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missjoi and I departed from my residence in Mt. Lebanon shortly after 7:00PM Saturday. We were ready to go and DJ early, so we decided to take advantage of the extra time we had to decorate The Upstage.
Traffic that night was outrageous. I have always hated the driving habits of Pittsburghers coupled with the fact that the condition of the road tends to magnify the inherit dangers of these driving habits. This time, however, the traffic was so bad that we couldn't get over to the lane we needed to be in to take a direct route to Oakland, instead forced to take a roundabout route that forced us around Mt. Washington, through South Side and then finally into Oakland. Joi and I pondered what could be causing all of this traffic when we were suddenly struck by a big, blinding, "Duh!" - it was Valentine's Day and everybody was probably out taking their "sweetie" to someplace romantic (like that's any excuse for causing traffic jams).
We made it to the club around quarter 'til 8:00, CDs and decorations in hand. The door was locked, however we could see through the crack that the light inside was on. Joi banged on the door to try and get someone's attention to let us in. There was no reply. Joi went upstairs to see if anyone was in the office that could let us in. I remained behind, standing guard over our equipment. From inside The Upstage, I thought I heard footsteps shuffling around. Thinking that maybe there was someone in there, I pounded on the door again. Once more, no response came.
Joi returned from the upper level of the building, informing me that no one was about. I told her that I thought I heard someone in there, at which point both of us heard footsteps and shuffling within the room. She pounded on the door once more, with the same results as the previous two times.
"Great," she muttered, "somebody's probably in there just being a jerk."
At that point, the footsteps resumed, followed by a loud thud, as if someone were moving the equipment around. A few moments later, an employee walked in the front door and up the stairs to where Joi and I stood.
"Hey," he said, "you guys are here early - it's not even 8:00 yet."
"Yeah, I know, "Joi replied, "we wanted to get a bit of a head start on things. It sounded like someone was in there, but no one replied when we knocked. We heard footsteps and it sounded like someone was moving equipment around."
"That was probably the ghost," the employee said nonchalantly as he opened the door, revealing The Upstage to be entirely devoid of human life. "Don't tell me you haven't heard about the ghosts here?"
"No, we haven't," both Joi and I intoned, "do tell."
"Well, there are several ghosts in this building [The Strand Theater] and apparently the one on this level is the evil one. A couple of our guys are afraid to be alone in this room during the night."
Satisfied to know that Pittsburgh's longest-running Goth night was haunted, Joi and I set about decorating and preparing the equipment. I got the CD players and boards running while Joi wiped the grime off of the tables and set down the chairs. This we followed by setting out our Bitter Valentines - a series of hearts that were laid out on tables and pasted to the walls which contained phrases such as, "call a 900#" and "Roses are red, violets are blue, go fuck yourself." We finished off decorating by covering every horizontal surface in The Upstage with candy.
The Youth Empowerment Project showed up around quarter 'til 9:00 and set up their outpost of safer-sex in the alcove next to the DJ booth. Joi started browsing through the assortment of coloured condoms and other assorted toys like a little girl in a candy store. I picked up one of the flavoured condoms - vanilla, if I recall - and chuckled a bit while coyly saying, "hmmmmmm...flavoured."
"Indeed," replied one of YEP's representatives unexpectedly, "but those are only supposed to be used orally only. If you use them in any other orifice, it'll cause an infection.
"Uh, thanks," I replied to the very enthusiastic representative, as I returned the condom to its place on the table. I retreated to the DJ booth as the kid in my mind from nearly a decade ago snickered about how he had called Sue Johanson's radio show and won a copy of her book, Sex, Sex and More Sex.
It was 9:00PM. Joi and I stood in the booth, waiting for the doors to open up to the general public. She started off the music with a song by Belly, the doors opened and the dejected black-clad masses began to shuffle in.
As this would be my last time in the DJ booth at Ceremony, I decided to throw format to the wind, as well as any attempts to keep the dance floor at maximum capacity and simply have fun with it. Besides, Bitter Valentines was my theme, something I had done every year I had been at WAIH - I was going to go all the way with this concept musically, as I'd always done.
A lot of people showed up that night, among them, sorrowsmuse (looking very sexy), trhodes, crashzero, bonamoz (whom I briefly played tag with), oneirophrenia, and candyblades (who gave Joi and I valentines). Unfortunately, neither everyday_gray or wenneskittie were anywhere to be found. While I would have liked to have seen them both, they've been having troubled times, which makes it perfectly understandable that they may not want to come out.
The regular stew of random idiots did show up, however. Before I go on, you should be aware that the DJ booth in The Upstage is in a separate room from the dance floor. There is a small open window, surrounded by chain-link fence on either side so that the DJs can look out onto the dance floor. This window is elevated so that it is at eye-level for the DJs, but slightly over the heads of most of the patrons. To discourage people from trying to lean in to make requests (which should always be written down on the request sheet to the side of the booth), Joi and I arranged three candles in the window. People don't seem to fear being set on fire, however. You should also know that the volume level of the music makes it nearly impossible to hear people trying to make requests at this window. These are the people who I abused Saturday night:
Incident #1
Setting: I am standing inside the DJ booth, the other person is outside the booth.GIRL: Hey! Can I make a request?
ME: Yes, write it down on the request sheet.
GIRL: (runs over to the table with the request sheets and then runs back, holding up one of the sheets to the window with her request written upon it in huge letters) Here!
ME: (rolls eyes) That's nice. For future reference, write smaller.
GIRL: (confused) Huh?
JOI: (tersly) Don't waste paper!Incident #2
Setting: Same as above.GUY: Could you play Orgy?
ME: Doubtful.
GUY: Huh?
ME: Write it down on the request sheet.Incident #3
Setting: Ditto.GIRL: Could you play something upbeat?
ME: No, but she might (motions to Joi). [Note: at this point, it was early on in the night, when I usually play downbeat, more atmospheric stuff. Joi had opened the night with a slew of upbeat songs.]
GIRL: (looks expectantly at Joi)
JOI: (glares at me)
Despite the idiots mentioned in the above three incidents, Joi and I got a lot of positive feedback over the course of the night. According to the door-tally, 211 people showed up at Ceremony for this year's Bitter Valentines. That's pretty fucking good! Throughout the night, the dance floor was pretty much packed, even for the downbeat songs. Joi and I left the club generally upbeat.
Yesterday was less of a pleasant adventure. We decided to go for a drive to "air the stink off," as it were. For a while, this seemed like a good idea. As we took to the highway downtown, there was little traffic at all - it was actually kind of creepy. Once we passed Oakland, however, traffic slowed to a standstill. It was as if cars had dropped from the heavens onto the road only to block the path. We had intended to go past the suburbs into the countryside just to look at the scenery, however, this would have taken well over an hour at this pace.
Joi decided to exit after the Squirrel Hill Tunnels. While we had been crawling through the tunnels, somebody had been leaning on their horn and revving their engine. Once we emerged from the tunnels, we heard the same horn right behind us. A quick glance in the rear-view mirror revealed a cheap two-door clunker tailgating us to the point that, had a quick stop been in order, we would've surely been hit. We got into the exit lane to make a turn in one direction and the clunker moved into the other. Miffed and thinking that we were dealing with the typical asshole Pittsburgh driver, we nonchalantly flipped them off.
Past out middle fingers, we suddenly realised that a grave mistake had been made. Inside the clunker were two young, very angry-look black men who were now pointing back at us and exchanging quick glances with each other. The light we sat at turned green and we turned one direction as the clunker turned in the other. We checked the mirrors to make sure they hadn't decided to make a hasty U-turn and follow us. It seemed that the coast was clear as an SUV took the clunker's place on our rear bumper.
We took another turn, barely breathing a sigh of relief before seeing the same clunker with the same angry black men at the intersection of a side street. We passed them by and they immediately pulled out and took up a place behind us, nearly touching our bumper. Joi took another turn, in an attempt to shake them. They followed us. I pulled out my cell phone and dialled 911. The phone rang a couple of times and I was then connected to the police on the other side. I told them that we were being tailed by an aggressive driver, which streets we were on and which neighbourhood we were in. Joi took another turn and the clunker broke off its pursuit. I then told the police that they had stopped following us. I was informed that we could go down to the station and file a complaint if we wished, however it would take a while as the police were very tied up that day. I thanked the officer and apologised for using up his time as the situation had effectively dispelled itself.
Joi and I decided to get the hell out of dodge, heading out of the run-down neighbourhood we found ourselves in towards the more comfortable communes of the South Side, Mt. Lebanon and Greentree. For a while, we were both checking the mirrors to see if we had indeed giving our pursuers "the slip." Thankfully, we didn't see then again.
Upon reflection, we definitely should not have flipped them off. Certain people have a way of overreacting to such things and way too much time on their hands. I'm not certain if our pursuers had "kill whitey" or "let's just fuck with them a bit" on their minds, but in either case they weren't planning on inviting us out for ice cream. I am pretty certain that they broke off their pursuit because I pulled out my cell phone. I imagine that the exchange in the car went something like, "shit! They're calling the cops," which would have been accurate. I probably could have just pulled the cell phone out and not doing a thing, gotten the same results.
Joi and I ended up going to the Starbucks in Greentree, where no one was desperately impoverished and bitter. Afterwards, there was a nice uneventful shopping trip at the Giant Eagle in Robinson Township. There had been enough adventures for the day.
Tonight: Joi and I are going to see Henry Rollins! Stay tuned...
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no subject
Date: 2004-02-16 01:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-02-16 01:44 pm (UTC)BTW, I've been followed/fucked with THREE times since I moved here. The last time it happened, I was on my way home from Robinson really late on a Saturday night. It was insane. Atleast you have a cell phone though. I don't. :/
no subject
Date: 2004-02-16 06:28 pm (UTC)no subject
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