Vaguely Vagabonds: Dancing in Santa Monica

now obviously, because it's me, I'm behind on the blog. a week or two. I'm trying my best to get caught up. this happened when I was still back at the Oaks.

around a year ago I found out about Matt. Matt got famous on Youtube for this video:

doesn't seem like anything to out there does it? somehow, that video and a couple like it made him really famous on youtube. I found his blog on Wherethehellismatt.com and started following his progress. I wanted to meet him cause he was a traveler and he just seemed like an interesting guy.
I found out he was making a new video, this one being more about people then location. he was going to locations and letting people come dance with him. you sign up on his blog, and he'd send out the info for it. I had signed up to meet him in Austin, but by the time he went there, I was here. so I emailed him, asked if he was going to be on the West Coast anyway, and found out he was going to be in Santa Monica. so on Sunday, (or Saturday?) 2 weeks ago, I went down to meet him.

I arrived around noon/early afternoon. the event was scheduled until 6pm, so I had time to explore the beach, and then go into the shopping district there. I spent several hours just walking, then finally went back to wait. when I got back to the spot, around 5 or so, I saw a guy I was pretty sure was him, so I introduced myself. Matt was extremely friendly, and we talked for a bit as he looked for the shot he wanted. by this time there was a good-sized group of people gathering, so we went back to get things started. we had at least an hour to kill waiting for the sun to get in the right position, so everyone got to know each other. Matt had kindly brought bubbles for everyone to keep themselves busy. :P
I met quite a few interesting people, a group from the Lutheran University in the area, a mom and her daughter, and a very friendly individual I'll call Gray. well...that is his name actually. Gray was driving the West Coast in a Volkswagen Van, surfing. I was unbelievably jealous. I think it's be soo cool to own one of those vans, it's the ultimate road tripping vehicle. Gray and I talked for a while, he encouraged me to get my own van. a Buick isn't really the most amazing road-tripping car. especially one that is starting to wear out, and the windows don't open on the driver's side. he also gave me some hostels to visit, some places in Mexico to try, some good websites, etc. Gray was pretty cool, I hope to meet him again one day.
so the it comes time to dance. Matt sets up the camera, gets someone to take over shooting, gets us all bunched together, and gives us our instructions. first of all, tho his normal number of people to dance with is 50-60, we had 108 I believe. or the count was somewhere close to that. and we all had to squeeze into a tiny shot to dance. and then he gave us a count of 3. he obviously has a special dance he does, but everyone else was supposed to do whatever came natural. I'm not sure any dance comes natural to me, but I tried. :P
after a couple takes, Matt said we were good, but then changed his mind and said he wanted one different angle. as we set up to do that shot, behind the camera comes marching some sort of peace march. people carrying large dove shaped things. he was unsure if we should get out of the way or not, but in the end we danced anyway. check link 2 at the bottom of this post for a vid of them. anyway, afterwards, he stuck around for pics and videos. as with past adventures I've had, I come to these things with no plan on where to spend the night, or a time I have to leave. it's the best way to do it. tho, I did figure I'd prolly just drive home when I was done. this left my schedule open for whatever, so while he took pics and videos I just stuck around, helped when I could, and just waited. eventually I got an invite to go to dinner with Matt, a representative from Stride Gum, which pays for his videos, a lady from Google, and a couple of their friends. it's not quite as bad as it sounds, I didn't beg, and I wasn't really planning for anything. but I had no where to go, so I was going to stay on the beach as long as they did, and then I got the invite. we ended up going to a Sushi place that was fairly close by. now I've only had Sushi once, in Alabama with the Crossings people. plus it was expensive, at least for my budget. smallest meal was $10, and that was a tiny meal. $20 for something that would fill my stomach. I was ready to order a bit of food, and then eat at home, but turns out this meal counted as a Stride business expense. so the lady the worked for Stride paid for everyone's meal, which in the end was more then $30 worth of food for me probably. we each ordered some food, and when it came, it was all on one large platter, that almost covered the table. everyone ate as much as they could, and then it was just Matt and I still hungry. between the two of us, we ate all our own food, and all anyone else had left. tons of sushi. quite delicious.
and that was Santa Monica. there are a few pictures on the flickr, and here's a tiny video of Matt and I dancing it up. feel free to make fun of our terrible dancing. ;)