A long time ago, I came across a tagged photo of one of my best friends at a local show in New York or Chicago, I think. He was sweaty and smelly and shirtless, standing next to a guy pouring over a laptop, also sweaty and smelly and shirtless. Basically it was a bunch of dudes, sweaty and sm…well, you get the idea.  At the time,  I was sort of disturbed by it - what kind of a spectacle IS this? They seemed to be having a blast, but…WTF?

I just made the connection that that was Girl Talk as I was editing my photos of his performance at Monolith this weekend. I’d been listening to Girl Talk for about a year now as my running soundtrack. Okay, we can probably throw that in quotes — “running” soundtrack.  Inevitably, I get out of breath and end up dancing on the side of the road to some Fergie/Kenny Loggins mashup. Still, as you remember, I remained kind of skeptical about some of it.

And when I told people I’d be catching Girl Talk at Monolith, someone would always say something like, you know it’s just a dude around a laptop, right? and I’d be all, Well, yeah, I mean, he’s  a DJ…a DJ who puts LL Cool J and the Bangles in the same eight count. Your point?

Obviously it doesn’t take a lot to get me dancing and enjoying myself in such situations, but there were a bunch of elements that made this one helluva time.  Jess, an exceptionally cool girl from Indy that I met in Denver, was friends with Girl Talk/Greg Gillis and her stories  painted him to be a dear and a half. I began to see him not as “GIRL TALK,” this big entity, but as a dude who is just super talented and likes to make people dance. And we did just that.  Jess lent me a poncho (it was raining cats and dogs, and hipsters) and we cheered him on.

First rule of The Art of Striptease — you need to start with a lot on so you have a lot of pieces to take off.

People were SO happy to be there! The confetti helped. And probably the ecstasy.

The energy coming from the stage was ridiculous, and I had an all-access pass (yup, I’ll just slip that in there) - so I made my move…

Every time he transitioned into some song I liked, I usually would scream, “Awwwww shit!” in the whitest way possible. I had consumed a lot of wine before the sun went down, so…

Red-hooded sweaaaaaatshirt.

..I don’t even remember taking this. But you know how I love things falling from the rafters (see: Talbot Street + Glitter = heaven.)

This would be a good time to thank Aaron for lending me his camera so my 50mm could autofocus. Because we all know I’d never be able to manual-focus that sh*t.

Aw, these kids clearly thought I was a legitimate member of the press. Sorry guys, it’s just There’s Your Karma.

In retropect, this would have been a perfect opportunity for a good old-fashioned pantsing.

“How was Girl Talk?” my friend had asked me when I got back to the media tent. “I saw you dancing on the jumbotron.”  Win.

I mean, how could you not, with stuff like this? How do you get this girl’s job? What is on her business card? “Dispenser of Pure Joy.” That’s what.

I appreciated all the Michael Jackson.

So yeah, just a dude with a laptop.

Amazing.

[There's still eco-friendly toilet paper and confetti plastered to my cowboy boots.]