it's over. move to somnia.

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Yes, There Is Something Very Wrong with That

Went to a club last night. Link. It was pretty cool: a massive old warehouse, with four big rooms featuring different music/lighting/enviro atmospheres. And since it was the opening night for the 2003-04 season (everything--even nightclubs--closes for the summer here; it sucks), the cover was pay-what-you-wish...which everyone knows means €1.

Dario--my conveniently-Italian roommate--and I arrived at 11:30 pm. Dead. A few dozen people (which in this space was nothing) were milling about, but the music hadn't even been turned on or the lights lowered. We decided to go find a bar down the street (as a general rule in Italy, there is always a bar down the street) and hang out there until the club got hoppin'.

It was a nice bar: well-lit, convivial. Young people, mostly; a good male/female mix. There was even a waiter to lead us to our table. (When we sat down, he put kids' junior-jumble placemats in front of us--you know the kind, with a crossword and connect-the-dots and find-the-differences-between-these-pictures...cute.) The group at the next table over were playing Jenga. We ordered our beers and started chatting.

And then I looked up at the TV screens.

Hentai.

Now, I've never seen hentai before, and I wouldn't even know the word if it hadn't been for a brief mention on a friend's website (you know who you are), but I'd heard it described in that "oh, those Japanese" way, and I thought it sounded pretty silly. Animated porn, featuring bosomy women with monsters and...well, monster accessories. And the requisite ick. It wasn't until Dario caught my attention ("Mike. Mike. HEY.") that I snapped out of it.

"You should see some of the faces you're making." (My jaw had literally dropped, it seems.)
"What the fuck is this? Why is no one else freaking out?"
"I don't know. I've never seen anything like this before either." He started to laugh. I should mention that both the screens in my line of sight were behind him, which was completely unfair.
"What the--OH my GOD." (You don't want to know.)
"Maybe you should just stop looking."
"But..."
"You know, as long as everyone in here is over 18, it's legal." (Dario is, by the way, a lawyer.)
"But... But..."

At that moment, the waiter came by to offer us free shots (of something) followed with a grape. He was more impressed that I was from California ("My grandmother, she lives in L.A.!") than anything else I had to say.

Every day, another mindbender. Oh, yay.
peachy as always, Mike at 2:37 PM