  The Akron Scene: So I'm at this bar in Akron called Thursdays with Mike Carlton, way too late in the night. We're living up old times since we used to live together down the street in a house that should've been condemned. Thursdays is the kind of bar where you can find club drugs, S&M chicks, and really bitter people who think they're "East Village" but deep down realize that they'll always be West Akron.
The DJ plays The Smiths, Duran Duran, and the Cure all night. The dance floor lights up and kind of looks like a Rubik's Cube. So I'm feeling good, I'm wearing my 80 cent sport jacket. I feel urbane, like a man of the world. I edit a magazine. I get paid to write. I'm going to Amsterdam on business. I've got a meeting in New York on Wednesday. I'm dating a gorgeous European woman. I live on the East Coast. I'm cool right? I'm in Akron, Ohio for God's sake.
Wrong. Not cool. Brad Thorla from the band Dolly Trauma is there. He's a beautiful man, balding gracefully. The guy looks great bald. "Do you see that girl over there in the green shirt," he says. When I get too drunk, my attention span gets really short. I kind of nod or whatever, but I don't even look over. "Her name is Zoe. Will you take her this and tell her its from me? " "Sure," I say. I take this beer and stagger onto the dance floor, where a girl in a green shirt is swaying around in a tight circle. "Are you Zoe? " She says no and doesn't even look up at me. And now I'm standing on this Rubik's Cube with two beers in my hand, wondering if this was actually the girl or not.
She probably thinks I'm hitting on her and she definitely thinks I'm an asshole. "Well ok," I say and push the beer at her. "This is from Brad Thorla. " She takes it without even looking at me once. I think her name was Zoe. I rock. 
