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DANGER
October, 1995
Just goes to show the danger of making
pronouncements about your future.
Around the time that that particular
girl friend went off on her trip
around Asia, things were looking
weird -- and six months later I wound
up with a different girl friend. This is a switch that
I still manage to feel
guilty about now and
then, despite the fact
that it'd be real easy
to blame everything on
(a) circumstance or
(b) someone else.
For me, the change seems like
a definite improvement in a lot
of ways, though I wouldn't have
believed that was possible a few
months previously.
What follows here is a long
"How We Met" story, which I would skip
entirely except that some people think
it's interesting...
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
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:
(the Dark Circle was doing Raven.
a three day long
anniversary special). And no, she's not any of
those Raven's that you're
thinking of.
I could keep rolling on this story...
The conversation has
continued in 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..."
But I had no sense that she
felt this way at all.
I'm not sure that I believe that
she really did feel this way, though
it's awkward in the extreme for me
to doubt her own account of her own
experience...
It could be that the reason I don't
believe it is that I don't want to
believe that she could fool me that
completely with a "casual" attitude
that was all an act.
What I tend to suspect,
though, is that she's
mildly embarrassed by the
bare facts of the events.
"I met this guy one
night in a bar."
Instead she prefers an account
that's closer to what you might
find in a romance novel: she
wasn't really interested in
meeting anyone, but then she
was suddenly swept off her feet
by my amazing charm. My
undeniable nice-guy-ness?
My seductive ability?
And there are other occasions
when she tells the story
that she makes it sound more
like she knew what she wanted
all along and was doing her
best to lead me into the
situation.
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