COLUMN: Cry Little Sister

Sometimes people who don't spend their weekends DJing ask people who DO spend their weekends DJing silly questions about why they spend their weekends DJing. It usually goes something like this:

"You must make pretty good money doing that, huh?"

Yes and no. A good DJ doesn't come cheap -- but nearly every dollar I make spinning records goes right back into getting more music and more equipment in order to do it all over again. I'm the only person I know with a tab at a record store.

"You must meet LOADS of girls, right?"

Kinda, but I'm a realist. Girls don't come up to me because they want my hot DJ bod. Girls come up to me because they want to hear Justin Bieber, and they know if they bat their eyes and smile real pretty, I just might play it. It's fun, sure, but it's not the way to meet my soulmate.

So if it's not the money or the girls, what's the biggest perk of being a DJ then? That's easy. Being a DJ gives me front-row access to that most elusive of creatures, intoxicus moronicus: the drunken moron.

People are, by and large, fairly ridiculous. But when you combine humanity's already preposterous nature with an excess of adult beverages, you enter an all-new dimension of absurdity. Over the years, I've witnessed a man mistake a sink for a urinal. I've witnessed a man mistake a urinal for a pillow. I once watched a couple attempt full-on copulation in the middle of a packed dancefloor. One time, I saw a massive fistfight erupt over who was the "most Irish."

Time and again, I bear witness to the mating rituals of the intoxicus moronicus, and it's always a joy. There's nothing more amusing than watching some drunken yahoo pursue a girl who CLEARLY has no interest. A few weekends ago, I was plagued by a guy who kept begging me to play Latin music. "Girls love dancing with me to Latin music!" Sure enough, the minute I pressed play on "Suavemente," this guy hit up and hit on every girl in the place. As it turned out, though, the girls did NOT love dancing with him to Latin music. As it turned out, the guy couldn't dance to save his life. As it turned out, one of the girls had a boyfriend. As it turned out, the guy got a drink poured on his head before security asked him to leave.

Last weekend, though, I met a true pioneer and visionary in the field of how not to handle your liquor.

The place I usually DJ at gets hopping fairly early, but most of the crowd departs shortly after midnight. For the last hour or so, it thins to a resilient group of friends, regulars, and the professionally intoxicated. I had just announced last call and was packing up my gear when I spotted him. His buddies were at the bar, but this guy had lumbered off to a back corner where he was laboriously scrolling through numbers on his phone.

This could only mean ONE thing: the time-honored booty call. Yes, it's the final, desperate move of the intoxicus moronicus before returning to its lair alone. I've never understood such a maneuver. How you can casually call a girl at 2 a.m. and act like she's NOT your absolute last-ditch chance for some action is beyond me. I don't know how its done. Neither did THIS guy.

I wasn't trying to eavesdrop, but I'm sure glad I did. Otherwise, I wouldn't have heard THIS:

"I think about you all the time. Yeah, baby, I'd love to come over... I mean, unless you're still being a [word I can't say in a family paper]."

I'm no expert at love. I have more failed relationships under my belt than this guy had years on Earth. I'm not the one to give dating advice. But I can tell you with certainty that the fastest way to a woman's heart does NOT involve comparing her to a female dog. He honestly seemed stunned when she hung up on him. The guy then looked at his phone dejectedly, shrugged his shoulders as if to say, 'oh well,' tilted his head back, and at the top of his lungs started singing, "Cryyyyyyy, little sister! Thou shalt not faaaaallllll!"

For the uninitated, "Cry Little Sister" is the theme song to the 1987 Corey/Corey masterwork, "The Lost Boys," a ridiculous movie about teenage vampires that was just about the most awesome thing 1987 had to offer. I saw it in the theatre THREE times that summer. But that was twenty-nine years ago. This guy wasn't even alive in 1987, which makes his choice for an a cappella dejection song just about the most random, inappropriate, and completely bonkers thing I'd ever seen. The fact that he even HAD a dejection song at the ready was nothing less than life-affirming.

All I can presume is that once upon a time, this guy watched "The Lost Boys" (again, a movie released about five years prior to his birth,) and it somehow struck SUCH an emotional chord that any time he experiences disappointment from that moment on, "Cry Little Sister" fires up in his head. This would be exactly like me going to the kitchen for a Pop-Tart, realizing I'm OUT of Pop-Tarts, and suddenly all I can hear is the theme to "Planet of the Apes."

I couldn't NOT say anything.

"Dude," I leaned over and asked, "Are you seriously belting out the theme to 'Lost Boys' at 2 a.m. in an empty bar? I bow before your sheer and utter randomness."

"I WISH I WAS A VAMPIRE!" he said to me with the seriousness of Bob Dole on the '96 campaign trail. "Because then I wouldn't have to pay my bar tab."

That, friends, is how drunken logic saved the night. Don't get me wrong, I do not advocate drinking yourself stupid (and yes, we made sure he got home safe.) But if you feel that you MUST, please oh please let me be the one DJing. It's my favorite job perk.