Culture Shock on a Saturday Night

Saturday night, I hit the town with a bright blue bandaid on my forehead.

First Stop - Reading at Venus Envy

Apparently some sour blogger out there has referred to Megan Butcher as a "sex fiend". Megan seems pleased by this and says she plans to get a t-shirt proclaiming it. (Apparently this blogger said something about Jennifer Whiteford liking children and small animals, but it didn't seem as likely that she'll be getting a t-shirt to advertise this.)

Megan gave a powerful reading, I managed to draw a picture that doesn't look much like her. Her reading was too short for me to try for another one that looked more like her.

"I don't normally write about sex, because, uh" said Jennifer before she read us the story of a teenage girl losing her virginity, "I'm a prude."

Given her apparent comfort reading aloud while in front of a display that contained bondage restraints, dildo harnesses and DVDs with titles like Spank Me; Jennifer's definition of "prude" is more inclusive than my definition might be.

I'm afraid I have no picture of Jennifer, because I just couldn't get anything remotely like her. I'm blaming my pen. I need just the right pen to draw pretty women.

I also failed with Jesse Dangerously. I'm not blaming the pen for my failure with him, I'm blaming him. He moved around too much for me to get one angle very long and he talks so fast when he's rapping that I had to put down my drawing stuff and focus all my attention on him to catch anything he said. Jesse is really likable and I liked his stuff even though I'm not into rap. I do have to admit though that listening so intently got tiring after forty-five minutes or so.

Getting back to the blue bandaid, I got some nice smiles from the people at Venus Envy.

Second Stop - Barrymores

The Million Dollar Marxists are really good at what they do. What they do is very loud and with a fast, hard-edged drum beat. Not really what my companions were into. "I'm glad I paid your cover charges," I said to them.

"So are we," they replied.

As for the bandaid, nobody at Barrymores seemed to even notice it.

Third Stop - the Lone Star

I don't get out to the St. Laurent Lone Star very often. I don't know what it's like every night, but I can report that although I saw lots of cowboy hats, I saw no line dancing this Saturday.

They had a band I really enjoyed (although I think their name, Table 69, is stupid.). All sorts of great '80s hits, like the Romantics - What I Like About You. Exactly the stuff I like to dance to. When the band took a break, the dj played the same dance music you'd hear on Elgin at Maxwell's or in Benalmadena, Spain at the Marina Beach disco.

In short, if you don't mind driving to the boonies, not a bad place to go to hear music you can dance to. However, don't wear a blue bandaid on your forehead. People openly stared. Several asked "what's that?"

"It's a bandaid," I replied (although technically it's a generic brand "adhesive bandage".) Many of the people who stared scowled when they realized what it was. Because half of these people were large men who seemed generally unhappy with the way their evenings were going (or something else, I don't know... life in general? the demise of line-dancing?... any guesses?), it felt like it might get ugly.

I checked with my companions and determined that my yellow belt in judo from grade six was the highest martial arts qualification we possessed between us. I pointed out the nearest exit. "That's the direction to head for. You run. I'll pull off the bandage, show them the stitches, and do my best to slow them down."

But I'm not going to go back to "flesh" coloured bandaids. It's not the most important battle out there, but you have to take a stand against racism when you can.

Links:

• Megan's blog and post that mentions me creating the drawing shown here
• Jennifer's blog and post that talks about the reading and is more favourable about the MDMs
• Jesse Dangerously
• Million Dollar Marxists
• the Lone Star - (never mind, their web site irritates me)
• the Romantics - What I Like About You