Hi everybody, how were your weekends? Good, I hope. My was fun, but tiring, so normal for a visit to Alex'. Friday was about getting there, then killing time while Alex worked. By the time his weekend started, two more of his friends arrived. Alex and I watched the first 4 episodes of Ninja Scroll: The Series, which was my Christmas gift to him. The attrition rate on the villains was as high as I remember from those crappy quality fansubs I saw back in 2003.
Saturday was the long day, since Alex was one of several DJs playing at the Complex that night. He was nervous, which is normal for him, but his time slot had been switched, as he went from playing at 9 p.m. on the 2nd stage, to midnight on the newly set-up third stage. That didn't help his anxiety. I drove us there, and we were initially unimpressed by the exterior (seeing it, Alex declared he was probably going to be playing in a bathroom), but it was better inside. Eventually, everyone else decided they were hungry. Which lead to me driving around for an hour because none of them had any strong feelings about where they wanted to go, nor did they have any clue what eateries were in the area. I wasn't even hungry, you know, but still wound up driving allover creation while they hemmed and hawed about what to eat. Wound up at a place three buildings down from the Complex.
Less than six hours before the show, Alex and I are off to his friend Bitcrusher's, as Alex has decided he needs different music for his set. Bitcrusher hooked Alex up, then left to go eat, so Alex fiddled with the setlist, while I conversed with the temporary roomie about whatever, including his time spent teaching English in Bosnia. We left, went back to the Complex, and the show kicked off.
Alex says they started promoting the show too far in advance, because they had way too many people show up. There was a line ten wide stretching for two blocks waiting to get in when the place opened, and there was still a line 3 hours later. The upstairs, where the first and second stages were, was heavily crowded by 11:30, to the point you could hardly move anywhere. Until Alex started playing, I had adopted a roaming strategy, making a loop past all the stages, and periodically out onto the patio to get some air. It was easy to see how much worse it kept getting. The last time, I started to wonder if I'd make it downstairs without resorting to stabbing. There was a pathway with a bar on one side, and a row of stools looking out over the dance floor in front of 1st stage on the other. In the middle of the path, there was a couple dancing, not oblivious to all the people who wanted to get by, just not caring. My last stretch on the patio, I observed people hopping the fence to get in that way, followed by rousing cheers from those folks waiting in line. I don't know why, if they were going to cheer, they wouldn't do it themselves, but it seemed a limited phenomenon.
Alex' set started poorly because his equipment was sharing the table with that of other DJs, and one of his turntables didn't get plugged in properly when it was his time. This meant his first song ended, and things went quiet for a few moments as things were straightened out. After that, it went beautifully. He had that room jumping more than any of the previous DJs. He told me afterward he'd abandoned the play order he set up hours earlier, opting to choose which song to play next on the fly. Seemed to work really well. His dancers were having a good time*, all the customers seemed to be enjoying it (and were rushing up to compliment him after). . . and then the fire marshal butted in. Seems the club was already 500 people over capacity, and they shut everything down. I'm not clear on all the specifics, but the upstairs crowd chanting "{Expletive deleted} the police!" apparently put the cops accompanying the fire marshall in bad moods. So the party was over** before the headliner of the night could even get on stage. We waited an hour for the parking lot to clear out, which gave us time to pack everything up, and to see several people try to talk their way back upstairs, ostensibly to find keys or coats. Then we loaded up and started back to Alex'. The upshot of the show ending early was we made it home earlier. I got to sleep at 3 a.m. instead of 5, whoo!
After that it was more relaxed. Sunday we tried to recuperate, and played poker and drinking games with some new friends of his. Judging by this experience, I'd say it's a bad idea to play a drinking game after you've already been drinking for several hours. It didn't take long for things to get chaotic, at least from my perspective. Monday we tried cleaning his apartment, with moderate success. We did find his checkbook, lost since Friday night. We played some TimeSplitters 2, watched more Ninja Scroll. This morning I woke up and came back here, and Alex went to visit some other friends. Which brings us to the present.
* There were several small groups of girls wearing outfits dancing at the show. I don't know if each group was working with a particular DJ, as Alex' were, or if they just felt like wearing unusual matching outfits and dancing.
** I can't confirm the reports the cops pulled their batons and started shoving people down the stairs towards the exit. Didn't see the SWAT team some folks said came in to help, either. Can't rule out those things happening, either.
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