12:43 p.m. - 2006-11-08
mommylap's sorted past
Hi There!
I'm mommylap, and I keep a diary here called Bad Luck on Tap and in spite of the fact that I haven't seen fit to update my own diary, I somehow found inspiration in this entry to change my response to Smed's request from "HA! Funny joke! I don't do guest entries!" to the affirmative.
Since most of you don't know me let me summarize. I live in Mpls, MN. Home of many bands of indy/college band credibility such as Husker Du, the Replacements, Trip Shakespeare, Soul Asylum and the Jayhawks. It's fun to be a music lover, and to realize through the magic of your local indie record store that not only were there cool local bands, but that the members were often right around wherever you looked.
So I did what any red-blooded music lover would do, I created a really good excuse to talk to all these musicians. My best friend Moll and I started doing a fanzine, and we called it Hunk o� Junk. We published one every month with a profile/interview of a band member on one side, and various record and show reviews on the other. We typed out the articles, pasted them up with good ol� rubber cement and took them to Kinko�s and brought them to Garage d�Or for distribution.
Right away, we very eclipsed our own expectations of who we were going to be able to meet/interview. My boldness paid off over and over. In the course of all this, we met and talked to plenty of people we didn�t interview, because there wouldn�t be a good enough reason to make an opportunity. Opportunity would cross our path and we would pounce or anticipate pouncing, and sometimes we just figured we�d save said pounce for a really ripe opportunity.
The Uptown Bar was planning a Christmas acoustic show billed as Jingle Ball, that was going to feature guys from local bands doing Christmas songs. Moll�s brother Terry was doing a set and decided to ask Moll and I to sing backup on �Blue Christmas�. It was fun to be performing, but it was also a great reason to be in the bar legitimately since I was still only 19, and the drinking age was 21.
Backstage at the Uptown Bar was really downstairs, and so with almost everyone at an acoustic gig would just leave their guitars downstairs until they played, and then left. So at the end of the night, the musicians who hadn�t already left started coming up with guitars one by one. Molly and I were schmoozing and babbling as we usually did, and we�d note who came up from the basement and say our goodbyes if we knew them, or look at each other with excitement or wonder if we didn�t know them and wanted to, or didn�t know who they were. When Mark Olsen from the Jayhawks came up Moll and I made eye contact because we didn�t really �know� him, and he was very cute. And talented. We�d been in the same place as him many times, and he knew who we were because we were around, and guys in his band knew us, and every musician in town knew at least one of Molly�s brothers, and also the sound guy from the Gear Daddies who were great friends of ours was sometimes the soundman for the Jayhawks too, and I was at a house party at the sound guy�s house and Mark showed up. I kept quiet at that function really, because we were all watching Wrestlemania III on pay per view. So anyway, Mark Olsen comes out the door from downstairs and turns toward me with his guitar case, sort of fencing me in and asks me �Didn�t I spend the night with you once?�
Hilarious, because I was a sweet thing of 19 years, and at that time had only one boyfriend under my belt. Also, I couldn�t imagine what kind of life even a cute and talented musician could be leading that would cause him to actually be able to assume that if he recognized a girl, it was probably because he�d slept with her.
But it was so funny and outrageous to me, that it didn�t occur to me to be offended. I was just sort of delighted that Mark Olsen was talking to me, and that he said something that hysterical.
�No, but we DID watch Wrestlemania 3 together on pay per view last year.�� and from there he figured things out. And Moll and I probably teased him too, but because he was so friendly, and we were so young- we ended up inviting him to go to Byerly�s with us for a bite. And he was game!
So he showed up and we all had wild rice soup, and gabbed and boy was he cute and funny. It turns out that besides the Wrestlemania experience that he lived less than a block away from me for the entire summer when I was living with Billy my aforementioned boyfriend. So we had a really good and innocent time with him and didn�t get his phone number or anything- and he didn�t ask for either of ours and so it was just fun and friendly- and we had that hysterical opening line forever.
Because of course, now I�d run into Mark at shows a lot- especially since the shows I would manage to get into were usually scenester gatherings and the like, and without fail one of us would greet the other with �hey! Didn�t I spend the night with you once?� and we were always flirty enough, but not really and suddenly at one show we were talking and he actually asked if he should come home with me. And I said yes and we got into a cab and went back to my apartment.
So, at this point my experience was not much, and although my prom date was 7 years older than me, and then Billy my first real boyfriend was 3 years older than me, Mark was the first older guy who seemed older because he was clearly worldly, and I didn�t really know him well, and it was certainly the first time I had been picked up I guess. Not to mention that I had never invited anyone back to my apartment where there was nothing alcoholic to even drink and make me feel less strange. I did have a 12 pack of Big Red cream soda which delighted Mark for some reason. He was nice, but it was totally �now we�re here to have sex� and because of my inexperience the whole thing was not nearly as funny and fun as it should have been, and although I never kidded myself that it was magical, it was what it was. He spent the night, and I even left him sleeping in my bed when I left for work early the next morning, but for real- I never really saw him again. Which I don�t think is neither here nor there- because I�m sure I thought the whole thing was a lot more awkward than he did. And I really just never ran into him at any shows or anything, so I don�t think there was a slight. But so there�s my little story for Smed- that Mark Olsen was my first one night stand.
Aren't you glad Smed's back tomorrow?
