A Laptop Orchestra and a Crime

Earlier this evening I went to a show/get-together at a place known colloloquially as the Tenderloft. It's the top floor of a building in the Tenderloin, which is a neighborhood that has a lot of, among other things, crack. When I was waiting at the door to be let in by my friend, a guy hit me up for 50 cents. I was on my phone, telling my friend I had arrived, and tried to curtly tell the guy I didn't have change. He wouldn't give up: "Shit man, fifty cents! I need a beer. Fifty cents ain't shit... here, I'll give you fifty cents. (Digs around in his pockets) Here man, take it. I know you got fifty cents." But I digress. It's a sketchy hood, that's all. Oh, and for some reason there was a charter bus stopped in the street in front of the place filled with mostly girls dressed in tight clothes, grinding on each other. In the middle of downtown San Francisco. Is it Spring Break yet?

Inside were laptop performers of music and visuals. One of the earlier groups was just straight-up noise, which I was not so into. But the Highlight was the last group (that I saw, at least), which consisted of (I think) 8 guys with a laptop a piece, plus a couple of drum machines. They were all sync'ed to the same beat, just mixing in different bits of sound and music, sometimes taking turns, sometimes doing some really wacked-out fast stuff. It was too much aural fun. Meanwhile in the background some guy was running some video mixing. My favorite part of that was an image of some superman-like illustration flying across weird video feedbackscapes. He would fly in from one direction. Then fly in from a completely different direction. How'd he get to the other side so fast? So, the show was fun. Afterwards, when we got to the car we noticed that the passenger-side window had been completely smashed. The stereo (read: cheap tape player) was untouched, but alas the change in the ashtray was stolen! Did I mention there's a lot of crack in the Tenderloin?