I Watched You Change...Fat Tony

After a long day of endless blog browsing and sporadic mouse clicking on anything resembling a 'play button', (blame the irresistible nature of MyFaceTube and a thing for anything less mundane than work/school) a young Houstonian like myself yearns for a place to unwind. In this city of millions, I'm sure we've all been there. Long day sorting TPS report cover sheets at the office? A barrage of orders at your drive-thru work space? Just three too many total customers crowding your register at the local record shop CD cemetary? (Ya know.. if you wear earplugs to the job, the iPods in Apple store window across the street mocking your profession won't be so loud OR menacing!)

It's okay, my friends. I feel your pain.

The coffee houses grow more crowded and pretentious as the sun sets west, the nearest restaurants are too pricey and after months of regular consumption, I'm thinking "eh.. not tonight." Plus a trip to parade around the beer stained streets of Austin on a Monday night just doesn't seem practical (...this week). I seek a night of carousing, cheap drink specials, and loud music emitting from a inefficiently EQ'ed sound system. If I don't end up boogie-woogieing past empty Lone Star bottles by 1:00am, there is a problem!

After a long evening of indecisiveness, befuddled speculation, and a thousand sent text messages to various friends popping the big question, "is there ANYTHING interesting, inexpensive, and slightly enjoyable for me to do in this city?!" I tend to settle my moon-lit entertainment desires on one place: "the blub." It's definitely a bar... yet not exactly a club (though it tries it's best (A for effort?)). Think of it as a pre-teen club going through its self discovery phase.

I decide to head out to the neighborhood blub for a night of old ass Hip Hop songs and hipster'd out dance music laptop remixes, re-edits, and re-re's. Boy, the irony of breakbeats undercutting cheesy 90's pop songs sure does get me cutting a rug every time! After an hour of socializing with the bar's patrons as we all stand around looking awkward and bored, I knew I needed another drink. I was aiming for a good time, but all the cheap drinks and cute girls in the world just can't help me bring' it back to '94 and keep keepin' it real enough on a night like this. Nor do I have enough American Apparel in my closet to get down with the 3 drunk weirdos who soak up every cocaine fueled dance step.

I fantasize about a day where Hip Hop DJs fill my nights with delightful sounds of good danceable rap music that's post 1996. A day where electro, house, and other programmed dance tracks get Mash-Up-ized for the sake of good music instead of corny irony. I seek fun. I desire a room of happy, dancing folks. I wish to not end up at Chapultepec at 3 in the morning wasted over a dinner plate with memories of an uneventful night dancing in my head.

But... maybe I ask for too much.

And this is why leisure learning night courses stay in business.