KOLUMBIA FALLS IN MY LAP...AND THEN TO THE FLOOR

Boy that was a big digression. So back to the course; I told Saymendy that I would do my party and donate all the dough to her organization because I believed in what she does. She thought it was a great idea.

So now the really, really hard part was getting a nice venue. I remember driving around for 4 hours downtown going into every restaurant talking to the managers about letting me do a promotion there. Nobody was feelin' it. And if they were, they had to go to some higher-ups and then get back to me. None of them ever got back to me nor took anymore of my phone calls.

So everyone who really knows me knows that I used to go to Le Tarbouche (a.k.a. Kolumbia, before new owners took over) like they were paying me to be there. I think I went there like 3 Saturdays per month. I just loved the feel of that place and the crowd that Usual Suspectz (the promoters) brought in. It was like one big family. We all knew each other...kinda like that show "Cheers." My boy Kevin was like Sammy and I was like Norm. We were like fixtures there. If we were out anywhere else and someone would come up to us and say we looked familiar, the first thing we would ask them was, "Do you hang out at Le Tarbouche?" Yea, it was that bad.

So anyway, at the same time I am going around looking for venues, Mike McQueery from Usual Suspectz tells me that they are gonna leave Kolumbia to go to Pearl. I was like, wait, is this a sign or what?

So I went to their last party at Kolumbia. I had seen the owner before, but I didn't know him. His name is Jamie Stachowski. He always used to walk around with an apron on bussing tables during the parties.

So when I went there on their last night, I stopped him and asked him if he was interested in bringing another promoter in to promote on the weekends. He said, "I dunno, maybe." Well that's all I needed to hear. I told him I would call him on Monday. So I called him on Monday just like I told him; he told me I could come in to talk to him on Tuesday.

I was still doing that Cafe Japone spot on Tuesdays, so I asked could I do it on Wednesday instead. But on Tuesday, I still went by Kolumbia before I went to Japone just to keep my face and name fresh in their minds (all the while making sure that I was not annoying the hell out of them). Jamie was in the back and he told the manager, Dennis, to talk to me. So I basically just asked Dennis what would be any concerns about me doing a party there, problems they had in the past, what would they want to change, and other related questions. It actually helped a lot because, when I came back the next day with my Power Point presentation, I was prepared for everything. Well almost....