Friday before last I was itching for something to do after work, and upon prompting Steve along such lines, he suggested attending a Bohemian carnival up in the city. This sounded like an interesting idea, though I had no real idea what a Bohemian carnival was. Wikipedia filled me in on what Bohemian supposedly meant in classical terms, though I think such usage is antiquated. At least, in this case it was. While Bohemian is supposed to encompass artistic, unconventional, original people, that most of the people there were dressed either as clowns, their underwear, and/or 1940’s stereotypes, made it seem to me more about being a simple anachronism more than anything else. Sure, dressing up as a clown is somewhat unconventional in the grand scheme of things, but doesn’t anyone notice when everyone else does the same thing?
Anyway, that critical analysis aside, the meta recursed, what was this carnival? It was a variety of acts, at an otherwise nondescript place called the DNA Lounge, hiding in the industrial area around Best Buy, near 101. I would never have found it if I hadn’t been looking for it; it’s not the kind of area you’d expect night life in. Apart from rats, maybe.
The acts included miscellaneous dancing, a rambunctious singing clown troop, a pseudo-chorus-line dance troop, pole dancing, beat-boxing, sword dancing… acrobatics on hoops, up in the air… acrobatics with the two lengths of material, whatever that’s called… much the kind of stuff you’d find in a circus, or a somewhat morbid and satirical Cirque de Soleil. Or however it’s spelt.
It was quite entertaining, in any case. And now it gives me a label to apply to Damien, Anton, Jon, and so forth; I don’t know if they’d accept it, and it’s not a perfect fit, but it’s more accurate than “odd”, which was the reigning term prior. ;)
There was plenty of entertainment all round. Some of it came from Steve directly; e.g. when it was announced the pole dancing would be up next, he made a bee-line for front centre-stage, which the dude playing announcer aptly noticed, and gave him playful grief about afterwards, dubbing him “strip club guy”. :D
There were two girls there, in the audience, whom had on [presumably ;) ] fake moustaches. At one point they were making out for a while, which Steve turned around and looked at, laughed, looked at me looking at him seeing what he was seeing, laughed some more, then begrudgingly diverted his attention back to the stage. When talking about it afterwards, he was apparently completely unaware they were making out; he insists he laughed only at the moustaches. I guess it’s hard to appreciate the humour without having been in the moment, but, it’s just so unbelievable to me that he couldn’t have noticed. :)
Anyway, yes, it was quite weird by normal standards, but then it wasn’t anything I hadn’t seen or lived with before, so, … I guess it was nostalgic, a little, though also the fact that I would inevitably leave and go home to somewhere completely elsewhere, where none of these people would be, allowed me a much more accepting perspective than had been available back living with Damien & Co.
It was also I suppose the latest night I’ve had in a long while; we left about 2:30am or so. I felt crap for the rest of the weekend though, as a result; the usual dehydration, exhaustion, and over sleeping…
Urgh, sometimes I really hate my stupid iPhone. Objectively it’s very, very good – but it’s those precious few imperfections which, by their very being as imperfections in something so close to perfect, ’cause so much frustration.
So, Saturday I apparently slept through the alarm. I’ve never done that before (the phone alarm). I’m not entirely convinced… it’s possible, but I think the volume was down low for some reason. I’ve never quite understood how volume is controlled on the damn thing; it’s not the same as on a computer… anyway, whatever, okay, it happens. But then Sunday, the alarm didn’t go off at all because of a bug in the Clock app which caused the alarm to be set for AM instead of PM. I hate that. It’s such a stupid bug.
It appears that oversleeping is my primary enemy, which is a sad irony, given my other current enemy of health is lack of sleep, thanks to Francisco’s penchant for watching weird TV shows, and listening to music composed entirely of bass drums, from midnight to 3am…
