Saturday, June 5, 2010
House chores: bathroom cleaning, removed 4 flies with the spider catcher. From where did they all come? Breakfast at home: organic, free range, 2-egg omelette with oyster mushrooms, spinach, mushrooms; leftover Phil's grilled potatoes with sundried tomatoes and capers - yum! Dessert: chocolate covered rice krispie treat. Removed 3 more flies. Drink: 7 ounces of non-alcoholic ginger beer. Errands: shoe shop, post office, drug store, Kingdom of Dumpling. Snack: a bowl of black cherry chocolate chip lowfat frozen yogurt. Removed another fly. Midafternoon meal: salad. Disco nap. New Wave City at DNA Lounge with Emery. Skip and Shindog played the main room. In the lounge: Lowlife and Michael Charming. I convinced Emery to check out this night because we were tired of hearing the same set of about 120 songs Mondays at Trigger's 80s night called Testarossa 80s (Don Lynch). New Wave City (which I will heretofore abbreviate as NWC) was an OK time, but it was frustrating because it still wasn't the great 80s experience I was seeking. Both 80s nights have really good things and pretty bad things about them. Each NWC night has a theme—tonight was The Smiths. The visuals at NWC were videos but these videos were not the same as the music coming out of the speakers. So, for example, Chrissie Hynde's voice came out of the speakers but on the screen I saw Morrissey singing in concert. Morrissey seemingly channeling Chrissie Hynde was very disconcerting to me, and I had to look away from the screen. It would have been better for NWC to use stills if not live video mixing of the song that was playing. A lot of the main floor music at NWC was good for listening but not exactly music that got you on your feet to dance. I can play good-for-listening 80s songs at home; I go to the club because I don't have space for a dance party at home; I want to dance. The lounge played dancier music, so we spent most of our time there. It was great to hear more 80s songs than we had been hearing at Testarossa. The lounge dance floor had a better vibe from the crowd probably due to the dancier music, but I still missed Don Lynch's fun technique of cutting out the music at key points during songs to let the crowd sing or react. There were several opportunities to do this while we danced, but the DJ did not take them. There was no mixing of tunes in the lounge—only a crossfade lasting a few seconds, requiring essentially no DJ talent. iTunes can do this automatically—why did they hire a human to play the lounge? On both floors the DJs seemed to play only radio tracks—no remixes, no extended remixes. Full songs were played, and to me that's worth it only if you're getting something other than a radio mix. I prefer the fast, short mixes that Don Lynch did at Testarossa. To their credit, both NWC floors did avoid playing only the biggest hits and included some of the more obscure smaller hits—Don Lynch, are you reading this? (But I have yet to hear an Oingo Boingo song at an 80s dance night in San Francisco. Where is the justice?) The crowd was about only 5% gay and lesbian but otherwise pretty diverse. I didn't see very many good dancers. Women were better dressed than men overall. It seems to me that straight mens fashion has fallen into a rut out of which it cannot pull itself, and because of that I feel so sorry for straight women, especially those that are single. Crowd was polite and orderly except for one woman who kept backing into me and Emery on the lounge floor. It was unclear to me why and in what state of mind she was—we later guessed that she was rudely and aggressively taking floor space. After a few minutes I just gave up negotiating with her, stopped dancing, and left the floor. We danced for a bit on the main floor, and then I was wanting to leave because I had found out what I needed to know. Conclusion: If Don Lynch is still playing Testarossa 80s on Mondays at Trigger, that's a better time than NWC if you haven't been to Testarossa 80s more than twice already, and this is true no matter if you are straight or gay or somewhere in between. His live video mixing is top-notch and fun to watch. You can tell he enjoys pleasing the crowd and building a good vibe. If only he diversified his small playlist I would keep coming back. NWC is better for you if you're straight, not much of a dancer, or don't already have a lot of 80s tunes to listen to at home. After NWC Emery got a hoodie from home and drove us to the Castro where we met up with Empress and Andy at Trigger, and we enjoyed ourselves a few hours. At my request, Sneeper recommended that I drink a tequila sunrise; I liked the taste but it didn't seem to be as effective as other drinks I've had. Rode the L-Owl for the first time, met Joanne, Gabby (Gabrielle), and a gay guy (whose name I didn't get) who owned cute pitbulls. Joanne, Gabby, and I missed our stop and walked back from 28th, noticing a dead raccoon at 27th which I reported to @sf311. Muni's L-Owl actually worked for me—I hadn't expected it to, but it did. Met China/Anthony on 26th. Home. Late snack: leftover spanish rice.