Dr. Love

“You know,” he smiles, idly sidling up to the mix table
adjacent to the community hall bar,
“I like to play. And if things go your way, I can play
your favourite song…a little later, and all night.”
The woman nods politely, albeit, a bit drunkenly.
She smoothes her lavender taffeta dress, and her shoulders shrug,
Non-committal.
The gesture is magnified by ten
thanks to the pup tent puffed sleeves
forced upon her by a control freak bride.
“Maybe. Whatever,” slurs the woman,
who drank too much white wine while sitting on the left side of said bride.
She walks away,
recovering nicely from a quick slip on her dyed pink patent stilettos.
He jerks his elbow in celebration
Fist raised in high praise
To the wedding god who looks over DJs
Who spin the tunes at weddings.

They call him…Dr. Love.
Or at least, that’s what his home computer-printed card calls him.
He gets invited everywhere.
Well, to weddings, at least.
And he gets to eat.
Oh yeah, he feasts on perogies galore
At a back table, usually with the photographer,
The manic depressive aunt,
And the bride’s ex-boyfriend who’s crashed the event
And getting trashed on Silk Tassels at only a loonie apiece.

Dr. Love tosses down the last of the liquor in his plastic glass
And he saunters back to the stage
because the Bird Dance is coming to a close,
and it’s time to slow things down
oh baby, with the Divine Miss M
belting out ‘The Rose”.

Yes, some say love, it is a flower,
But he knows love, it is the power
Of rented sound equipment and song request sheets.

He eyes the bridesmaid and decides to turn things up a notch.
“I’ll show her some of what I’ve got,” he thinks.
And expertly,
precisely,
he fades Bette away and pots back up into
YMCA.
And just as he’s planned,
his girl,
And three others, similarly attired
And similarly fired up on wine and drunken self-confidence
Stumble to the dance floor
And jiggle
And giggle
As Dr. Love gives it his most
Leading his nubile young followers, arms extended high
In a Y.
Then an M.
Then a C-A
And he climbs, panther-like, to the top of his PA
Just to show,
He’s a guy who’s got smooth moves, too.

The Village People begets Michael Jackson’s Thriller,
Which is really just filler
And a chance for him to show off his moon-walk.
Then he cranks it to ten
With Randy Travis,
Forever and Ever, Amen.
A two-step classic just to prove
He’s a multi-faceted guy.

And it appears to work
Because his soon to be girlfriend gives him the eye
As she bounces against some drunken jerk

But a belated look at the clock
Tells him he’s played his cards way too close to his chest.
He’s saved his best, but already it’s midnight lunch.
And the hungry, drunken guests, including his best girl,
line up to wear off the booze
with buns, salads, olives and assorted meats and cheeses.

Better keep this break short,
Dr. Love says to himself
as he heads to the bar to grab another snort
of scotch or rye or whatever leftover liquor the barkeep lets him drink
for free.
And he lines up the next set in his head,
But stops short in a panic
as he catches his eye on his beloved who’s slowly,
painfully
bobbing her head
Into the potato salad.

Time for the big guns, he thinks,
And he snaps into the professional he’s been trained to be.
And he busies himself
Cuing up…the Man.
The true hero of weddings and baseball hall parties everywhere.
The great, the only, Bob…Fucking…Seger.
The king…of the Old Time Rock and Roll.

And he half-heartedly hopes he doesn’t scare anyone
with the raw power of…
The Bob.
But at this point he doesn’t care.
He can’t.
Because he sees his potential bride
Being led off to a side bathroom
By a polyestered and sensible shoed spinster aunt
So she can finish being sick in private.

He wishes he could hold back her hair.

But all he can do…and he does…for a full 15 minutes…
is try to stall
Ignoring the annoyed and annoying caterwaul
Of the groom’s mother
who wants to get things moving.
And after what must be an eternity of his beloved’s heaving
He sighs
And pulls Seger out of the deck.
Why waste the Bob
On a mob
That wouldn’t know the difference between this
And Kokemo?

And at some point his girl slips out,
wasted, pasty, then gone.
And at the end of the night,
he’s left with two grey hairs
Groping asses to Whitney Houston,
“I will Always Love You”,
Dr. Love’s signature song.
And what, all too often, is becoming his swan song,
To girls in taffeta dresses.

© 2007 Jan Mann