Sunday, December 14, 2003
Pikku Joulu = Little Christmas = Office Holiday Party = Where the hell am I?
I had that feeling a couple of times on Friday night at the Polytechnic Holiday Party? I think the first time it came into my head was when the choir was singing some Christmas songs and I did not recognize a single one. They were all traditional Finnish songs, hauntingly slow and of course in Finnish. I could barely keep my eyes open, until the medley I had been waiting for - well, not exactly. The songs were in English, but had nothing to do with Christmas. The medley started out with the "Imagine me and you, I do. I think about you day and night, it's only right" number and moved quickly into the all-time holiday favorite, "If you're going to San Francisco," and moved on quickly to the grand finale...the entire Doo Waa Diddy. I was trying as hard as I possibly could from not bursting out with laughter, fidgeting in my chair, looking around to see if anyone else thought this was remotely as funny as I did -- and since K was home with a bit of a bug, I was all alone.
As the night progressed, people began to loosen up and talk shop, which turned out to be a good thing for me, because it led to the idea of combining our potential film festival with the already famous rock festival that takes places in Joensuu every July - Sort of a North by North East rather than a South by South West. I think there are a lot of people excited about what we are trying to do. I want to keep things realistic and would like to get the festival started in July of 2005, so not this next one, but the one following. It should coincide nicely with the completion of a multiplex movie theatre (which means 3 theatres in one building). All things considered, a trip to Austin this March might become very necessary.
But I digress from the stories of the night at the Kimmeli Nightclub, where everyone and their mother goes to at the end of the night. Where to start? OK, my first humpa, which is the Finnish traditional dance music. The story goes that in the 30's, some Finns tried to start playing jazz, but all that came out was humpa. This woman interrupted me in mid-conversation to tell me that I was dancing with her now.
Fair enough and so we went onto the battlefield that is a dance floor. Now, I play basketball twice a week with some rather tough guys and elbows do fly in a game. This was all out elbow war and they know how to throw them. I could tell the experienced veterans from the rookies. The vets move where they want, when they want and with relative ease. The rooks, like me, are trying their damdest to get the hell out of the way and are relegated to the far corners of the dance floor, unless a veteran couple decides to be cruel and shoves, the rookies (read: me) into the mush pot middle of the melee. Two dances later and I ditched this woman.
I moved down to the calmer regions, where - get this - the younger people are. Played an hour's worth of roulette and broke even. I was up like 20 euros until my friend Harri Mikkonen told me to bet 32 and some other losers, all the time because, "It will hit. Yes it will." Well it didn't but since I didn't lose any money I could not hold it against Harri, that would come later.
Harri's son was going to pick us up and take us home whenever we made the call. It was getting close to 3 and Harri wanted to leave, which was just fine with me. I had been waiting around for a while, waiting for Harri to finish up on the dance floor. He finally did and we went upstairs to have a hotdog. This was the most unique hotdog I have ever had in my life. Pickles, dried onion, ketchup, hot sauce, mayo and mustard. I probably wouldn't like it right now, but last night it looked great. Which is obviously what another person thought.
After I took my first bite, this girl came up to me and told me that she wanted a bite. I looked at her as she stumbled to stand and I asked her if she was serious. She said she was. I checked her out to make sure she didn't look diseased and gave her a bite. While this was happening Harri was talking with some friends and told me that he needed to walk them home because they were too drunk to get home on their own. These are all men and women who are 45 years old and they were all tanked, Harri running in front of everyone. I was not about to join this party and so I got in the cab line, and there I waited for over an hour. Now I was a little upset with my too drunk and no longer anywhere to be seen friend, Harri.
The line for the cab was very long and rather uneventful, except for one stroke of pure comedy. A guy sauntered up to the cars parked directly in front of us and positioned himself to pee. His back was facing the line and he was going to pee over the small hill that the cars were parked in front of. The ground was so icey that when he unzipped his pants and readied himself, he lost balance and fell forward down the little hill. His feet were dangling above the curb, with his pants now draped over them. He got up a few seconds later, pissed and returned to the line. I guess I was the only one who saw him, because no one else burst out into laughter when I did.
Finally i got home at 4:45 in the morning and spent this whole day eating and relaxing and enjoying the few hours of sunshine that graced our day today.
And now I go to bed. Lots of love to Jen and Mark, your brother, how.
I had that feeling a couple of times on Friday night at the Polytechnic Holiday Party? I think the first time it came into my head was when the choir was singing some Christmas songs and I did not recognize a single one. They were all traditional Finnish songs, hauntingly slow and of course in Finnish. I could barely keep my eyes open, until the medley I had been waiting for - well, not exactly. The songs were in English, but had nothing to do with Christmas. The medley started out with the "Imagine me and you, I do. I think about you day and night, it's only right" number and moved quickly into the all-time holiday favorite, "If you're going to San Francisco," and moved on quickly to the grand finale...the entire Doo Waa Diddy. I was trying as hard as I possibly could from not bursting out with laughter, fidgeting in my chair, looking around to see if anyone else thought this was remotely as funny as I did -- and since K was home with a bit of a bug, I was all alone.
As the night progressed, people began to loosen up and talk shop, which turned out to be a good thing for me, because it led to the idea of combining our potential film festival with the already famous rock festival that takes places in Joensuu every July - Sort of a North by North East rather than a South by South West. I think there are a lot of people excited about what we are trying to do. I want to keep things realistic and would like to get the festival started in July of 2005, so not this next one, but the one following. It should coincide nicely with the completion of a multiplex movie theatre (which means 3 theatres in one building). All things considered, a trip to Austin this March might become very necessary.
But I digress from the stories of the night at the Kimmeli Nightclub, where everyone and their mother goes to at the end of the night. Where to start? OK, my first humpa, which is the Finnish traditional dance music. The story goes that in the 30's, some Finns tried to start playing jazz, but all that came out was humpa. This woman interrupted me in mid-conversation to tell me that I was dancing with her now.
Fair enough and so we went onto the battlefield that is a dance floor. Now, I play basketball twice a week with some rather tough guys and elbows do fly in a game. This was all out elbow war and they know how to throw them. I could tell the experienced veterans from the rookies. The vets move where they want, when they want and with relative ease. The rooks, like me, are trying their damdest to get the hell out of the way and are relegated to the far corners of the dance floor, unless a veteran couple decides to be cruel and shoves, the rookies (read: me) into the mush pot middle of the melee. Two dances later and I ditched this woman.
I moved down to the calmer regions, where - get this - the younger people are. Played an hour's worth of roulette and broke even. I was up like 20 euros until my friend Harri Mikkonen told me to bet 32 and some other losers, all the time because, "It will hit. Yes it will." Well it didn't but since I didn't lose any money I could not hold it against Harri, that would come later.
Harri's son was going to pick us up and take us home whenever we made the call. It was getting close to 3 and Harri wanted to leave, which was just fine with me. I had been waiting around for a while, waiting for Harri to finish up on the dance floor. He finally did and we went upstairs to have a hotdog. This was the most unique hotdog I have ever had in my life. Pickles, dried onion, ketchup, hot sauce, mayo and mustard. I probably wouldn't like it right now, but last night it looked great. Which is obviously what another person thought.
After I took my first bite, this girl came up to me and told me that she wanted a bite. I looked at her as she stumbled to stand and I asked her if she was serious. She said she was. I checked her out to make sure she didn't look diseased and gave her a bite. While this was happening Harri was talking with some friends and told me that he needed to walk them home because they were too drunk to get home on their own. These are all men and women who are 45 years old and they were all tanked, Harri running in front of everyone. I was not about to join this party and so I got in the cab line, and there I waited for over an hour. Now I was a little upset with my too drunk and no longer anywhere to be seen friend, Harri.
The line for the cab was very long and rather uneventful, except for one stroke of pure comedy. A guy sauntered up to the cars parked directly in front of us and positioned himself to pee. His back was facing the line and he was going to pee over the small hill that the cars were parked in front of. The ground was so icey that when he unzipped his pants and readied himself, he lost balance and fell forward down the little hill. His feet were dangling above the curb, with his pants now draped over them. He got up a few seconds later, pissed and returned to the line. I guess I was the only one who saw him, because no one else burst out into laughter when I did.
Finally i got home at 4:45 in the morning and spent this whole day eating and relaxing and enjoying the few hours of sunshine that graced our day today.
And now I go to bed. Lots of love to Jen and Mark, your brother, how.
// posted by Howard @ 1:02 AM 
