The road rage. The damning heat of hellfire. The mango margaritas with mint. The perfect, bloody rampages of summer are upon us. So paint me yellow and call me a cab because, though my nags will never come in at the malignancy that is Hollywood Park, I've still managed to hit the perfect Commie Girl trifecta: alcohol poisoning, sun poisoning and too much sexual stimulation. And my editor expects me to get out of bed. Horrid, horrid man.
So let me just say that I hate you all—no, really. I really hate you all—before I go on to my next point, which is that people should do it in the butt. Now, I don't mean that I should do it in the butt because you know what? That would hurt! But other people should do it in the butt—definitely. I know this because at the start of my lost weekend—let's call it Thursday because that's when it was—there was a giant black woman at the Main Street Bar in Laguna Beach, and she was singing “Do It in the Butt,“ and she was superpersuasive. I had never been to the Main Street before, probably because it's across the street from the Boom Boom Room, and I have no attention left for anything else when the Boom and its gay go-go boys (sigh) are in my sights.
But here it was, Thursday night, and my beautiful sister Sarah and I were trawling for hot bartenders. And so we stopped by the Main Street, mostly because a totally bizarre woman was walking in, and we wanted to gawk at her. She was a pretty woman, white, maybe in her late twenties or early thirties but rode hard and put away wet, and she was making out ferociously with a man in the doorway until she all of a sudden lurched from his arms and beelined to the dance floor.
So this black woman was singing along to a small karaoke unit. She was huge, with arms like hams, but she was definitely all woman. And she was gorgeous, with her crimson hair and her fancy pantsuit, pointing at people in the audience as happily as a priest in a pile of altar boys. Her voice wasn't high and gospel-y like Whitney Houston's or anyone gross like that; it was low and growly and filled with phlegm. “This is where I give love to the guitar player!” she said, during an instrumental bridge where she strummed at the air. Then she sang “Do It in the Butt,” while the drunk white girl climbed onto some guy and rode there like she was a baby monkey, which she actually might have been. Soon, the singer was dedicating a song “to the sexy lady.” This was very sweet until we realized the song was Phil Collins' “Another Day In Paradise” (“She calls out to the man on the street/Sir, can you help me?/It's cold, and I've nowhere to sleep/Is there somewhere you can tell me?”), and we realized she was kindly and warmly saying the sexy lady was a crazy homeless person, which she probably was now that I think about it. Most shockingly of all, the way the song was arranged on the lady's small karaoke machine gave it kind of a funky “La Da Dee La Da Da/She's Homeless” beat that took it from insipid and maudlin to very cha-cha-cha.
Main Street's a great place: it's mellow, Cher isn't braying at you from the sound system, and it's covered in sparkly tinsel and gold lam. Of course, no braying Cher means no thrusting go-go boys (sigh), but there are crazy drunk ladies who've left their sorority days behind them for pastures made of asphalt (which will be the title of my next power ballad), and they're awfully fun. La da dee la da da!
We had already hit San Clemente's BeachFire a week into its grand opening. The place has had cash poured into it: it's two stories high, with an open kitchen crammed into a small space behind the long bar, and paintings by local artists hang on every surface. We especially liked the etchings of Goth-looking mermaids, all dark and surly. It's really gorgeous, as are the diners within. But an hour passed after we ordered, and we realized our $11 tacos were never going to come, and there weren't even any tortilla chips, and we were getting extraordinarily drunk on their very fine tropical drinks. My mood wasn't enhanced when Joe the waiter told my sister about every option on the menu, shooting charm at her like a laser beam for two or three minutes (“The ahi,” he said, “kicks serious ass!“) and glancing my way exactly three times because clearly I am a potted plant. But then The Ziggens showed up to make very loud music, and they didn't pay any attention to my sister, so that was okay, then. Management becomingly comped our meal, and the appetizers, which we finally ordered after it was clear we would waste away like Ally McChickenlegs before we got any other food, were extraordinary, thick and fresh and decorated with orchids and roe. Try the ahi, which you should probably know kicks serious ass.
From there, we flitted across town to Takao, for a quick karaoke fix and to look at a bartender we'd heard was a beautiful brunette. She wasn't in, but a man with his back to the brightly lighted bar sang what I believed to be Dave Matthews; it was hard to tell without the whine. The KJ switched to “Dream On,“ doing a good Fiona Apple yowling thang switched up with a falsetto like Shakespeare's Sister, then hopped down from the stage to take drink orders. We did our quick, patented “What a Feeling (Theme From Flashdance)” (thank you, Irene Cara!) and then plid out the door.
Friday and Saturday and Sunday, I did other stuff, including but not limited to alcohol poisoning, sun poisoning and too much sexual stimulation. Now who's getting it done in the butt?
Courvoisier and condoms at co**********@ho*****.com.
