so i don’t have a smartphone. and apparently there’s a segment of the texting population that seems to communicate primarily through emojis. as best as i can tell, emojis are basically emoticons that have been exposed to some kind of radiation, which can turn simple smiley faces into inappropriate vegetables. anyway, i normally don’t care what people do to amuse themselves, but the downside is that whenever someone sends emojis to my dumbphone, they appear as squares. like, each emoji becomes a square. regardlesss of emoji, or intent, each one becomes a square.

smartphone person: hey, how was the thing?
me: the thing was groovy. how was your thing?
smartphone person: [] [] []

[that’s the closest approximation i can show without looking up the ascii code for a square.]

at first, i thought it was new slang i just wasn’t up on. because people tended to send me squares in groups of three. so i kept wondering, “does that mean… three square?” and i didn’t get it.

it seems my phone has been trying to act like it still knows what it’s doing, and that all the world’s a square.

anyway, that’s unrelated to… anything really.

so last night i played at the Volstead, spinning ice cold funk and soul on a tuesday night. i showed up a little early and caught the end of this singer/songwriter showcase that they seem to have weekly. i’m pretty much a big hater when it comes to… lots of things, really… but the performers were all very engaging. i’d been thinking a lot about performance recently, and what role performance plays in evoking a reaction that’s resonant or meaningful from a crowd of strangers. and certainly that role is a bit different for a dj than a live musician, but stumbling onto a small captivated crowd made me jealous. there were maybe a dozen people in the bar, if that, but they were a unified audience nestled in this timeless atmosphere created by this squad of singers. i don’t think i’ve quite figured out how to do that consistently as a dj yet.

oh! and i also witnessed the most amazing save i’ve seen all year. okay, this description won’t do the situation any justice, but here goes. so there’s a guy singing lead, and then this other guy doing backup vocals. now the guy doing backup vocals gets on stage and set his beer on top of one of the speakers. and i distinctly saw this, because i winced internally. because it’s irrresponsible to do that sort of thing, particularly as a performer working around expensive electronic equipment. aaand because i’d just been reprimanded recently for doing the exact same thing. like, a couple days ago. and i was wrong then. and so was this dude, but it happens. you set a drink down because, hey, it’s not going to spill, it’s right there, it’s cool. except the thing is, the overwhelming majority of drinks that get spilled… weren’t planned on being spilled.

anyway, the backup vocal dude had it under control for the record, so i went back to paying attention to the music. so then a third guy jumps up to add some harmonica to the song, and while they’re all getting down, i guess somebody bumped the speaker. again, i had stopped noticing the beer on top of the speaker, but thankfully not this badass young lady who suddenly dashed up to the stage and caught the beer that nobody noticed was about to spill onto all of the electronic things. and i mean, the pint glass was already tilting over. it all happened really fast, like, hey what’s that girl… oh shit that beer is… saved. whut the what?

that is all lackluster description in conveying how solid of a rockstar, superhero moment it was. i’ve been thinking about that save all day. because she was seated in the crowd, must’ve seen the beer about to spill, got up, crossed the distance to the stage, and managed to catch the pint glass before its imminent demise and electric chaos. badass.

i really wish that story tied in thematically to the squares, but it’s been a minute since i’ve made a dj journal entry. my description of the amazing save is as inadequate in capturing that moment, as squares are to capturing the intent of my friends’ emojis. how about that segue? terrible, right? yeah, i know.

okay, i’m off to do a walkthrough and recon for an event in a week or so, which could be really fun. i have strong tendency to accept gigs if it’s something i’ve never done before. and i’ve never done anything like this before. i really hope it’s [] [] []