The Oracle of Apollo
Snippets from the life of Apollo Lee

So, Kai finally got his new place, a beautiful condo in Albany (north of Berkeley, right on the Contra Costa county line) and he required assistance to move some items from one room to the next. So, for the princely sum of a good meal at an Ethiopian restaurant, I agreed.

I showed up at his place in the afternoon, and we had some grub immediately. Then, he showed me his new palace. The furniture? Some large mirrored furniture, which his soon-to-be-stepdaughter gets. After a bit of grunting and groaning, lifting and dropping, the job was done. It was a good workout. And, it was cool to help my boy out. At the risk of sounding like a male-bonding beer commercial, that’s what it’s all about, my friends.

Simon DK of DIY, newly relocated to San Francisco, spun at Staple. First order of business when I get some money: get whatever Simon DK CDs are available. His deep UK house sound was incredibly beautiful, both mellow and energetic—a sort of abstract, aloof funkiness that comes seeping in quietly and quickly inundates everyone and everything. Wow. I could scarcely believe my ears.

Many of the regulars were there, Dana and her sister, Erin (as usual, behind the camera). I hadn’t officially met Erin before. I gave her and Josh’s Kirby-vacuum lamps a ride home. The tightly-knit group of people that put on, spin at, and decorate Staple are one big family, apparently. Might be cool to hang out with them sometime away from a room with a large disco ball.

Danced with many pretty people. Particularly Maggie and her friends. Maggie recommended 111 Minna on Wednesday eves. I shall have to check that out soon. Of course Patrick, Gigi, Nicholas, and Patrick’s visiting Vancouver friends were in attendance. A great night of superlative music and an incredible vibe. Can’t wait for next Saturday.

This week’s dental work leaves me broke for a while. I’m pretty sure I’m overdrawn until payday. Good thing I pulled some cash out yesterday. Figured I’d stop and just look at people on Castro Street in downtown Mountain View, because I was feeling pretty alienated from everything and just wanted to look at some people. Ended up in a conversation with a theater boy named Tony and his girls, Angie and Rochelle (or something), who all work for some gym. Angie looked at my soft mid-section and demanded that I go into her gym so I can get started on a program. We’ll see.

One girl came up, stood next to me and asked, for some reason, “How come everyone has to look at me when I’m walking around? I mean, really.” I laughed, pointed out some fat guy sitting a distance away. “You’re friendlier on the eyes than him,” I told her. “You’re beautiful. Accept the fact that you’re going to get looked at.” She was cute, a tall brunette, but her whole valley girl accent and attitude disgusted me. I turned away. Ick. Some people’s kids.

Finally, I got my crowns today, at $750 a pop. Two molars on the right side will allow me to stop jawing everything on the left. I get to forever lose the plastic temporary crowns and get into some porcelain.

Of course, when I got to the dentist, she removed the temporary crown pretty easily, primarily because it had come off last week and I chewed it back down—making it stay put on the dental glue holding it in place. She started to scrape the glue off the top of the remaining molars with a pick. Eeew…tasted pretty much like I was chewing tin foil.

After the drugs, there was alot of sanding, polishing, and trimming. Finally, I walked out of the dentist with two new molars and two months to eat top ramen while the four checks I wrote to cover them clear. After that, a root canal on the top right, and I should be good to go. That one’s going to suck, so I’m going to put it off until after the new year, when my dental plan renews itself. That’ll take a pretty little dent out of the $900 root canal and $750 crown. If I can get away with only paying for half that, I’ll be a happy little camper.

But, now, I can go enjoy a Togo’s sandwich again, for the first time in quite a while. Nothing sucks worse than attempting to eat a big submarine sandwich, but you can only chew on one side.

I couldn’t really see any possible way I could miss Rick Preston and Spun on four turntables at Staple. Aside from the fact that the music couldn’t help but be incredible, Kai informed me that he was coming out to Staple, sans Marina.

I didn’t find him immediately, but I went upstairs to look, and found Patrick and Gigi, to whom I ended up talking until I spotted Kai, at nearly midnight, so I missed John Michael’s set. I have friends who like to talk my ears off until I finally just said, “It’s time for me to get on the dancefloor.” I had been at the club for an hour and a half and hadn’t set foot on the dancefloor.

Rick Preston and Spun were definitely spinning off each other, brewing up a tech-house set that had the dancefloor in a frenzy until the lights came on. I was handicapped early by low energy, soreness in my hamstring, and having stepped out of my circle to make way for guys attempting to breakdance. But, by the end of the night, I was soaked through, having been up on the stagelet for half an hour, dancing with Christina and Angie, two extraordinarily delectable beauties.

Afterwards, Kai and I (along with his coworkers, Kevin and Rich) headed over to Mel’s on Van Ness, ate overpriced food served by an incredibly snotty waitress, and headed back toward the SOMA to drop people off at their cars. The most impressive part was that Kai was out until 5.

For the first time in nearly a month, I headed out to Into the Sound, where I found a listen.com party. The cover was ten bucks, to benefit Horizons Unlimited, an organization seeking to teach mission district youth to spin and “work for positive change in their community.” I asked who was playing at the door. “Astral Matrix.” Since I know him from Spacebar, I decided to stick around.

The music was cool, although a little faster BPM-wise than I’m used to at the Rawhide. Astral Matrix got on his synths and played a very nice trance set of his original work for an hour, which simply kicked ass. The very analoguish bass lines and acidic synths drove the music, which created quite a frenzy on the dancefloor. After his set, a Detroit techno guy spun for the rest of the night.

It was cool to meet Andrew, who threatened to introduce me to Booty and other Spacebar people. The only down part about the evening was my invisibility. Mugs love to shove violently through people, particularly those of us who look Republican. While I’m most certainly not one, I look it and I felt like I was taking alot of punishment in a crowd with more bad attitude than the one we usually have at the Rawhide.

The highlight, however, was hanging with some members of the listen.com team, who handed me a T-shirt. So, now I have shirts from listen.com, myplay, Inktomi, eMusic, Apple, and, of course, Las Vegas. Whee!

Several times during my short slumber in the Hard Rock Hotel, someone opened my door, came in, said something to me, and left. Next time, I’ll remember to hang the “do not disturb” sign on the door. I woke up at noon, after about six hours of sleep and wandered around, hunting for Malou, a co-worker with whom I was going to go pawnshopping.

Found malou and we headed to downtown Las Vegas, a $20 cab ride from the Strip. We wandered around the covered and misted downtown Promenade (Fremont Street, if recollection serves), visited a few pawnshops and had a reasonably good time. I came very close to buying the nearly brand-new Armstrong oboe that one of them was selling for ninety bucks, but I refrained because I doubted I get much of a chance to play it and I have enough horns already that I rarely play. And I came pretty close to buying a digital camera at another until Malou warned me about that particular camera (I know precisely squat about digital cameras). I also saw a twelve-string Conn guitar for $150 and a Fender bass for a hundred bucks flat. If I was a string player or had time to learn the bass (which I wish I played), I’d have bought them. I did, however, get a couple of souvenir T-shirts and mail a postcard to my good friend, Beth, in Milwaukee.

We went back to the Hard Rock, where I found another group of coworkers taking the later flights out of Las Vegas, hanging for a time at The Pink Taco, a very interestingly-named restaurant at the Hard Rock. Finally, we all headed for the airport. I jumped into the United check-in quickly, hoping to get myself on standby for the earlier flight (7:41, I think). I absolutely had to be on the ground at SFO before midnight, because the last of the Caltrains was leaving the Millbrae station at 12:20. If I missed that, it would be a long walk home to Mountain View (fuck paying eighty bucks for a cab ride from the airport).

The 10:22 flight became the 10:50 flight, which became the 11:35 flight, which became the 11:50 flight. The 7:41 flight became 8:15 became 8:40 became 9:00. Another flight came in for the standby passengers (one from Denver had four excuses in one announcement—medical emergency, lightning in denver, lost their runway rotation, and chaos aboard the aircraft, undoubtedly from pissed off people beating the hell out of everyone in United uniform). I was the fifth-to-last person called from the standby list. It took me exactly three seconds to drop my ticket on the reservationist. I was going home.

We landed in San Francisco at 11:40. Luckily for me, another of my coworkers, Mike, offered to drive me home to Mountain View, despite it being 20 miles out of the way to his place. I was grateful. What a trip. Good thing I don’t do Vegas very often. Next time, I’ll make a concerted effort to avoid flying United.

My company, some time ago, decided that, in celebration of our hard work and stuff, we should all go to Las Vegas for a couple of days. Today was the big day. I was among the group leaving at 9 in the morning from SFO. Another group of us was leaving from San José. I got up at 7:00, got showered, packed, and heading out to the train station, two blocks from my house. I rounded a set of office buildings there, when I noticed the train pulling up to the station. I pulled all of my energy together, tucked my duffel under my arm, football-style, and started sprinting. I was closing on the train when this girl came zipping by. I thought I was moving along at a pretty good clip, but the girl, in a skirt and a pair of birkenstocks left me behind like I was sitting on a bench.

I conveyed my amazement aboard the train (yes, we caught it) and she smiled and said, “I was on track scholarship in college.” “Next time we race,” I replied, “I’ll make a concerted effort to be in the shape required to give you a challenge, then.” She laughed.

I noticed on my itinerary, on arrival at sfo, that I was scheduled to fly United. Fuck. United has a beautiful track record of delaying every flight in every airport on every route. Of course, the SFO to Las Vegas flight was no exception. We boarded the plane and were informed that we were going to be delayed for 30 to 45 minutes, but we should remain in our seats and ready for takeoff. We were 40 minutes late taking off, but we all arrived safely in Las Vegas.

The entire group was staying at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, just off the Las Vegas strip. We got all checked in about noon and had a little bite to eat. Everyone was anxious to hit the casino floor and do some gambling. I was just tired, due to the fact that I’m unaccustomed to waking up before about ten. So, I went up to my room to take a nap.

At six, we all convened in the lobby to take twelve cabs or so to some Moroccan place nearby, which featured belly dancer and the most uncomfortable benches I’ve had the severe displeasure of experiencing. I had a huge headache and was just feeling very uncomfortable and not wanting to be there, particularly given the jabbering of the conversants on either side of me. I was in the middle of a big chatterfest, which did nothing for my headache, so I moved.

They brought me out special food, because I’m the surly vegetarian, and I ended up chatting about music and life with the wife of a co-worker, Mary, who is really cool. I was very happy to be leaving the Moroccan place, although the couscous vegetarian wasn’t bad.

I got back to my room about nine, changed into my nightlife-wear and starting stretching out. I called the room of my colleague and her roommate to see what they were doing. Everybody had decided to go to Ra at the Luxor. We hit Paris first, this large group of us, but we didn’t stay long, because a few members of the group were really lit up and were being really, really loud and making all the people in the bar at the top of the Tour Eiffel pretty annoyed. We headed to Luxor, where a large percentage of my co-workers objected to the Ra nightclub because they were playing “this crappy techno stuff.” We decided to go to Studio 54 at MGM Grand (per my original suggestion, anyway) instead.

54 was very cool. Alot of disco, funk, soul, a smidge of “Top 40 house” and some trance. Pretty mainstream mixing, really, but it was the whole company being there, drunk, bouncing on the dancefloor that was really fun. Even our CEO was on the dancefloor until well after three in the morning.

After everyone wore out (including, sadly, me), we all headed back to the Hard Rock. I ate breakfast with a co-worker, blew five bucks on video poker, and headed upstairs to crash. Whee!

Nick Holder of Toronto at Staple. I arrived at about 10:30, wandering upstairs to hang out with Patrick, Gigi, and some random carpenter guy named Nick. Fil Latorre was spinning some serious house on the decks downstairs. Dana wasn’t there, but her sister, Erin, was. Alot of recognizable regulars were there, as well as a plethora of delicious strangers.

When Nick Holder took the 1200s a little after midnight, he set it off big-time with a very dubby deep house style, awash in congas, electric pianos, and diva samples. I was all over the floor, feeling very energetic for a change, probably due to the amount of exercise I’ve been getting lately. Although it’s also probably due, in part, to the fact that I didn’t go out at all last night.

Ended up dancing with a delicious black woman with a british-like accent, Cinnamon, who was very fun, along with all the other house heroes. My shirt was, of course, soaked down by the end of the night, and I limped blissfully toward my car.

One of my coworkers, Damien, an intern, was going back to college at USC or somewhere, so a bunch of us decided to go out and send him off drinking. We met up at a local bar a little ways from the office.

A lot of people showed up to hang out with Damien, before next week’s big company trip to Las Vegas. I had the most fun hanging out with Lisa, one of our office managers. I seem to get along very well with people who know what it’s like to have grown up poor. They just seem more down-to-earth and less likely to be offended by uncouth humor. Heh.

I don’t really know Damien very well, particularly since I work on the other side of the building in a completely different sphere of influence. He’s a really cool guy, and the remaining few people that stayed after a bulk of the well-wishers split hung out until about 10:30. I was planning on going to Wave’s for Velvet Shop, but my money situation is tight. Especially with higher rent and the dentist humping my checkbook at the same time.

Good luck, Damien.

Started a new workout plan yesterday, involving getting in shape without joining a gym or ordering wacky infomercial exercise-breakthrough-of-the-week. I’m doing it the old fashioned way. The way I put on muscle ten years ago in Basic Training. Pushups, situps, dips, crunches, and various other related exercises.

Yesterday, I found out that I was much weaker (or maybe it’s just a combination of my increased weight and increased sedentarity), so I decided I’d do twenties this week. 20 pushups, 20 inclined, 20 situps, 20 crunches, 20 mountain climbers and 20 dips. Afterwards, I was wasted.

So, I was quite sore all day today, but I also decided to go out and find some house music to bounce around to. Maybe I’ll do the aerobic part on Tuesday and Thursday, or something. I headed to Pleasure at Agenda (not the Cellar this time) in San José.

The music was good, although the floor was quite sticky and the street light shining through the window was distracting. Overall, it wasn’t bad, except there was quite a lack of people there. Probably the largest group there at any point during the evening numbered fifteen. Hopefully, that’s atypical of Tuesdays. I’ll check back next week.

Went home after work, fell asleep watching some show on TV. Woke up at 10:45. There was no way I was going to drive to the city (arriving at 11:30 at best), so I headed for San José. Whee. I went to the Agenda Cellar. I stayed for about an hour. It sucked. The music was sad, the ceiling was too low, and the floor sucked. Not even to mention the fact that the place was dark and very confined. Fuck that.

Got my California driver’s license today. I really take a shitty driver’s license picture. I guess I’m now officially a Californian. Let’s see: I’m registered to vote in California, my driver’s license and license plates are Californian, I work here, I live here, I play here, and all of my bank accounts are here. I still have stuff in storage in Idaho, but it feels really weird having some other piece of plastic in my wallet for the first time since 1985.