’t be awkward. And to top it all off I was looking for any excuse to go out dancing. There was just no down side to the whole situation!
Since the car accident which has filled up a lot of space on this BLOG, I really haven’t done much in the way of living the Night Life that had me start writing for this project in the first place. I’ve always said, and co-workers as well as friends can vouch for the fact, that when I don’t go dancing often enough (or in this case AT ALL) I am not a fun person to be around. Some of us need vacation time with tropical breezes to unwind, some people need to delve into a non-violent martial art in order to let go of the stress we all store up from our daily grind. I on the other hand MUST dance at least once a week in order to be a productive and pleasant citizen and operate in society (which is a major must since I work in Customer Service). That is just the bare facts of the situation.
The night was a Wednesday and the theme for the establishment was the same as when I had gone to see Speedy G so very long ago. “Why Not Wednesday’s” was the name and I really felt with better advertisement the place could become as popular as Liquifi at the Liquid Lounge inside the EMP or Open House at The Last Supper Club. The last time I had been expecting to battle huge crowds and was sorely disappointed. The rumor this time around was that things had never really changed from my previous experience. The place was merely filled with DJ’s looking to socialize amongst each other and have an entire bar/club all to them selves.
With that knowledge in hand and a little nervousness that made me less than committed in my response to Lifeguard about meeting up, I had a laundry list of things to do that night. Watertown was just the last stop. None of the stops were my subconscious efforts in stalling. For some reason that particular night turned out to be the only night that I could do any of the things that popped up on my “To Do” list. That didn’t change the fact that I had some tiny misgivings at meeting the mysterious DJ Lifeguard in person.
Some part of me was absolutely sure that if I met the guy, I’d ruin every chance I would have had at continuing on to be his “programming coordinator”. The idea of never being able to help him out again with a radio set or anything else that involved him sending me track clips and asking my opinion on them was damn depressing. I had loved every moment that I had busied myself listening to tracks and taking the time to explore my own feelings on House Music as well as finding a way to communicate those feelings to someone else. That whole radio experience had blown my mind. The last thing I wanted to do was completely un-impress the guy with my physical presence and personality. Maybe all I had going for me was detached mystery.
The heart of my insecurity was that I wouldn’t be able to express my true self: my intelligence, my dry humor, and most of all my deep passion for House music to him. If I couldn’t get that across then really why would he even keep talking to me? That is who I am and if I couldn’t make him see me, then what was the point?
But like I had said, I had a bunch of stuff to do before I even ended up at Watertown, doing my best at being “me”. The first stop was up to Tommy’s on an errand that was depressing indeed. After all was said and done, the band was over. I finally had to let Jeff, the owner, know that Chela and Georgetown was no longer, and that no one would be taking the spot he had slotted to the band at the end of both this month and next. Dropping this news was not something I looked forward to. I knew that it would break Jeff’s heart visibly as well as from a business stand point. He loved us and had given us so much. The correct thing to do was let him know; I didn’t want to leave him hanging or burn any bridges.
Cale and I both sat at the bar looking around the rather empty establishment wishing we weren’t bringing the tidings that we were about to dump into Jeff’s lap. It was like looking back through time for me. I could stare over to the bar stool and table that was positioned by the sound board and transport myself back. Once again the place was jumping for the Apple Cup. I was drinking down the Black Opals that Chela’s Uncle Jerry couldn’t finish. I was dancing under the flashing blue and gold lights of the stage set up and pogo-ing to my favorite song “Beagle”. So many memories and yet it was like a ghost of a time so long ago. Something deep inside said that I’d be back though. Deep down, I believed in Cale’s optimism that it wasn’t over just yet.
Jeff reacted just as I had pictured and that made me feel worse for some reason. The goofy grin that he greeted us with, which is rarely seen, fell right off his face and he didn’t speak for several moments. I wanted to cry right then. He stared off into space refusing to look at either of us as he asked me several more business related questions. When he finally did look at me I saw someone who was very disappointed. Something in his expression said that he had seen bands come and go, mostly from his own stage, and he’d had some real hopes for this one.
When Cale and I did leave Tommy’s after a drink and a little more small talk with Jeff, I was emotionally worn out. The whole thing had been really sad. We talked about the experience the whole way back Cale’s apartment. Would there be another band? I knew the first place I’d book a show would be Tommy’s.
My next stop was Watertown unless I could get a hold of my friend Chris in order to meet up. Chris, his Russian friend, and I had gone out one time before; almost a year earlier. Granted the rest of this tale is a bit of a tangent but I’ve never had a good place to put this story down. Bear with me for a moment as I share a little background.

TANGENT BEGINS HERE:
It had been a strange situation of being invited randomly to hang out with the two of them which I had been hesitant to jump in the middle of since it was to be a reunion of sorts; it had been quite a length of time since the two had seen each other. I felt like a terrible third wheel when I called Chris again that night in order to confirm that he was still okay with me hanging out with them. My promise had been to stay for a single drink and then leave them to their own devices when I headed next door to The DownUnder Night club, which I hadn’t had the reason or bravery to attend alone.
The night had been awesome, the three of us had not lacked for conversation even though parts had been almost ridiculous. Getting food and drinks at the infamous Cyclops, at one point the Russian asked the Mexican what Cyclops really meant. As the Mexican did his best to put the meaning of the word into terms the Russian could understand, the little American white girl had to laugh her ass off.
Chris’s friend was a local DJ and quite the Progressive Snob. Spinning for places that I had only read of on flyers that were left on my car every week whenever I parked outside either the EMP or anywhere in Pioneer Square, I couldn’t help but fall right into the passionate conversation he started when taking about some new spot he was suppose to be DJing at soon. So very matter of fact, as I was learning was his nature, he turned ice blue eyes on me and said that Chris had let him listen to one of my mix CD’s. Some what surprised that Chris would do something like that, I was sort of embarrassed as to what he had thought. I was surprised again when he asked what sort of software I was using. When I mentioned that I did everything by ear and through Winamp, I received a compliment that has stuck with me since. “You have a good ear for it.” My friend DJ F had said something of that nature in the past based solely on my good taste in music. This moment on the other hand really meant something coming from a DJ that was very picky about his music and its expression, and in the face of actually hearing an example of my efforts.
After food and several drinks, we all ended up heading next door to the club that had been my very first. The spot I had celebrated my twenty-first and had spawned my obsession had changed a lot! Split onto two different clubs, the “House” side did more of a Top 40. A part of me was disappointed, but then I was a little drunk so I didn’t care about much for very long. The two guys were a riot to hang out and absolutely impossible to buy drinks for. Talk about two old school guys that refused to let a woman pay for anything.
By this point in the evening I was getting really frustrated. I can be severely independent most of the time, especially when it comes to paying for stuff (and especially when I’m intoxicated). They had paid for my food, every drink, and the cover. When they were plying me with cash in refusal to let me buy the drinks even then, I was almost pissed off. With a wad of cash crumpled in my hand and a drink order to remember, I headed to the bar. I had forgotten how long it takes to get noticed at this particular bar. The last few times I had been there, I was only interested in dancing. Being the one waiting to get noticed was damn annoying. The odds weren’t in my favor either. Plenty of people were just camped out at the bar and the all female bartending crew wasn’t really interested in serving me it seemed.
An extremely intoxicated gentleman came up on me and for some reason won over my normal frosty nature in a situation such as that. He wasn’t the normal asshole drunk that I was getting use to at that time. He was like a giddy five year old and seemed absolutely ecstatic to be alive. It was apparently his birthday and he offered to get whatever I was ordering. I pondered his offer but when I said three without thinking, he was so agreeable that I didn’t feel like changing his pronouncement to the bartender that my drinks were to go on his bill. Suddenly I was at the head of the line with people jumping right to, popping caps off of Corona bottles like they had been waiting just for my arrival.
After being handed two beers and a Washington Apple shot, he ordered the same shot and we toasted each other before drinking them down. In the back of my mind I knew I had better book it out of there before he started asking who the other two friends were that I had ordered beers for. Common sense said that if I were to explain the Corona’s were for “two guy friends,” he’d feel his flirtatious hospitality had been taken advantage of. I was totally taking advantage of him, but the last thing I needed was him realizing it.
I made sure to give the guy a big birthday kiss and headed back to the other room at some what of a quick pace. Triumphant, I handed over beers and made a big deal of returning the money they had given me. When they asked what I had been up to, they all had a good laugh at my story. They said they should keep me around for such opportunities.
While the Russian spent most of the night continuing to drink on the side lines and criticize the DJ that was spinning at the time, my friend Chris and I actually got some good floor time in. He’s the sort of closet House Music listener that makes me forget that he does actually like the same music as I do. He’s also a very good dancer when he wants to indulge in the activity. In the end, it was a great night of laughter and music. A damn good time by my standards.
END TANGENT

With that memory in place I had been excited to hear that the Russian was back in town, he had since moved all the way to California. Yet after several phone calls I knew that the boys were content with their guy time and I wouldn’t get to hang out with them this time. Onward to Watertown I headed, laughing a little as I pulled into the same parking spot I had eleven months earlier. That almost made me sad. I knew what to expect when I walked in the door: a bartender, three guys at the bar, three on the floor and a huddle of DJ’s up in the booth. I wasn’t sure if I was ready to take on an empty floor after how long I’ve been out of the game.
I don’t remember feeling nervous at all. It was more like a sense of anticipation. Would there be anyone I knew there? How long would it take before I had the courage to dance? After walking through the door and seeing exactly as I had expected at the bar: the one female bartender who was joking with three guys that were obviously regulars, the momentary wonder of, “Oh God would I recognize DJ Lifeguard?” flashed through my mind. That and if I did, would he recognize me from my pictures? From the time that I had accepted the invitation and cycled through all my other worries, actual recognition had not crossed my mind. As a last minute email I had mentioned that I would be wearing my hat, but I had no way of knowing if he had gotten that message. How awkward would that be if I had to nail the guy down and forcibly introduce myself in order to say I had actually met up with him?
As if sleep walking I moved directly to the railing that looked down on the dance floor that was lower than the main bar, the same as I had done a year ago. Some what dismayed at the lack of any other people I cast my eyes to the DJ booth and knew immediately that the guy spinning was not the one I was looking for. The guy leaning against the back walk on the other hand was definitely him. I knew it in an instant and was left with my second scenario looking like it was about to play out. I’d just have to bide my time and see if he looked for me or tackle him at the bar, if and when he came down from “on high” for refreshment.
Yet as if he heard my plotting he looked right up and smiled at me. No further plotting necessary. It had taken him just as long to recognize me as I had to realize who he was. There was comfort in that thought. Moving directly down the stairs and across the room to talk to me I felt rather special. Most DJ’s I know come down to talk when they are good and ready, or have nothing better to do. In this instant I felt like he had been waiting for me. He had actually wanted to have a drink or two and talk. Not just show off in some weird anti-social fit of DJ bravado, by waving at me from the booth but never coming down to actually acknowledge my presence as anything other than a body on the dance floor.
In the same moment that I recognized him I was also pleasantly surprised in a terribly shallow way, the guy was good looking! In the cliché way that people always say, “your pictures didn’t do you justice”, I still had to think it. As I had said in the previous post, the pictures on his profile were mostly all looking down at his turn tables or away from the camera. He wasn’t good looking in that terribly boring commercial way. That sort of man always puts me on edge. His head was shaved, which wasn’t normally something I found attractive. The thick framed glasses, along with a strong jaw line, reminded me of a comic book Clark Kent. At any second he was going to jump into action and become Super DJ.
Dressed very casually in t-shirt and jeans, he just seemed so comfortable in his surroundings. He moved with an obvious sense of confidence in himself. Most men I knew were in a constant state of unrest in clubs. It was a DJ that loved the music whom could be laid back in a place like this. There were no social pressures to drink too much, hit on girls above and below their league, and the ever present fear of being forced to dance at some up coming moment. When you added up all the details it just seemed to all fit nicely together.
The music was loud and our initial greeting was a little awkward. God bless him for holding up the start of the conversation. For some reason I suddenly felt tongue-tied as I stood there. It wasn’t that I was overwhelmed with his presence or that I was in a rush to impress him, I just suddenly didn’t know what to talk about. I really didn’t know the guy THAT well and I wasn’t so sure he wanted to talk since the music was loud.
But that was what we ended up doing for the rest of the night. We talked. We talked about music, DJing, clubs, dance floors, cars, relationships, jobs, the band, everything and anything that occurred to one of us. It wasn’t that half hearted nodding that the other person can do when they aren’t really listening. This was a real, involved conversation.
He explained that the Last Supper Club had called him earlier that day, in order to ask that he and his friend DJ Solitude take over the opening time slot, very last minute, for the next night’s Open House. I couldn’t help but think what a great job they must have done in order to be on the “back-up” list for a big club like that. Lots of local DJ’s would straight up murder for a spot like that. After agreeing to check out the show the next night, it of course led us to talking about being the opening DJ at a club. As he launched into this explanation on the pros and cons and I almost had to laugh. It was the exact same thing I had written about, from my perspective as a dancer, coming out of a DJ’s mouth that had experienced the exact feelings I had anticipated. We were on the same wave length about so many things that it was just crazy.
I hadn’t planned on drinking. My whole game plan had been to stop by, say hi, refuse to drink when he offered, chat for a minute, dance for a minute, and head home. Two Black Opals later and I was feeling down right Toasty and a little loose in the tongue. He was just so easy to talk to. His physical presence was laid back and comfortable, I didn’t even waste another thought on the sorts of things that girls always keep in the back of their minds when hanging out with a guy for the first time. The repeated statement of “he could be a psycho ax murder” that always seems to play out in your mother’s voice.
It was when I realized that I was talking around words that I couldn’t say without slurring, that I needed to check myself. After all my agonizing over making an honest and intelligent first impression, and I had gotten drunk enough to slur my speech. Some sober part of me was angry about that.
A fortuitous moment came my way when a fellow DJ caught Lifeguard’s attention and told him to get his gear; he could take over the turn tables. I was glad that I would be getting the chance to sober up as well as watch him spin live. Dancing is the greatest way to check your alcohol consumption as well as burn some of it off. When he headed out to his car to get his records I hit the dance floor. I needed to move and warm up, and I knew that the night was slipping by me. If I didn’t get on the dance floor the whole outing was going to slip completely by me.
I was already on the floor dancing when Lifeguard stepped up to the decks. I was concentrating on my movements more that I was at watching him spin but nothing really mattered. It was all a small part of the bigger picture and I was having a great time. A couple of the other guys at the bar came down for a moment to dance and I just tried to give myself up to the night.
It had been so long since I had gone out and danced like this. How I had survived I really didn’t know but I did know that I really couldn’t go on like this. Yet I had been terribly chicken since buying my new car. It wasn’t like I ran right out to the club the moment I had the vehicle in my possession. I haven’t done anything with it. I’m terrible about getting myself into routines and when something interferes with that, it’s tough to get the ball rolling again.
Watertown closed down for the night and I found myself walking outside with Lifeguard, heavy record cases in tow. I had to think back to a time when I had felt so self important about being the girl who was allowed to carry DJ F’s record cases. Where DJ F seemed to love the idea of a “groupie” hauling his vinyl, I had to put up a bit of a fight to get Lifeguard to accept my help. Ever the gentleman, I had tried to be gracious about the fact that he had paid for all the drinks that night, which was tough for me. I was perfectly capable of helping him get his gear back to his car, it was the least I could do.
I still wasn’t sober yet and I really didn’t want to admit it. I was actually pretty damn embarrassed about it. When he admitted that he was a little more faded than he wanted to be in order to drive home I felt better. Still though, he wasn’t slurring all over the place like I was. I suggested breakfast across the street at a place I thought everyone in the area had heard of. A great little twenty-four hour joint, I knew food was my next best option to driving home in that condition. He’d never heard of it and I laughed right out loud. Making a big deal over the fact that if he expected to be a big city DJ he’d better learn his surroundings; I helped him stash his cases in his jeep and headed across the street for breakfast.
The conversation continued yet, I spent a lot of it apologizing for getting as drunk as I had. I know I must have gone on and on (as is my habit when I get drunk to that caliber without having originally intending to do so). He was gracious and told me not to worry about it, yet I knew from his expression that I was obviously drunk and making a bit of a fool of myself. I was only succeeding in making a worse impression the more I tried to resolve the situation. How frustrating it all was, and I only had myself to blame.
Walking back to the car, the food in my stomach was making an obvious difference and I had succeeded, mostly, in changing the subject from my ill formed apologies, back to the subjects that had kept us going from earlier in the night. Stopping by my car I suddenly looked to the front of the club and realized that nothing I had planed on at the beginning of the night had happened. It was now almost three in the morning and I had spent the entire night talking with a guy that was incredibly interesting. Yet I had the terrible feeling that I had made an utter drunken ass out of myself.
This of course started the apologies again which he fielded with a smile and a shake of his head. After a hug and the promise to see him again the next night at Last Supper Club, I jumped in my car and headed home.
I’d really had a “complete” night. I had gotten to talk with someone that I felt really understood my way of thinking when it came to House Music and Nightclubs. I had gotten to dance. I had gotten drinks and breakfast paid for (even though I had honestly argued with him over the tab for breakfast).
As hard as it is to express my passion for House Music in itself, which I’ve taken several stabs at in the past, the joy of finding someone who understands that passion is even harder to explain. I would have to say that everyone around me, in my daily life, understands to a small degree how I feel when I go to the club and dance the night away to a really great DJ. My friends and the couple significant others that I’ve dragged out with me, could smile and say that I was on another plane of experience than the one they were having. Plenty of people readily offer up the knowledge that I see the world of clubbing in such a different way that I’m a special case. I’m not the Average Jane that goes to get shitty drunk and pick up someone for the sake of a one night stand.
Understanding that about my personality is still just the surface of feelings that I have when I go out at night and am on that dance floor. Talking with someone that can communicate with me on the level of my passion is just so exciting. It’s the pure human need of acceptance and being truly understood. I was starting to think I was just one person lost in this area. So many people always tell me I belong in San Francisco or Miami. I wasn’t feeling so alone in the world anymore.
Going to sleep that night I was happy. Even though I had taken care of some depressing business at Tommy’s and Chris had never called me back, I still had had a good night doing things that meant something to me.