How I Survived An Italian Polka Rave

Wow. Just wow.

My day today was pretty crazy. It started about 9:30 AM. I woke up very late ‘cos I was up until about 3 AM last night (don’t ask). I rolled out of bed, showered, ate some Pop-Tarts, did my devotions, and applied clothing to body. About 10:30 AM, my mother and I left the house.

See, my mother had managed to secure temporary employment for her, some of her friends, me, and some of my friends; at the fair, while (wo?)manning the Nok-Out display, she ran into a fine fellow named Vic. Vic is a food ninja; he and his wife are wedding caterers, and they wanted to know if my mom wanted to help out for $10 an hour, under the table. Of course she accepted the offer.

Well, today was our first gig. There was a wedding reception involving the son of the family who runs Mama Leone’s, a local Italian restaurant.

And when I say “wedding reception,” I mean “Italian polka rave.” (More on this later.)

Here’s how it went down. We got there about 11 AM. I plugged my laptop in to the car’s 12v adapter (via an inverter) and wrote some code for awhile. Then, my laptop’s screen went all wrong. I still dunno what happened or what’s going on, but my screen is seriously messed up. I need to send it in to Acer. Anyhow, later on, I was out in the car. I plugged my laptop in, and the inverter kept beeping violently. I was getting kinda mad. It was getting hot in the van anyway, so I decided to go into the Knights of Columbus hall, where the wedding reception was to take place. As I rolled up the windows, I noticed something alarming... the windows rolled up, yes, but very slowly. It slowly started to dawn on me what had happened.

I put the key in the ignition and gave it a twist. The van barely even turned over. I had managed to kill the battery by having my laptop plugged in.

Fortunately for me, Lynn was scheduled to show up to help later on that afternoon. I got her on the phone and demanded jumper cables. (Okay, maybe I didn't "demand" jumper cables, but I did ask for them.) And wonderful girl that she is, Lynn managed to procure some; around 2 PM, when I started work, Lynn showed up with the cables, and we managed to get the van going again. All was indeed well, for the time being.

At this point, it is probably worth mentioning that the biggest dragonfly I have ever seen has taken up residency in one of the men's bathrooms at the Knights of Colombus hall. I'm dead serious. That thing creeped me right out for the longest time.

The actual "work" part of the job wasn't bad at all. In fact, I liked it. We brought out the hors d'oeuvres around 3 PM. (The bar also opened at 3 PM... I'm dead serious.) The main dinner was served around 6:30 PM. My main role for the evening consisted of being the guy that released tables. Naturally, everyone loved me. :D (Why wouldn't they love me - I was the guy that told them that they could get their food.) The Boss (as in the guy who owns the catering business that I was working for) said that I did a good job at it. Of course, though, my other duties involved activities such as putting glasses through the dishwasher, carrying things to and fro throughout the building (e.g. dishes, clean and dirty), and other things of such nature.

For entertainment purposes, a local band had been employed. Around probably 8 PM, the band was in full force. (By 'band', I mean a pianist/accordion-player, a trumpet player, an electric bass guitar player, and a drummer. A few of the instrumentalists sang, too.) I had really been hoping that they would have hired a DJ to spin some club tunes for later on in the evening, but I had no such luck. No, we're in Gaylord. People around here give you a blank look when you tell them "I produce electronic music - you know, trance, tech house, electro?"; they don't even know what is, so they're not likely to spend any money on someone who spins it for a living.

The band, while certainly talented, could have had better music tastes. They played a little classic rock, of course (seems that most local bands do that kind of thing)... but their main thing that they played that everyone absolutely loved was POLKA.

Yeah. That's right. The dancefloor was filled with a bunch of people sweating it out to polka.

I do not think that italics can adequately express the distaste with which I am saying the word "polka" here.

Now, it's a given that I have eclectic music tastes and that I don't have any right hating on anyone else's thing. If you like polka, that's cool. If you like classic rock, that's fine. (By classic, I really mean "oldies".) But if you had been me, you would have been epic miserable.

I had to work with "The Chicken Dance" B L A R I N G. Seriously! I personally don't like the sound that accordions or trumpets make (sorry, no offense - get mad at my ears if you're gonna get mad). And you know, the drunker people get, the quieter everything seems to them... so they had it cranked waaaaaaaaay up! They banged out polka for a few hours solid, it seemed. Srsly, my ears were sad.

I was in the kitchen a lot during this part of the night, and I didn't have much of a view of the dance^H^H^H^H^Hpolkafloor, but once I chanced to look out, and lo and behold... there were glowsticks everywhere! After thinking about it for a bit, I realized that I wasn't at a wedding reception... I was at an Italian polka rave.

Let the paradoxicality of that statement sink in... Italian polka rave. Under any other circumstances, Italian people, polka, and raving would have absolutely nothing to do with each other. But do you know why they were tied together?

BECAUSE WE ARE IN GAYLORD.

Srsly.

If a rousing rendition of "The Chicken Dance" is when the party really gets rolling, you might be in Gaylord, MI. Either that, or everyone is on some really, really good drugs.

So yeah, I survived the Italian polka rave. We got out of there around midnight, and I am just now finishing this post around 2 AM. Smeh... I need some sleep.

What do you all think? Does Gaylord need more Italian polka raves? Does John need to get to bed every now and then? Should I post more about the weird stuff I do and less about music? Comment, guys, comment!

Oh, and while I'm mentioning music, di.fm has a new tech house channel. It's called Exposure NYC, because apparently, NYC has a huge tech house scene. I've been hoping for a tech house channel on di.fm for awhile now, 'cos to me, electro house is really, really played out. Some of it - like Cherry Lips & Trox's tune White Sky and all its remixes fall under the category "best music you will ever hear." (For what it's worth, I have the entire album; Tim got it for me for my 17th birthday, and I love it very much.) But a ton of it is just buzzy, distorted saw waves and people rapping / singing about doing inappropriate things. Yeah, electro house is good, but only some of it - it's not like trance or synthpop or tech house where I can listen to song after song on streaming internet radio.

Also, my best loved song (and also the first piece of electro house I ever consciously heard) is Tim's remix of "Beyond the Horizon" by Liquifaction + Kossae. I need to post that track so you all can hear its awesomeness. In fact, off the tail end of that rant about tech house vs. electro house, I'm gonna post it, just to show you all what good electro house is supposed to sound like:

Liquifaction+Kossae - Beyond (BigFooT Mix) (Download)


Srsly, the above is a banger. Download, crank it up, break out the glowsticks, and have more fun than you're used to having.

-K