Pop Culture Slave

I worked on Secco's testosterone levels, I watched a film on cross-dressing and I heard Beatles' songs sung in Japanese. And I did it all in just seven hours. Not bad for an evening's play.

My friend Andrew had suggested meeting for a drink and left the destination up to me. Since my plans afterwards were at the VMFA, Carytown seemed the logical place to rendezvous. I chose Secco because there always seem to be more women than men there and since for a change I'd be with a Y chromosome, here was my chance to help improve the view for all those winey women.

Andrew is a beer drinker who decided to drink wine tonight for fear, he said, that I'd give him crap about drinking beer in a wine bar. Not so, I assured him, but he broadened his horizons anyway. We shared a far more adventurous cheese plate than I knew he was capable of(quadrelle, montenebro, gorgonzola dolce) while catching up on each other's stories. We about balanced out this time: he'd been unexpectedly serenaded by zoot suits and drag queens; I'd been audaciously propositioned. We called it a draw.

We'd gotten so long-winded that we ended up tossing back our second glasses so I could make a movie screening at the museum. And not just any movie, but the highest grossing comedy of all time. One banned in Kansas because decent people didn't want to see cross-dressing.

1959's Some Like It Hot was yet another classic I'd never seen. Even better than the characters for me were the locations: the sleeping cars on the train, the Florida beach hotel, the millionaire's yacht.

I knew so little about the film that I was unprepared for how much of it was a gangster film. Nor did I know that it was Tony Curtis who ended up with Marilyn Monroe. But it was those two who provided my favorite exchange:

It's not how long you wait. It's who you're waiting for.
Him: I'm afraid it may take a little longer.
Her: It's not how long it takes. It's who's taking you.

Now there's some wisdom passing for banter. I second every innuendo in those lines.

After getting my friend fix and my cultural dose, I went to Balliceaux because they were having a DJ play 1960s Asian pop music, a genre I'd never given a moment's thought to. But what could be better on a Friday night?

The evening got off to a fine start when I walked up to the door. Two guys were sitting outside having a smoke and said hi. One said "That's a great dress on you." The top is bright red, so I said, "Oh, you mean the color?" and the other guy said, "No, the whole thing." If they were the welcoming committee, they were doing a superb job, I gotta tell you.

I started at the front bar with some Billy Bi soup (black mussels, saffron, cream), essentially shelled mussels in a decadent broth. I enhanced it by tossing in hunks of Billy bread for maximum broth soppage. It was just what I needed after wine and a movie.

My favorite Balliceaux bartender Austin came up behind me just as I was done eating to let me know that he was working the back bar ("the cool bar tonight," he assured me), so I closed my tab and carried my Tres Generations to a location closer to him (he wanted to discuss the new Arcade Fire with me) and the Asian pop.

It was so much fun; they were even showing clips from the 60s of Asian girls dancing and Asian boys playing in bands. And the music! Clearly the Beatles effect rippled through the East because I heard Japanese covers of "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da," "Run for Your Life" and a bunch of others. Just as much fun were the heavily accented covers of American songs (Bee Gees anyone?). It didn't take long for people to start dancing.

I saw loads of friends and people I knew tonight, a lot more than I expected. Like me, they were intrigued by the possibilities of an obscure genre.

I met a guy from Church Hill when he came to the bar for a drink refill and started chatting me up. We talked about late nights at Balliceaux, city living, restaurants and, of course, music. Despite differences in our music taste and ages, he suggested meeting up for dinner at Black Sheep for more music talk or maybe a show. This is always the part of the evening where it gets awkward.

When you tell people you're not dating, they want to know why not. When you're just out for some Asian pop, you don't want to share your personal business, nor do you want to be rude. I wish it were easier to accept an offer of friendship while making it clear that more than that is not a possibility. Why can't I figure out how to do this?

To quote the final line of Some Like It Hot, "Nobody's perfect." (insert shrug) Least of all me.

A Southern Bedtime

Friend: So where are you off to after this?
Me: Not sure. A bartender friend invited me to come by and visit. And there's music at Balliceaux tonight. But I'm thinking of going home and just reading a book and going to bed.
Friend: Who are you and what have you done with Karen?

I met up with a Secco virgin tonight to introduce her to the wine bar's combination of extremely reasonable prices and offbeat small plates (not to mention killer music when the "Karen mix" is being played...so that you know). We met early at 5:00 and it was a a bit of a shock to walk in and find only one table occupied. There was an air of calm about the place, but I knew it wouldn't last and it didn't.

Another Secco virgin arrived and acknowledged to my companion that it was her first time, too. "We'll go through this together," she reassured my friend. Neither of them had anything to worry about; it's a simple enough process to absorb. We began by tasting a few wines until we found a Spaniard for her and an Italian for me.

A nearby bar sitter solved the perennial question of what to order by starting with a glass of white and a glass of red. He was obviously a smart guy (if a bit conventional looking for my taste) because he'd already been by 8 1/2 and picked up an Italian sub for afterwards; he'd wanted the pork, but it was sold out, which we all know happens.

He mentioned that he'd gotten a bit tired of finding Billy Bread in so many restaurants around town, but that it still made the best sub rolls and I tend to agree on both counts. I also started wishing that I had an Italian sub waiting for me.

Since it was my friend's first time, it was imperative that she experience curd nerd Sarah's skill at cheese selection. With only "Make it stinky" to guide her, Sarah handed us a plate with Montenebro, Valdeon and a barnyard-stinky soft Meunster for our eating pleasure. In typical cheese whiz fashion, she had delivered the stinkiest possible cow, goat and cow/goat cheese she had. Thoughts of Italian cold cuts began to recede.

Life had been particularly colorful for both of us since our last meet up, in both positive and negative ways, so we each told tales as we whittled down the stinkiness and ordered more wine. It was as the wine was winding us down that we had a version of the conversation above about my post-Secco plans.

The interesting part of her reaction is that I have not always been a late night person. Before the trifecta of major life events I experienced in a six-week period last year, I was devoted to an early and regular bedtime, usually in the 10:00 range during the week.

It's nothing like that anymore. My bedtime reliably comes in after midnight now and frequently much later. And the fact is, the last four nights have all been post 2 a.m, which is not as uncommon as it should be. Which is why I was thinking of ending on a low-key note tonight.

So I came home and took my book to the back porch to read until it got too dark. The big vase of gardenias on the table next to my rocking chair was so incredibly fragrant, though, that they set my mind to wandering. Certain flower scents have always had the ability to summon up feelings in me (just a whiff of lilacs and I'm convinced that big love is possible) and the vintage smell of gardenias was working its magic.

So I moved them to my bedside. If I'm going to have a semi-reasonable bedtime tonight, I think it might be lovely to fall asleep to such a heady scent and see what kind of dreams it evokes.

If I weren't such a Northerner, I might think that that was a positively Southern thing to do. I'll see what I dream about and then make that call.