Dancing | Periscope Depth

From the Blog

Dec

my hometown

Posted by Professor Coldheart at 1:17 pm

Thanksgiving weekend, comparing and contrasting my experiences in Baltimore (where I grew up) and Boston (where I live):

The TSA

Boston: Though I’d already put my jacket on the X-ray conveyor belt, the security goon asked me to strip out of my Ravens hoodie as well. Another goon rifled through my toiletries kit before putting it back on the X-ray for another scan.
Baltimore: Though I’d already put my shoes on the X-ray conveyor belt, the security goon asked me to remove my belt as well. Hoodie stayed on. Toiletries made it through unscathed.

Marriage

Baltimore: I’m officiating a wedding in rural Pennsylvania this June, at an outdoor amphitheater near Swarthmore College. “So what do you have planned for this all natural, non-denominational commitment ceremony?” the groom’s older brother joked. “Because I’m definitely picturing Lord of the Rings. I want elf ears and crossbows out the wazoo.”
Boston: That Sunday, I recounted the story to Melissa and Fraley, whose wedding I’ll be officiating three weeks earlier. “That sounds cool,” Mel said. “… wait, they were joking?”

Drinking, Dancing and Carrying On

Baltimore: I caught up with Liz, whom I hadn’t seen in about nine years, on Friday night. We carpooled over to her friend Keith’s rowhome in Highlandtown. After pregaming for a bit, we squeezed into Keith’s car and hit up The Depot, a narrow little lounge on Charles Street. We had several rounds of cheap beer and a Jaeger shot that felt like a punch in the stomach, then spent most of the evening dancing to 80s pop on the industrial black floor.
Boston: Highlandtown reminds me a lot of Medford, or East Somerville just off of Pearl Street. And The Depot reminded me a lot of Toast in Union Square. In fact, I’ll bet when Depot has their goth nights it looks exactly like Toast.
At one point, Keith got up to stare curiously at an all-black painting hanging near the men’s room. It turned out that the painting actually had several plastic roaches set just into its surface. Also, the artist was sitting right next to it, waiting for someone to notice so he could trap them in conversation. Keith shot us several plaintive looks. Tell me that couldn’t happen at the Middle East on Mass Ave.

Nov

sephiroth!

Posted by Professor Coldheart at 11:27 am

The lights went down on the Wang Theater and up on the crowded stage. A conductor with a shock of white hair and a black jacket with large silver buttons took the podium and tapped the orchestra to life. A screen behind the orchestra lit up, displaying the parallel lines of Pong. The orchestra led us through a medley of video game themes over the first twenty years of gaming history – Pong, Donkey Kong, Elevator Action, Burger Time, etc – while those same classics played nostalgically across the screen: the opening act of Video Games Live‘s debut in Boston.

Then some asshole in red shoes showed up.

I can not overstate how much of a douchebag Tommy Tallarico is. I humored him patiently for the first five minutes he showed up, until I realized that he intended to spend another five minutes talking up himself and his show. His ham-handed attempts to win over the crowd annoyed me further. “Some people think video games are just for kids,” the forty-year old mocked, summoning a mighty “BOO” from the crowd in a way that Ric Flair would wince at. “Some people think video games cause violent behavior.”

(“Some people live in houses filled with strawmen,” I murmured)

Video Games Live is a gem. Its music appeals on several primal levels – from the nostalgia of childhood classics being played beautifully to the epic awe of today’s million-dollar soundtracks. VGL uses entirely local musicians – the City Arts Orchestra on stage and the Brookline High Choir for vocals. They covered a broad sampling of games, from the Mario and Zelda series to releases as recent as the new World of Warcraft expansion. I’m glad Melissa made sure we went, and I’m glad Serpico, RJ and Katie H were there with me.

I just need to stress how much Tommy Tallarico sucked. He served no purpose other than to leech energy out of the show. That might have actually been his role – stretching a 70 minute show to 2 hours with a lot of talk. I don’t know why, though. They have more material than they played. I only hope that, as the show becomes more monetized, corporate pressure fills the time with more music and less of that jackass.

(Seriously – playing your game’s score with a professional orchestra while cut scenes flash in the background? It’s a commercial people pay to see. Win-win!)

I won’t spoil all the show’s little surprises, but I have to pass this one along: the winner of a Guitar Hero battle in the lobby before the show got called on stage in the second act. Tallarico handed him a Guitar Hero controller. “If you get over 200,000 points in ‘Sweet Emotion’ on Hard …” he began. The kid shook his head, motioning upward with his thumb. “Expert?” Tallarico asked. The audience roared.^*

I’ve been quieter at close football games than I was watching that guy blow through Guitar Hero. The live orchestra backing him made it an epic spectacle. Plus, the tension of competing against the game transformed the song from a rock staple to a pitched battle. Imagine if Joe Perry broke every finger on his left hand, then going to see Aerosmith’s first live concert after they’d healed – will he pull it off? will he be as good as we hoped? That, plus lasers.

After VGL, Katie H. gave me a ride to Central Square. I headed toward ImprovBoston, only to find Dana already walking down the block. “You heading to Phoenix Landing?” he asked. “Robert just texted me; he said the place is packed.”

We found ourselves jogging to get there, one of those unspoken decisions born of enthusiasm. You live a buttoned-down life during the week, so when the opportunity comes to shake it out and perform in front of friends and strangers, you don’t want to waste a second in transit. And that’s what we do when we dance. We threaded our way through the crowd to the foot of the stage. Dana immediately leaped onto the benches that surround the dance floor and began attracting attention. That’s what he does.

After a while I joined him.

____________
^* This led to that classic exercise in futility, Changing The Settings In Guitar Hero. Anyone who’s played GH or Rock band knows how frustrating it gets when you’ve almost started the song but want to change one thing – the number of players, the difficulty, etc. Now imagine doing that on a stage in front of two thousand people. “You have to back all the way out!”, I yelled from the back of the balcony. “Main menu! Main menu!”

Nov

no words; no talk; we'll go dreaming

Posted by Professor Coldheart at 10:29 am

Taking the T home on Wednesday, a small posse of youths crowded onto an already packed train at Porter. “May I have your attention, everybody!” one of them declared. “Just keep your eyes on the black guy dancing!” One of his friends set a boom box down near the benches; the others cleared the aisle of pedestrians. I don’t know how you get ten feet of running room on a Red Line train at rush hour, but they managed.

Then, these kids unleashed some acrobatic breaking in a frighteningly confined space. They cartwheeled and somersaulted, their Adidas whipping within inches of passengers’ faces. They flipped in mid-air, using the standing rails as handlebars. They dropped to the floor, spinning and hand-standing like … I dunno, like tops with strong forearms.

“Thank you!” they said at Davis, as I got off. “If you’d like to show your appreciation, you can leave your money with us.”

I hadn’t seen anyone panhandle on the T since a sketchy incident on the way to Logan two and a quarter years ago, and never with such coordinated effort. I thought that sort of thing only flew in Manhattan. New Yorkers – how do displays like that usually fare? Do you ignore them coolly? Do tourists and a few sympathetic rubes chip in? I’m curious.

# # #

If you want a good cardio workout, forget running. Forget swimming. Grapple a man who has one hundred pounds on you and uses them better. Transitioning from mount to half mount to half guard to guard and back again will wring you out in five minutes or less. The only edge I had on the guy I
practiced with last night was that I knew two things he hadn’t seen. Possibly three.

# # #

Last night, I found the nightlife experience I’ve spent eight years searching for: Make It New at Middlesex on Mass Ave. Seriously, it’s everything I want in a club scene: house music; low or no cover; people I like a lot but don’t see every day; cheap beer; no yah-dudes or girls in shimmery towels and platform heels; and plenty of unexpected spectacle to fragment my attention.

Like the circle of dudes breakin’ in the corner. Just out of nowhere! A circle of people bobbed and weaved around a gap of floor, moving a little but not going crazy. Then one of them would step into the gap and walk the perimeter of the circle from the inside – getting everyone’s attention? defining the space? catching up with the rhythm? Probably some combination of the three. This guy or girl (breaking is an equal opportunity art form) would then pop, contort, shake and twist in some amazing, unpredictable and entertaining fashion.

# # #

Boston’s a city that will get on the floor and roll when the time is right, is the theme of this entry.

Oct

in the streets I'm well known like the number man

Posted by Professor Coldheart at 9:26 am

I went out drinking with coworkers on Friday – George, A.A., Z. and a handful of others. The notion of enjoying myself with the people I work with, especially outside the context of the office, still hasn’t settled in my brain yet. We watched the Phillies knock one out against the Dodgers, then stuck around for a bit of the Sox game. A bearded guy played acoustic guitar during commercial breaks; George got his business card.

I needed a night of dancing to take the edge off the week, so I called an all-play at the Common Ground and a small crew answered: Mike P., Flannery and some friends of theirs. As it turned out, BC alumna Meghan W. and Marie C. also had a crew of their own present; a massive dance party quickly ensued. The BC kids were largely CCE vets, as well as one or two current CCE members. It’s odd thinking of myself as some dimly known figure from the ancient days, which I am to anyone who cares. It’s also odd that people born in 1986 can drink without legal hindrance, as some of those kids clearly were.

Saturday began the first in my series of constant rehearsals this week, as we all showed up at ImprovBoston to warble through some songs and run the show once. Don S., the show’s typical director, poked his head in on several occasions to watch key songs and scenes. I spent about an hour afterward sifting through used clothes at the Garment District and the Davis Sq. Goodwill in search of a Halloween costume, with no luck. I may end up buying an old coat and a few cans of spray paint.

Jodi texted me an emergency request for carbs and Red Sox, so we rendezvoused at Joshua Tree. We eventually lost patience with the game night crowd – “Standing Room Townie,” you might call it – and shifted to Orleans, where we caught up through the 9th inning with her friends Jeff and Armando. Jodi wolfed down most of a plate of chicken rigatoni, in preparation for her half-marathon on Sunday, but wouldn’t finish her Guinness. She did not get to join the Clean Glass Club.

Did you know that the Hong Kong in Harvard Sq hosts more than just an unpredictable stand-up night on Sundays? That the upstairs turns into a trashy college-kid rave, complete with Top 40 songs, glow sticks and $4 Budweiser, on Saturday nights? Neither did I! What have I been doing all this time? I gave Jeff and Armando a ride there, then stuck around to dance with them and some of their friends for a bit. A shirtless guy in tuxedo pants waved an inflatable sledgehammer on stage while Harvard girls twirled neon bracelets and Limbo’d under pool noodles. At some point I lost patience and wandered back to my car.

I had been keeping myself up with the use of 5-Hour Energy Shots on Friday and Saturday night, since following beers with niacin megadoses can’t be that bad for you. As a result, I started to crash pretty hard on Sunday afternoon, around hour five of the Gorefest dance rehearsal. Skipping breakfast probably didn’t help. Or dinner the night before. Or eating that fudgy cupcake filled with peanut butter, but come on! Fudgy cupcake! Filled with peanut butter!

The entertaining conclusion: I missed the Davis Square stop on the subway ride home and had to turn around at Alewife and passed out for thirty brief minutes when I dragged my ass back to my apartment. Regaining consciousness, I somehow heated up a pizza in the oven without setting the building on fire and ate it, along with some garlic toast and cottage cheese, at a reasonable dinnertime hour. The nap and the dinner combined to give me a second wind around 11:30 PM, just about the time I wanted to go to bed.

I think I have some normal weekends on the calendar for November. Maybe later.

Jun

I need a miracle, I need a miracle

Posted by Professor Coldheart at 7:00 am

Sleep evaded me this weekend.

I made a long delayed return to 90s Night (warning: MySpace) at Common Ground on Friday. New friends and old showed up – Skim, Rick, MPerrotti, Jen, Cheshirepk8, Paperface, Ryan, Kate, and of course our vigilant DJ (yes, I know I’m forgetting some people – comment if I missed your name / LJ). We kept the slam-dancing drunk Allstonians in a tight knot until a bouncer could come scoop their beer bottles off the floor. I worried that he’d consider us part of their crowd, but Rick made a Bouncer-Dismissing Gesture and we got out okay. I would like to learn that gesture.

Afterward we tromped across the street to Redneck’s, who follow a business model that really should get more play:

Sell fried food; and
Stay open 30-45 minutes after the bars close.

I didn’t have a stomach for cheese fries at the moment, so I sat there while Jen explained the origin of her LJ handle. “What superpowers do you have?” I kept asking.

When Redneck’s kicked us out, the posse degenerated into one of those leaderless mobs where everyone shouts and laughs for ten minutes but nobody actually goes anywhere. The party kept threatening to go to Brookline and continue drinking, but I waved off and returned to Davis Square (which, Skim’s villainous slander notwithstanding, is still the coolest place to be).

I did some grocery shopping early on Saturday. What I thought would be a literal milk run turned into a three-bag trip, including a stop off at a bake sale for Obama on the walk home. I bought a brownie (more out of my love for baked goods than any particular political affiliation) and ate lunch while watching Netflix.

Kristen and her roommate Jeff invited me to their Midsummer’s BBQ just up the road. No one had adhered to the implied theme of dressing up like a faerie, which I considered fortunate. I surprised myself by being sociable at a party largely full of strangers: talking Keynesian economics with Jodi, comparing Maryland stories with Becca’s friend Anna, chatting up Mike and his girl Karen, etc. Two beers that I set down ended up tumbling over, which I blame on the slope of the backyard and not at all on the three that I drank on an empty stomach.

Colby threw another legendary luau later that evening, which I arrived at early enough to get some chicken and birthday cake. Megan and her coworker Renee floated over from the earlier Midsummer’s BBQ, proving that everyone knows someone who can get them into this party. I saw most of the Nebulas‘ set, watched Dea and her friend do firespinning once the sun went down, then hit the dance floor indoors for about 2 hours without break. If you haven’t been to one of these, keep in touch with me around June next year and I’ll bring you along.

Greg had folks over for board games on Sunday. Amy throttled me in a quick round of Battlelore, then I played some folks in EVO before the pizza arrived. I struggled my way through two rounds of Mario Kart Wii – the steering wheel responds better than you think! – and wrapped the afternoon with Pick Picnic and Pandemic (of which more later – it’s really fun).

Hawver had the brilliant idea of getting the old crew back together for burgers and cheap beer at Our House West in Allston, across the street from the Brain Trust. I drove directly there, watched Hawver slaughter his way through a round of Big Buck Hunter, then flagged the waitress down. “When do you start serving dollar burgers?” I asked.

“We … don’t?”

“Oh.” Not only does Our House West no longer serve $1 cheeseburgers on Sunday, I’ll bet no one currently working there remembers that was ever an option. You can’t go home again.

Hawver, Fraley, Melissa and I reminisced on a grand scale, talking about the days when we all first met each other. “We never really talked,” Mel said to Hawver, “because you always fled whenever I came over for gaming.”

“I really could not stand your dice rolling,” Hawver confessed vehemently.

After making fun of Fraley’s musical taste for a while (“Fraley, this is the Clash”), we went our separate ways. I ended back in Davis, where I dropped in on Katie H.’s place to watch the last half of Harry Potter and the Sorceror’s Stone. Never been a huge fan of the series, so the addition of Rifftrax made for a welcome distraction. I laughed myself silly.

I did not end up in bed before 1:00 AM on any night this weekend. This may be a recovery week for me.

May

make sure he a thug and intelligent too

Posted by Professor Coldheart at 9:18 am

Some life lessons, smuggled in the form of weekend anecdotes:

Learn Enough Dance to Dance to Funk / Soul; Everything Else is Wasted. Well, okay, and the bare minimum of dance required to get married in the States. But so few places bust out any sort of swing worth swingin’ to, and salsa can only be found in seedy gin joints with knife artists in sharkskin suits. But if you’re ever in Central Square on a Friday night – like I was for Rachel R’s birthday – stop by the Cantab and listen to Diane Blue and the Fatback Band lay down the oldest and greatest. “Dancing in September,” “Knock on Wood,” and maybe even a little James Brown for you. Really – all you need.

Pick a Party and Stick With It. I left Rachel’s celebration midway through to see if anyone had camped out at 90′s Night in Allston. Had I called ahead I could have saved myself the trip – the cool kids had been crowded out by the BU kids. After waiting in line for a minute and confirming the situation with Matthew, I returned to Cambridge and closed out the night at the Cantab. I probably missed a lot of prime dancing thanks to my indecision and I will regret it until the day I die.

You Build a Surprise Party with 90% Discipline and 10% Innovation. I went to a surprise party with Kym from work on Saturday evening. Kym’s friend Allie had been planning this for about a month and had gone above and beyond to keep everything quiet. But it takes more than just secrecy to get a surprise party going. So, that afternoon, she recruited Kym’s landlord, who called Kym and told her that a burst pipe had flooded her closet. She hurried home and found us waiting.

Never Drink On An Empty Stomach. Seriously! Never! What did you think would happen? And no, two plates of tortilla chips and a bowl of creamy dip do not count! And no, a single slice of a pulled pork quesadilla does not count! How old are you? Have you learned nothing? Seriously! It’s like I can’t even look at you!

(But I had an excellent time at Bukowski regardless, helping Kate G. tick off the last few items on her beer card. If you go into the Inman Square dive and find the Charlotte Perkins Gilman mug off its hook, you’ll know she’s in town)

If You Have Time Alone, Enjoy It. I caught up with Jodi at the Grafton St Pub in Harvard on a cool Sunday afternoon, giving her the chance to vent about dealing with undergrads (apparently, the dumb kids at Harvard are just as dumb as the dumb kids anywhere). After seeing her off, I took the T to Kendall and walked to Kendall Cinema to get tickets for Redbelt. With two and a half hours to kill, I had an early dinner at the Cambridge Brewing Company right around the corner.

The afternoon had hit that “magic hour” that photographers love, when the sun lights everything soft. The red brick of the CBC kept the inside warmer than the outside (low 60s), but the ceiling fans provided a gentle downdraft. Not quite dinner time yet, so I had a quiet corner of the bar to sit and read some Fritz Leiber while a perky bartender brought me a pulled pork sandwich and the house pale. Afterwards I walked two blocks and bought ice cream at a 7-11.

Don’t look too hard for those moments; that never helps. Just stay ready when they arrive.

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