Shark Bait
Saturday July 09, 2005

Tonight I was conscripted into duty not only as a safety date but also translator. Fellow sufferer of toxic work environments “Diadora” needed me to accompany her to a club with a mysterious friend of a friend who goes by the name Sharky. This “Sharky” hails from my homeland of Jamaica and speaks with heavy accent filled with our native slang and references that my poor friend cannot seem to cipher.

I get to her place and she has already started in on a bottle of red and proceeds to tell me that the mysterious shark is late. No worries, we hit the bottle and shoot the breeze about life and relationships.


The lovely Di, is dating a younger man that is apparently full of energy and is constantly keeping her up at odd hours which not only makes her late to work but it’s affecting her overall performance. I sigh, and agree how important sleep is but hey I can totally relate to late nights of summer frolicking. I can’t feel too bad because it’s better to have a full dam than an empty well (no idea where I heard that but it just sounds good.)

After an impromptu and small dinner consisting of humus, pita and fruit. The shark calls and says he is just now leaving Long Island. It’s already midnight we were supposed to meet at 10. Nice one shark boy. Di and I decide that we need to get out and start our evening. We hit a bar in the East Village and suffer thru some bad techno and cheap drinks. After about an hour we get a call from Shark boy and we head over to the flat iron district to meet up with him and his friend.

We all link up at Avalon, the club that once used to be the Limelight. I have a bad feeling that this is going to suck big time. The door fee is 25 bucks and the crowd consists of college kids. None of us want to go in cept Sharky who wants to hear a specific DJ. After our protests he agrees that he can see this guy perform some other time and prefers to keep us happy. Nice guy, I like him already. We hop a cab and head back to the east village. We try a few places on Ave. C but everywhere is packed. I then suggest Nublu. The fateful location of my going away party.

We hit Nublu and it’s got a great positive vibe. It’s dark with a bright and artsy video wall. The music is combination of breakbeats, tribal and “other stuff.”

Sharky and his boy (whose name I forget) are really laid back guys who are easy to talk to and very personable. As we get our drinks on, the show begins. It’s a live drummer, accompanied by a keyboardist. Both are using computers to distort and mix in a variety of sounds. The video wall also syncs up with the music and adds to the charged atmosphere. There was not much dancing but people were bouncing or nodding their heads along.

I started shooting the whole thing but was limited by the fact that the new camera I just bought had a small memory card so I was only able to shoot a few pics. Also it was getting late (already 3 in the morn.) So after another round I call it a night and head home. I should have written this all down sooner because the night was filled with all kinds of hilarious moments where poor Di was looking at me to translate for her. It was all good because she felt comfortable enough to be left behind with her new friends. I’ll have to link up again with Sharky before he leaves; it’s always good to get back to one's roots once in a while.