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July 12th, 2005 started out like any regular day at the Ottawa Bluesfest. In other words: I was hoping to get onsite nice and early but the job I had to keep me from getting a real job kept me away from City Hall until after the headliners had already hit the stage. In this case the headliners were ZZ Top and the song they were playing when I arrived was (Got Me) Under Pressure, which was pretty cool. I showed up armed with a pencil, notebook, and my very cheap camera ready to float around and take notes and pictures for my daily online reviews.
In other other words: I had no idea that my life was about to be forever altered.
My first float was to the photo pit where I was steadfastly denied entry, as only photographers working for the big guns were allowed in on this night. I momentarily argued that “the internet” was the biggest gun in the media scene (go ahead, prove me wrong…) but soon decided I would have more fun outside of the photo pit anyway (which is to say: security gave me the bum’s rush out of there).
I cut away from the mainstage to catch a few glimpses of great swampy music courtesy of Buckwheat Zydeco, who is of course the very opposite of blues. You just can’t be down at a good zydeco show – it’s against the laws of musical physics – and nobody shakes up them aural molecules like Buckwheat Zydeco does. I got so happy listening to the washboard and squeeze box that I started feeling wobbly, so I downed another beer and got back to Zed Zed’s* set where I found a mound of friends at the concrete obelisk about halfway back on the grand lawn.
As soon as I arrived at the spot my good friend Bradm rushed me. “Todd, there is someone here you have got to meet!”
“Okay Bradm,” I said. It was curious that he seemed so enthused for me to meet someone. I assumed he had hit the beer tent a little harder than he should have.
I still remember the next few moments so vividly. Bradm turned and motioned to a tiny girl who was standing beside him and introduced the two of us. She had moved to Ottawa a few months before and had joined the local music message board that I was writing reviews for, so while I had recently ‘met’ her online it wasn’t until this moment that I knew how pretty this girl was or that she was, in fact, a girl at all.
Just days before I had finally driven a wooden stake into the heart of a toxic on-again off-again relationship; it was over. So here I was: single, and being introduced to a pretty girl at my favourite music festival. Just one thing to check…
“Excuse me,” I said, tapping the girl on the shoulder. She turned to me with the prettiest smile. “Do you have a cellphone?” I asked her.
On the spot I had decided that if this girl didn’t own a cellphone I was going to ask her out. I guess in retrospect it was my way of chickening out; obviously she was going to have a cellphone, everyone has a cellphone.
“No, sorry,” she answered.
“Cool,” I replied.
Cool indeed.
As I stood there mulling over how I should make my play she turned to me and asked, “Did you need to make a phone call or did you just want to know whether or not I owned a cellphone?”
I quickly responded that I did not have to make any phone calls. She gave me a cute smile and turned back towards the band.
Okay, the cat was out of the bag. I just basically admitted that I was interested in her and she didn’t tell me that she had a boyfriend or anything. I had to move fast before any sort of awkwardness grew.
But I had nothing! I don’t just go around throwing out pickup lines, and I sure didn’t have any at the ready**. My modus operandi had long been to meet someone, spend months casually getting to know them and then even longer convincing them that we should be dating. I can’t just come up with some line on the fly that will draw her in and make her think I’m at all interesting enough to go out on a date with. Plus there was a concert going on; I didn’t have time for any convoluted, stumbling try-to-be-funny spiel…when suddenly I turned and blurted into her ear:
“Do you like art?”***
I don’t think I even knew what I was going to say but hey, that was pretty good! Who doesn’t like art?
“Sure,” she said. What else could she say?!? This was working out surprisingly well; I even had a follow-up:
“There’s a Da Vinci exhibit going on at the National Gallery right now that I’ve been meaning to see. Would you like to check it out with me?” It pays to keep up on the local art scene.
“Sure!” she said, again with that cute smile.
“Great!” I said, starting to fall in love.
And that’s how I met m’lady.
ZZ Top encored with La Grange and Tush. It was a pretty good night.
*For my American padres: Yes, I refer to them as “Zed Zed Top” (of course) but no, Canadians en masse do not refer to them as “Zed Zed Top”. It’s mostly just me.
**Not good ones anyway. This girl was clearly way too classy for my old standard “I have a gun, let’s rob this place together,” and obviously way too smart to buy my line about being a midwife.
***Patent pending.
Todd Man Out 