Saying goodbye to Marques Wyatt

i'm not worried about missing live music while in cambridge, as i know it's a college town where many bands schedule a stop on their tours. as for djs, of course england is full of them. so i shouldn't worry about not getting my house music fix, right? well, i was already a bit nostalgic for deep, a weekly house club hosted by marques wyatt. it's true that now i don't get out to see him and his guest djs spin nearly as much as i used to or as much as i'd like, but it was always reassuring to know that i could go lose myself in house music any sunday night. my friend, shawn, and i get the weekly deep emails, and we either weigh-in on the merits of the featured dj or track down someone who had at least heard of them.

so, i'm at trader joes today in santa monica, and i see marques. he's such a familiar face to me, and i'm sure i was smiling at him, that "hey you're my friend and it's good to see you" smile. i went back to shopping, and, luckily, marques' aisle wanderings followed mine. my second instinct, after the smiling, was to pretend i had no idea who he was. in los angeles, one is trained to ignore celebrities, to make them feel as anonymous or "regular" as possible while stealing glances at them and taking photos with mobile phones (i actually started saying mobile vs cell a few years ago. it's not just because i'm heading off to england). but as i lingered by the cereals, with marques checking out the strawberries, i realized that this man has brought me much joy and he should know it. plus, even though it had been years, i had talked to him in the early days of deep.

of course marques was very cool when i told him that i'd be leaving los angeles and i'd miss deep. he was kind enough to say that he had thought i'd looked familiar, but that's probably just because i seem to have quite a few doppelgangers out there. i could have gushed to him about how seeing frankie knuckles in 2002 was such a memorable night that shawn and i talk about it with the same reverence as when people describe the birth of their first child or how, in my slightly tipsy state, i tried to convince my friends that king britt and i were tight friends after a short chat at the bar. but, i said goodbye quickly, feeling good that i paid my respects but wanting to stay until he promised that he'd keep deep going until i return to los angeles.

when i returned to work, i had an email from shawn with the subject "deep farewell." to her question of, "What do you think of checking out Ben Watt on July 30th," i replied, "oh, that we must do." since i'll be done work in early august and can actually stay out until the 4am closing time, we just might get to check out charles webster, joe clausel and andy caldwell as well.