I make a difficult career choice

I'm home at last. Bagged. I'd be double-bagged, but I'm ecology-conscious.

Saturday night in Nelson: went to Fluid to see Cuff the Duke, who'd I'd heard of and was vaguely aware of. Opening band was the Old Soul. The joint was empty when I arrived at 10, except for this tireless dude on the dancefloor teaching swing-dancing to a couple of girls, with recorded swing music playing. I drank beer and watched the swing-dancing lessons.

Eventually Aaron and Toni, my Spokane friends, arrived. We hung out. Drank beer. Talked a little politics, a bad idea since Aaron was in the army and navy, and gets a little touchy around Bush-bashing.

A girl with hula hoops arrived. I was confused. Toni explained that girls bring hula hoops to concerts and hula on the dancefloor. That sounded like fun.

One of my favourite novels is Hula, by Lisa Shea. I think it's the only thing she's ever written, but it's fabulous and beautiful and I recommend it to everyone. Very short novel, just the way I like 'em.

About 11:30, the Old Soul take the stage, and they're amazing. Really upbeat and fun, and unusual too. The horn player is a bald, bespectacled guy in a porkpie hat. He looks familiar to me. Then they mention that they're from Toronto, and I realize I've seen him on Queen West about 8 billion times. I bob my head to their music. I watch the hula girl. I'm getting really sick of the swing-dance guy who is still out there working his now-tiresome magic. He's a one-trick pony, and it becomes really apparent when he's still swing-dancing to Cuff the Duke, who are sorta alt-country and depressing. A couple of wiry girls are dancing by themselves in extremely eccentric and creative ways.

I think drugs are involved. But I'm just sayin'.

I talk to the lead singer for Old Soul, a nice fella named Luka. I buy their CD. He says this Nelson audience is amazing (even though the club is mainly empty — maybe 50 or so people are there), and he really likes their unself-conscious dancing.

The swing-dance guy is not unself-conscious. Every time he does a really fancy move, like swingin' some girl around his head and under his legs and over his shoulders, he looks up to make sure people are watching him.

After the show, Aaron and Toni come to my motel room where I have two very big bottles of Corona that I'm not going to get to before I leave. We hang out and talk a bit. I give them a book. It's funny when you're travelling and you hang out with people you wouldn't normally hang out with. But they're nice. I walk them back towards their hotel, and we witness scores of really really really fucked-up teenagers on the streets of Nelson at 2:30 a.m.

And so ends my night.

Sunday involves 20 hours of travel and waiting for planes, and then I'm home, Monday morning, today.

I want to be a writer when I grow up.

Over and out.