Thursday, February 5, 2009

Enter the Dragon









My cell vibrates and it's Travis texting me to let me know the plans for the evening. He describes the dress code for the evening as "skankalicious." This prompts me to go to the closest and identify something black with bling, but without shoulder straps. Surely, this will do.

As I'm readying to go out, I g-chat with Ira, not really paying attention to what I'm doing, and somehow cut myself on a Pizza Hut box. Oh, I am not joking. I don't know quite how, but somehow I sliced my finger, paper-cut painful, and start bleeding on my leg. Since I am not a fan of bleeding on one's evening attire, even if it is black and skankalicious, I throw on flip flops and dash to The Pharmacy (that is its clever name) to buy band aids. I figure that while I'm out, I should probably hit the ATM.

As the Pro-Bowl draws near, the Vegas street walker talent has been arriving in droves and the streets are clotted with them (Travis is right. They are quite prettier and more high-end than the normal crew.) On my way out from the ATM, I am mistaken for one by a tubby frat guy in a ridiculous aloha print (yeah that's right, pal. You looked ridiculous), who looks me up head to toe, asks me with a leer if I'm having a good night. Now, go ahead men, I know this is the part where you think "well, Snarky was asking for it in that outfit." That's fine. In my world, if you're a tubby frat guy in a stupid shirt, you're asking for it. Besides, I'm a little relieved. Clearly, I've chosen the right outfit for the night. But for good measure, I fix him with my narrowed eyes coolly (I perfected this look as a teenager, it's very hostile. Ask my parents). I don't where Tubby is from (I mean, besides from under a rock), but I don't think he's used to having a female stare him down. This means he's probably from Texas. He wavers a little and then mumbles something. I'm about to stalk off triumphantly, until Tubby's short little companion hisses "I told you she wasn't a hooker look at her shoes." I look down at my flippies. What's wrong with my flippies, damnit! Excuse me for not wanting to wear silver stiletto platforms out to get bandages. Sheesh! Tough crowd.

I meet up with Travis, one of Travis's cousins, her friend, a whole mess of tan dudes, all friends of Travis and Shawn, who work at Duke's and we all head to L4, whose chromosomal moniker reminds me of biology class. (L4, scientists have discovered, is where the recessive skank gene is located). After some sort of verbal wheeling and dealing, we are led to the front of the line to the plush velvet rope. It's drawn back and we're admitted into the dark, pulsing club. But we don't stop there, we head to an upstairs VIP room where, I kid you not, there are chicks in gold spandex swinging from the ceiling all cirque du soleil style and they are really, uh, throwing their backs into it, because I can feel air whooshing above my head and the scent of perfume. (I think it's "Eau de Trying to Put Myself Through College"). In stark comparison, there are two solitary dancers, dressed like punks, on stage doing some sort of painful looking gyration while looking put-off. On the tables surrounding the VIP sections, are go-go dancers, hot, attractive, non-Yeti go-go dancers, in orange zip up suits that remind me of the costumes from Austin Powers (see pic). Travis leads us over the roped off VIP section and I pause for a moment, wondering if there is a Mob element in Hawaii and whether Travis is the head of it.

The group does the whole bottle service thing, 900 bucks for an attractive waitress to come over and mix the vodka into pineapple, orange, or cranberry juice for you all night. This ritual is about as extravagant as Obama's economic stimulus package (oh yeah, I went there. That's right). But I still feel like a baller VIP. I look up, behind us there are movie-style stadium seating. This strikes me as slightly…voyeuristic, in a surround sound sort of way.

I size up the room and am happy to report, Mother that I am not the most skantastically dressed femme there or even in my party for that matter. My dress covers all crucial parts of anatomy and the hem of the dress was just shy of the knee. Some girls are wearing dresses that have as much fabric as those bandanas you tie around dog's necks.

On my second drink (which I fixed myself after tiny Thumbelina-sized waitress, seen pictured with Shawn, nearly overdosed me with pineapple), I notice that the golden swingers from the ceiling are gone and so are the stage dancers and the go-gos. About 90 seconds later, drum music starts up and then:

ENTER THE DRAGON
(You have no idea how long I've been dying to work that phrase into a blog)

Two Chinese Dragons appear on the stage which has column-type steps ranging from 2ish -10ish feet high, and four dudes, two beneath in each dragon, start free-styling on the planks. The music changes and the Dragons settle into routines and gender roles, one Chinese Dragon, apparently the female one, starts shaking her moneymaker at the designated male one.

I look down at my drink. It is only my second, yet I feel like Dumbo. Dear Children of the 80's: remember when Dumbo gets tipsy some spiked bathwater and he starts seeing neon elephants in bubbles? I'm having one of those episodes. I'm not drunk and I can't fly like Dumbo or suck up a peanut up my nose, but I am having one of those bizarre-interludes watching two Chinese Dragons gyrate and jump to the sounds of tinny cymbals. It's like I am not even in a bar. This is not what I signed up for or expected this evening. It would be like waltzing into a Denny's and finding the Boston Symphony Orchestra warming up.

Then the Lady Dragon shudders, and the guy falls down, out of the suit, off the high post and face plants on the stage. He is surrounded by spotters instantly and to my amazement, even though this guy has taken a heck of a spill, he gets back up into the sad, saggy dragon (missing its front half) and reanimates it. Look, I'm all for getting back in the saddle, in the dragon whatever, but good god, that was quite a dinger, shouldn't somebody get this guy some medical attention or at least a drink?

The Lady Dragon starts dancing more frenetically than before, as if to prove a point, and then WHAM! Same guy on the floor again. He looks very frustrated. The Dragon looks all droopy again. The bouncers look annoyed this time. (You can pretty much read their minds: Damnit little tiny dancing man, stay in the Dragon!) And, of course LTD man gets back in the dragon. At this point, you almost have to.

The dance winds up into a fever pitch with acrobatics I can't really describe (and no more falling LTD men) and then the dragons are done and forgotten as the skankarrifc party goers go back to what I can only assume are meaningful conversations about Kant while dancing to the lyrics of "Just Dance" which feature such conundrums as "wish I could shut my playboy mouth." What does that even mean?

To my relief, there are no more people in mythical animal costumes, but the go-go dancers come back, and people start to make their way up in the movie-style theater type seating and either plop down alone or on top of someone else.

At some point, I make the mistake of going into the crowded ladies' room, arguably busier than the club, where the attendant tries to hand me a lollipop BEFORE I get in line to wait for a stall. Not that I would necessarily take candy from a bathroom attendant AFTER I was finished, but the idea of unwrapping one and eating it while you're doing your thing on the toilet is beyond gross, but lots of other people don't seem to think so. It's particularly nasty when one girl takes it out of her mouth while talking to her friend and waves it around in the air, making some sort of point. I guess we can add this to the list of how diseases are transmitted. Bathroom lollipops.

While waiting, I watch a girl over at the sink fishing around in her orange-colored drink with nearly all of her fingers (all except the thumb). The expedition results in the extraction of a soggy-looking piece of gum, which to my amazement, the girl pops back into her mouth. Silly me, I thought she was diving in there to get rid of it. That's a little gross, so I shift my eyes to a girl dressed in a feathery sequined zebra onesie (I desperately wanted to ask her where she got it, so I could get one for Anna and Melissa for when they come visit) but she was on the phone. In fact, from what I could hear, she was telling some (maybe her boyfriend) that no, she wasn't out clubbing, she was on the bus and that's why it was noisy. If that sucker believed that, I had a bridge to sell him. As she talks to MGB (most gullible boyfriend ever, apparently), she plumps up her cleavage with the hand not holding the cell phone. Yeah, that's always what I do right before I get on a bus and go home, readjust myself to assure symmetry.

I make a mental note that on the off chance I ever return to L4 and I need to use the restroom, I will just walk the 3 blocks home, and come back. I return to our spot, have another drink and hang out. Toward the end of the evening, I notice off in the movie seats above us, a guy is uh, licking his lady's tattoo.

Now, it would be just awful of me to tell you where on this lady's body the tattoo was, so instead, as my parting remark, let me just say: inner thigh tattoos are the new tramp stamp.

2 comments:

Jenna said...

Alright, I'll bite. You now have 10 followers! I happen to know my sister follows your blog too, since she's the one who introduced me to it. I just watched The Lost World, so I could definitely appreciate your "Jurassic Poultry" and the beautiful pictures you took. I'm sooo jealous of you in the warm weather. My brother tells me it's flip flop heaven down there-my dream come true. Keep workin' on that tan though. I expect results by the time you are back!

Amy said...

Ok, I hate to be a whiner (and to admit how much I stalk your blog), but some of us have been anxiously waiting for your birthday blog.... Certainly you must have a story or two about celebrations in Hawaii... Please throw us a bone. =)