Photo by Rebecca Schoenkopf
Long Tall Gina spoke of a mythical place, a temple of beefcake calendar and “How you doin'?” leers. She had stopped in the night before, she said. Two hundred men and 10 women, she claimed. Cops and firemen lifting her onto the bar and slapping her ass. It was out of control, she told us.
And oh, how she liked it.
We wanted to go to the Canyon Inn too!
But Gina, of course, is a liar. There were at least 30 women there Saturday night, in the smallest of tank tops and most blotto of smiles. Really, they seemed very nice.
Me, I was on a bender for bacon.
Sooey!
I pushed my way to the crescent bar for a necessary beer. My girls weren't there yet, and I was feeling shy.
But what's this? Happy day! The first person I saw across the curving bar was none other than Angels second baseman Adam Kennedy. He was low-key, and approachable, and he wasn't wearing his Super Bowl ring. Shy-be-gone! I made my way over and introduced myself.
And Kennedy was friendly, and funny, and he bought me an Irish Carbomb and remembered my name each time he avoided me for the rest of night. My game needs some serious work. Oh, I could have flirted. I could have touched my throat, or his arm. I could have flapped my eyelashes or pretended to stumble into him—good moves all, but moves with which I am out of practice. I could even have said, “Wow, it was really incredible when you became the third player in history to hit three home runs in an LCS game,” but I didn't have Google with me at the time. Instead, I stood next to him while my foul, curdling Carbomb brought tears to my eyes. (My stomach would burn like Belfast, Londonderry and Crossmaglen for two days after.)
I looked around the bar, smiling, then with nothing else to say, excused myself and left. Twice I returned for three or four minutes to introduce him to my ladies.
I, Stalker.
Now, this, I felt, was a bad rap. As someone who has stalked and stalked until it hurt, I know stalking when I commit it, as does my probation officer. We've parsed the fine points many times.
And being treated as a stalker when I was 25 feet away across the bar with my friends, and then happened to pass behind him on my way to the bathroom, well, that was an impression that needed to be corrected. His self-appointed entourage felt differently. They would rescue him from my fat, lash-flapping clutches. They would make sure I couldn't pass to the women's room behind them. They would save the day!
Unfortunately, as so often happens, my second Carbomb (ill-advised) left me feeling aggrieved. “Adam, your fucking entourage is acting like I'm fucking stalking you,” I told him edgily. “I don't have an entourage,” he said. “I just came here with Ryan.”
“Well, they don't seem to know that,” I slurred, menacingly.
“I have to go, Rebecca,” he said. (He remembered!). “It was nice meeting you!”
Wasn't that sweet? I think Adam Kennedy and I will be great friends!
Before Adam Kennedy walked out of my life—woeful day!—Dana and Gina and I had been having a swell time, except for Dana. We danced to the cover band playing Sublime's poppy ode to teenage prostitutes. We laughed at the girl whose nipple fell out of her top, and at the stranger across the table who casually popped it back in for her when the cool breeze on said nip failed to draw her attention. We laughed at the short drink of water in the Niagra jacket, and with the girls in the women's room, who were unfailingly chummy as they laughed at the men without.
And then after Adam Kennedy walked out of my life, we laughed too. We know a secret. Call me, Adam! I won't bite!
Dana was much more at home at Fitzgerald's Friday, for the legendary China White. She hated the Canyon Inn, she hated Adam's entourage (one of whom pushed her out of the way when he walked by), she hated the girl and her nipple.
She did like making fun of it afterward though.
But China White? Dana was the happiest tiny punk rock lady in the whole wide world. She chatted happily with a fu-manchued member of some band whose act involves the throwing of tampons. She carried her tiny punk rock lady self very carefully past the pit, where all manner of stupidity was perpetrating. (Frankie of Cool Grrrls tells a great story about a China White show at the Galaxy, and a crazy drunk chick who'd started a fight and then called the cops. “If you can't handle your shit,” the Santa Ana PD told her, with a surprising amount of common sense, “stay out of the pit!”) We met a nice boy named Eric, so we took him outside to fight.
We had already done hard time at the Yard House. No, I have no idea why we go there, either. Oh, yes. I remember. Because Gina likes the faceless Globotech men, and they like her right back. Gina, Gina, Gina!
We sat, enthralled and repulsed, as four five seven men swarmed about, to the eternal hate of the loveless blondes down the bar. The men—who I believe were in insurance—said awful things as Gina egged them on with shocking asides about “giving them something to think about later” and other unladylike things that quite made me blush. An attractive piggish older alpha—we'll call him Brad because that is his name—laid it on thick and rude, with about as much subtlety as a subway masher. Trying desperately not to be a bitch (and really not succeeding), I told him I'd let him know when he crossed the line—a moment that came about two minutes later as he grabbed both cheeks to lift-and-separate and I shrieked out the eternally clever, “What the fuck do you think you're doing?!”
I forgot to add, “Governor Schwarzenegger!” I also forgot to sock him.
Unpithy me.
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