Oh MAI Gosh

I am now going to list my five favorite things about dancing in public:
1.) Not dancing in public.
2.) Not dancing, well, at all.
3.) Going home from a place where people have been trying unsuccessfully to get me out on the dance floor [which, I'm frankly surprised to find out is two words] the whole evening.
4.) Wondering why the hell everyone seems to be drinking Ketel One and Redbulls.
5.) A bunch of Cougars going "Wooooo!!!!"

So last night, in the interest of me being a good sport, I went to a place called MAI which claims it's in the Gulch. First of all, it's not. It's across the street from 12th and Porter and until last night I had never heard of anyone claiming that that part of town is the Gulch. It's near the Gulch. But that's like saying I live at Opry Mills because it's down the street. See how I'm not a liar, MAI?

We (the A Village of Flowers family, that is) were celebrating Dora who is moving to New York City soonishly and will be missed dearly and since she wanted to go to MAI, we went to MAI. I'm not sure if that's how it's supposed to be written or if that's just how it's stylized but I'm already one-third of the way through the blog and I'm not going to change it. I mean, if everyone came out to 3Crow for my birthday party that I don't really remember last year, the very least that I can do is reciprocate. Why? 'Cause I'm a hell of a guy, that's why.

I convinced my roommate Josiah* to come with me. He's been to MAI before and if I happened to be the only person there that I knew, I didn't want to be attacked by Cougars who are trained to pounce on young looking single prey. Come on. One dude against a pack of wild Cougars? No chance. At all. Thankfully, everyone else showed up. And when I say "everyone" I mean "EVERYONE". The place went from dead empty to tenfinity people in the span of about 20 minutes. And all tenfinity people were big fans of dressing way nicer than me and I was wearing my nice long sleeve henley shirt, too. Basically, this was my first real dance club experience. Not too shabby at the age of 30 that I had managed to avoid it for that long.

Keeping in mind my lack of dancing skills ability enjoyment, I told everyone that if I had nine more glasses of whiskey, I would get out on the dance floor. Everyone knew this wasn't going to happen so I was safe. The lack of drinks, however, did not stop Andy.

Maybe it was the sweet leather jacket? Doubtful. Maybe it was the beanie cap? Unlikely. Maybe he pregamed? That's probably it.

What's the point of this here blog entry? It's ultimately a review of MAI from the perspective of someone who doesn't like to dance or get attacked by the Pre-Post-Menopausal crowd. If you're not into either one of those things or, in the interest of full disclosure, spending $8.50 for a pour of whiskey, I can sum it up in one word:

DON'T

Then again, go for it. You might just like it. Like Andy.

*Josiah - enjoy the fame that comes with this shout out. The rewards are great, my friend. Great.

Ophiucus

A large part of my day involves me doing research on the internet. I don't mean fun research. I mean research like learning the difference between what a clinical manager does and what an administrator does [the answer is "not much"]. Luckily, thanks to the business class internet that I get at my desk, I get to download things like the Birth soundtrack by Alexandre Desplat (thanks for the recommendation, JT) at lightning speeds. Speeds? Plural? Sure.

One would think that with all the time that I do spend in front of my computer that by the end of the day the last thing that I would want to do would be to come home and sit in front of, well, my computer. Since I don't have a typewriter and, let's face it, I don't really have a place to put it and I have a desire to write pretty much all of the time, I break out the laptop and off I go. That is if I'm not remaining bitter about being told that I was 4 inches too tall to be an extra in The Hobbit and ultimately realizing that the only way I could get 4 inches shorter would be to hack off my feet or the top of my head which, unfortunately, would make me largely unfilmable. It is too a word.

Imagine my surprise when I got home this evening to find the news that Zodiac signs were changing and that a new sign called Ophiucus has suddenly entered the world. You know what I know about the Zodiac signs? Nothing. I actually had to look mine up. It's Cancer. And from what the interweb tells me (and, let's face it, I believe everything I read on the internet) it only applies to people born in 2009 or later. I bet Justin Bieber is fucking pissed that he's gonna have to get a new set custom embroidered of Osh Kosh B'Gosh overalls 'cause he's no longer a Pisces. He's like, what? 14 or 15 months old now? Can one year olds be pissed? They can release hit records and star in biopics so why not? Really, I just wrote about The Biebs so I'd get some more traffic on this here post. By the way, how does he get his hair to grow sideways like that?

Bet you didn't think that you'd read about Alexandre Desplat and The Biebs in the same blog today, did you?

This new Zodiac actually scares me for a few reasons. First: the potential return of The Zodiac Killer. You wanna talk about some scary shit? Yeah... That's some scary shit. In addition to the potential return of a mass murder, I am going to make a prediction. Yes, a major prediction. The kind of prediction that would make Harvey Weinstein take notice. He's a major film producer. I know you're not clicking on these links anyway. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the sequel to the original

Zodiac. I'm gonna call it Zodiac 2: Oh, Fyuck Us... He's Back! I wonder if Jake Swift Gyllenhaal would be up for it? I bet he would. He's done pretty well in the last few years, starring in Desert Sword Adventure Movie and a movie that I haven't yet seen but based on it's title, I'm assuming that it's about African American friends. Personally, I think he's just floating by on looks alone. Then again, what do I know?

Unless you're the psychic at Mystic Minds just down the street from my house, this news probably won't affect you. I just had nothing better to write about and I had to do something while drinking this beer.

Ted Williams

In the past few days, The Man with the Golden Voice (a guy named Ted Williams) video has started to circulate the internet. If you have no idea what I'm talking about then you need to watch this and watch it now:

And when I say "past few days" I literally mean since about Monday or so. It's a quick mover, that internet. It's even quicker for me now that I don't have to steal it from my neighbor (thank you anonymous 'linksys' user as the past year and a half were so good to me).

This man has a gift. Seriously. My voice sounds like I did when I was 14. It never really dropped after cracking for two straight years. You ladies into me yet? A blog about a homeless dude and a guy whose voice never really dropped. Yeah, I thought so. But back to the 'feel good' story...

I was listening to ESPN radio yesterday morning after having seen this video the day before and heard some fantastic news: that the much maligned Cleveland Cavaliers (they're that team that that LeBron dude used to play for)* have offered Ted Williams a job and a house. How amazing is that?! Most of the times, when it comes to homeless people, I'm a jerk. I don't give 'em money. I don't by copies of The Contributor. I respond with "Naw, dude... Lemme ask you a question." when someone starts out with "Hey, lemme ask you a question."

Oh... and today he was reunited with his mom: a 92-year old woman living in Brooklyn, NY, that he has been out of contact for several years.

I don't feel convicted very often -- largely because that word alone makes me think of my days attending Acquire the Fire youth conventions and seeing the Newsboys (remember them?) play. It's nice when the world gives something back to someone. Even if he does look like Teen Wolf Obama.

Look at what people can do.

*Major props to me for figuring out how to use the word "that" three times in one parenthetical phrase.