THE JO-TEL …believes some of what Nathaniel and John say, but believes England is still our sovreign

So I went on two dates this week: one on Wednesday night, one on Thursday.

Wednesday: Meh. Not necessarily bad. Just meh. The night got off to an inauspicious start when she insisted that McIntosh apples were spelled Macintosh. What was I supposed to do? Just let that stand?? And so yeah, that was probably the most spirited conversation of the night.

So I was nervous all day Thursday because I was saying to myself, “PLEASE, just let this date be better than Wednesday’s date.” That would not’ve been hard to accomplish.

So originally my “date” and I were planning on going to see Diplo, who was playing downtown, where she lives. She called me yesterday afternoon and said she had a job interview this morning so could we go out for drinks before the show instead? I said fine, and remember thinking to myself how it was very considerate of her to tell me very early in the day that she would have to request a change of time and venue. This is what we call foreshadowing.

So we planned to meet at her place at 7 and walk to a bar. I called her en route at 6:20 and she was like, “Oh, my friends dropped by [unannounced] so you might have to meet them.” I made a joke about running the friend gauntlet too soon. It was well-received. I showed up at 7 and her friends were indeed still there … and about 10 minutes after I arrived, I couldn’t help but notice that they hadn’t left and seemed to be settling in with newly poured drinks. Whatever, I thought. You’re here, just roll with it. So roll with it I did. Her friends were, to their credit, smart and well-informed. The four of us talked about the election, and possible running mates for Obama. We agreed that Bill Richardson would be an intriguing choice! Actually, I should say the three of us, as my “date” didn’t say much of anything, at least not to us. She did take the opportunity to field several calls on her iPhone though.

But so it’s 8:15 (I should mention that all this time I didn’t have a drink because, while one was offered, the only things she had in her apartment were gin, vodka, and Coke Zero as a mixer. I passed), and her one friend Will was like “I should get going. I have to be at LACMA (art museum about 40 minutes away from where we were) at 8:30.”

Then my “date” was like, “Well, I have to drive Erin (her other friend) home.” This despite the fact that Will obviously had a car, with which he brought Erin, and could’ve left at any point (7 would’ve been good, just off the top of my head) before so as not to be so pressed for time such that even arriving at LACMA punctually was pretty much impossible. At this point I was kind of pissed, for what I hope are obvious reasons. Me (at the time still under the impression that she was planning on grabbing a drink with me, perhaps after she returned from dropping off Erin. I don’t know why I was under than impression, either): “So I’ll just go sit in my car I guess.”

In the elevator I gave my regards to her friends, and she told me “I’ll text you if I decide to go to that show” (PS, her job interview was at 10 a.m.). So after driving all the way downtown to have a drink with this girl, I had had no drink, we’d maybe exchanged 5-6 sentences, and I was left with 45 minutes to kill before the doors even opened at this show (which I wasn’t planning on showing up at 9 for, anyhow, obviously). For those of you not familiar with downtown L.A., the entire place shuts down at 7 p.m. Around the venue there were no bars, no coffee shops, no restaurants … so I sat in my car and called the PUMA to vent about the unbelievable waste of time that I just experienced.

Sigh: Manners truly are a lost art, I guess.

I’ll say it again. In L.A. I may not get past the first date either, but at least here it’s ME not calling the girls back.

Meanwhile, this guy is Marisa Miller’s husband:

Nothing much else to say about that. Sorry this post wasn’t funnier.

-PETE