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DANGER
October 1995
Rev: ?
Rev: December 15, 2022
It's always dangerous making pronouncements about your future.
A tale of the unexpect (a long "How We Met" story):
DANGERBABY
I had just quit doing a regular radio
show as a DJ at KZSU (the Stanford
radio station), so I suddenly had time
to go and see a lot of live music (and
a greatly expanded set of ears with
which to listen to it)...
I rode the train up from Palo Alto to
San Francisco one Tuesday night to go
to a Splatter Trio show down in SoMa.
I had a lot of time to kill, and I
needed some food, so for no particular
reason I hiked all the way to North
Beach, and ate at some random italian
cafe on Columbus. I then went over to
the Cafe Trieste for coffee.
There was a woman sitting in the back
in the corner that I normally sit in,
and I thought about squeezing in near
her, but I figured that would just
make her all paranoid, so I sat down
at a table in the middle of the room.
I sat down with my back to her. That
was a policy I'd adopted recently:
always sit with your back to beautiful
women. If you don't do that you're
always fighting your impulse to stare
at them, and it's typically just
really embarrassing.
BACKING_IN
At this point, as I learned later, she was checking me out.
She thought I looked a little like an old friend of hers--
who used to be a DJ at KZSU.
She got up and went to the bathroom so she
could see me from all sides (by this time I
was busy writing something in a small
notebook, and I didn't see her doing this).
She says that she was actually thinking about
asking me if I wanted to go with her to hear
this band she was interested in, but she gave
up on the idea, thinking things like "oh, no
one wants to hear that kind of music."
When I got up to leave, to head over
to the Hotel Utah, I noticed that she
had left already.
Over in the Hotel Utah (a funky bar with
a really oddly shaped performance space
stuck on the side of it... a great place,
typically used by beginning punk bands,
but on Tuedays it was the avant-weird
"Dark Circle Lounge" series, that night
featuring the Splatter Trio.
I noticed an interesting woman hanging
around... I was trying to figure out
if she was alone, and then I saw her
over by the bar talking to some people.
I stuck in a set of neon green foam earplugs,
and felt self-conscious enough about it to
let my hair down to hide them. This helped
to make a confusing environment a little more
confusing by blocking some of my peripheral
vision, but as I was walking by I thought I
caught a glimpse of her smiling at me. Later
I was up in the balcony watching the Splatter
Trio go at it, and she came over and stood
next to me.
Really this was the Splatter Trio plus two
(with Graham Connah on keyboards and Dan
Plonsey on second sax), but the drummer
really stole the show for me... when the
band started playing, he was still setting
up, just casually walking around with a drum
under his arm, tapping on it occasionally,
sometimes banging on the part of the drum
kit that was set up already, then looking
around for some high hats to attach to
it... he would drop things sometimes, but he
always seemed completely relaxed and
unconcerned about it, because after all,
dropping things made noise too.
When the performance was
over, I seized on the
obvious opening line and LINES
asked the woman next to me
"Do you know the name of the
drummer in the Splatter
Trio?" She didn't, but she The name of the drummer in the
did name Graham Connah for Splatter Trio, is of course,
me, and I pointed out Dan Gino Robair.
Plonsey to her, and in
general it seemed like an How is it that I'd never
instant *click* to me, we heard of him before?
just shifted into talking to
each other without any Actually I had...
awkwardness.
Gino Robair of Rastascan Records,
She said "you were at the Gino Robair organizer of the Dark
Cafe Trieste earlier, but Circle Lounge,
you had your hair up" and I Gino Robair who had performed live
suddenly figured out what on KZSU with Mandible Chatter...
you have no doubt guessed by Somehow I'd never connected him
now, that this was the woman with the Splatter Trio.
I noticed sitting in "my
corner" of the Trieste. We It often strikes me that
also talked about the KZSU I'm walking through life
connection a little bit, and backwards...
she mentioned that there was
another KZSU DJ at this show WALKING_BACKWARDS
that I hadn't noticed: she
pointed out Stefan to me.
(Stefan came over and said in a
very amused tone of voice
"Doom and Raven...").
We set up a date to meet And yeah, that's the
again there the next night... name she goes by: Raven.
(the Dark Circle was doing
a three day long And no, she's not any of
anniversary special). those Ravens that you're
thinking of.
I could keep rolling on this story... (On the goth scene, Raven
was a *really* common handle
The conversation has continued in in the early 90s.)
one form or another for years
now, and doesn't look like it's
going to stop.
We've got no major problems, and
barely any minor problems.
If I were someone else watching the
two of us, I suspect I would find us
pretty nauseating, but many people
seem to regard us as the Ideal
Couple (comments like "you give us
hope" are not at all unusual).
Now, when Raven tells her side of
this story, she puts a lot of emphasis
on her great uncertainty in this
situation, and a general feeling of
"what am I doing diving into a
relationship with this guy? I was
busy staying away from men..."
She tells a story of reluctance-overcome-
by-charm or something like that, but
I don't really know what to make of that.
Didn't seem that way to me... and I'd
say it was a bit more complicated than that.
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