GoodFellas

It was either a scene from GoodFellas or like going to a reunion with your family when you were younger, seeing friends from the past meeting up together, loud and drunk, making you feel uncomfortable since you were a helpless little child who wanted to stick around your parents and all types of strangers were pulling your cheeks. "You're gettin' so big!"

I feel like I became that adult yesterday, the one that is now old enough to meet up with people from the past at seminal establishments. Nicole (my good friend, not my awesome neighbor) and Ryan came back from Rhode Island yesterday, and another friend, Wade, decided to throw a little get-together old crew style. Karaoke at Grumpy's.

In the second entry of Karmath, I mentioned Karaoke at the U Otter Stop Inn bar near my home. There was something magical about last night, though. U Otter was before I knew everyone would be leaving Minneapolis. All of the gang is coming back this holiday season. We're throwing a large New Years party to celebrate the homecoming.

Adri and I decided to go to Grumpy's together. It was a quiet night on the streets. Downtown seemed dead. Grumpy's itself seemed a little empty as well. The alcove just off to the side of the bar holds the Staraoke event, what I consider to be the biggest Karaoke event in the Twin Cities. The place was packed with both the homecoming party and another birthday party. Friends from my theater past and people we used to hang out with who were friends of Ryan and Wade were all there.

It was like meeting people when you're older. "Nicole, howa de kids?!" "Ryan, ye sonuvabitch, you still ogglin' over Hot Lips Lucy?! Hey ye got a little, WHOA!, almost slugged ya!! It was always dat right flank you had a problem wit. Gotta woik on it, pal."

I felt a little out of place, to tell the truth. I started out strong, but soon became a little disassociative. It wasn't until some more of the Monroe House brotherhood's inner nucleus started showing up where I felt a little more in the zone.

The reunion of the past, something that will continue throughout the week and next, will be interesting. It will be bittersweet.

It will be with this reunion that I will end this blog. Where I've come from, how I've changed in the last year, where I'll be going. The past and present and future meeting up in a grand party to kick off 2010, what will most likely be one of the most seminal years of my life.

Tommy Dorsey & His Orchestra with Jo Stafford -- "Manhattan Serenade"