Seattle, WA - July 18-22

The happy couple

After that was a big party. Food was a buffet, which rocked as I recall. Cake cutting, with Laura's granfather providing one man band musical accompaniment. Chris Lukasik gave the single best toast I have ever heard. It was poignant, touching and gut-wrenchingly funny. Chris needs to seek new employment as a screenwriter, I'm not joking. I will try and obtain the text of this toast for the site, but it won't be the same. Dave and Laura did their first dance to "For You" by Big Star, which is the second best first dance tune I've ever heard, behind the one I already have planned for my wedding. No, I won't tell. After all the traditional festivities, the DJ started spinning. Seeing he had his songlist out and was taking requests, everyone went over to peruse the selection. The selection was, to put it kindly, lacking. When "Celebration" came on, Lukasik walked up to me and said, "When I had my wedding, the first thing I told the DJ was that if he played Celebration he wasn't getting paid." I filed this tactic away for future use, alas for this occasion it was too late.

Chris Lukasik reads his genius toast about big shorts and the value of friendship

Of course, I was forced to remind Chris of the time he visited DeKalb to see Big Black, and paid somewhere in the neighborhood of $20 to see to it that the jukebox at the Eagle's Club played nothing but "Celebration" for the rest of the night. He claimed to not remember this, mumbling something about "being drunk," but I have my doubts.

We managed somehow to find some decent stuff for the DJ to play, not that it helped much since he seemed intent on playing whatever he wanted a lot of the time anyways. Finally Chris went back to his car and got some CDs, and the guy put on "The Cutter" by Echo And The Bunnymen. This was a total flashback. There was this bar in DeKalb called The Jungle. It was mostly just a big frat hangout, right on Greek Row, but on Thursday nights it would host New Wave Night. Now this would normally be pretty lame, except somehow a bunch of people with actual taste in music managed to get in as the DJs. For instance Tim Mescher, then the bass player for Blatant Dissent/Tar, did it for a while. So all night you would get to hear classic good new wave and punk rock - Bauhaus, Joy Division, Buzzocks, Echo, Psychedelic Furs. At this time we were all underage (of course by the time we turned 21 New Wave Night was gone) so we had this hack for our IDs we used to do - we took a crayon that was the same green as the background of the Illinois driver's license and changed 68 to 63. Those characters were just dot matrix printed, it was an easy hack. The bouncers didn't always fall for it, but they did often enough to make it worth a try. On those occasions when we got in, we would basically just get trashed and dance to great music. Dave always had this great dancing style which basically involved him whipping his entire body back and forth and running back and forth across the floor.

Conquering myself until I see another hurdle approaching...

Back to the wedding. Echo And The Bunnymen come on and its like New Wave night all over again. Its largely the same crowd, and everyone is flailing all over the place. I was incredibly happy to see that Dave's dancing style had not changed one bit over the years. Back then I would have been right out there with them, but the sad fact is that without being drunk I'm way too self-conscious and lame. I just sat down and reminisced about a time that wasn't necessarily happier, because I'm pretty happy now, but it was a different kind of happy. I thought a lot about the people I was at this wedding with, some of whom I would list amongst the nicest and most fun people I've ever met. How do we lose touch with people like that? It happens to all of us, but why? I came to the conclusion that my priorities are somewhat fucked and pledged to do something about it in the future, a pledge which has been only moderately successful at best. Regardless, it was a great moment and "The Cutter" will always make me think of it.

Jim Broustis and his mom dance to Naked Raygun

I was finally enticed out with my pals when Dave opened his wedding gift from Ilene Tokarz to discover a Naked Raygun CD, whereupon he instructed the DJ to play "I Don't Know." What was even better though, was Dave's brother Jim dancing to it with his mom. At some point the dance floor started clearing out, and when the DJ played a song by his own band it was obvious that the night was drawing to a close. Everyone cleaned up and started heading out. Ilene was flying out early and asked if she could bum a ride back to Seattle with me in the morning, which was fine. Laura begged me to take one of the wedding centerpieces home. I was pretty wary, because I figured there was no way it would survive the flight, but she talked me into it and while the flowers have long since died the pot still remains holding pens on my desk. After everyone cleared out, Lukaskik held a gathering in his room for some people and we sat around a while more, but it was late and everyone was ready for bed. So back to the room I went, feeling great, having had a wonderful time.

Nothing else of note happened on the trip. I saw Dave and Laura briefly the next day when I went to pick up Ilene. They driving their decorated car back towards Seattle. We did the same, I dropped Ilene back at her hotel, and headed to drop off the car and back to the airport. It was a great trip, thanks to Dave and Laura and everyone for making it so.

Dave runs off to do something, Mike needs more booze Nadine, Virginia, and Kurt having a wonderful time Virginia, Kurt, Chris and Mike are getting a little blurry

At some point, a bunch of grownups formed a circle around Dave and Laura as they danced to some old song. I don't know what that was all about, but it was pretty entertaining. Amy, Petra, Laura, Ilene and Mr. Broustis on the dance floor. Myself and the groom. Man, I need a haircut.

Nadine, Karen, Ilene and Petra tearing it up I wouldn't be surprised if the car still looked exactly like this. Mike, Karen and Chris smile for the camera

The wonderful pavillion where the wedding was held which I'm sure looked much nicer when there was an actual wedding going on there, not that I would know. First dance, note cheesy DJ banner. Dave and Laura cut the cake while Laura's grandfather provides musical accompaniment

Dekalbians - Eileen, Ilene, Nadine, Laura (honorary member), Greg, Dave, Mike, Joe, Kim, Virginia, Amy, and Kurt. Someone is going to have to fill in names for me on this one. Top - unknown, Nadine (note dual citizenship), Laura (honorary member), Dave, Karen, Chris, Bill, and unknown.

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