 | A Busted Camera and Other Nonsense (Fri & Sat)
Current mood:  cheerful The relocation of my pre-partying this weekend led to an interesting set of evenings. Friday night, it all started at Vincent Chang's place…an apartment on the 37th floor of a downtown apartment building. These views were incredible, and basically felt like you were penthouse status. It was some usual Crystal cats…Charles, Alan, Vincent, Phil, Matt Goldstein, Anjali, Mona…we partied and I got my first chance to play Wii…trying Tennis, Baseball and Bowling. Pretty damn fun stuff out there for anyone that hasn't tried it! Let me just say that it's hard for me to get in the drinking mood without an hour or two of pre-drinking or Beirut.
We left from there and I jumped over to meet up with T and Aliza in the Castro. I had trouble getting a cab, which meant another marathon walk from 3rd and Market to about 10th. I jumped a cab the rest of the way, and then got severely confused by the text messages saying, "come to the bar."
I'm like, there's thirty bars around here!
"No, the bar!"
Finally, I realize she means The Bar, and I walk into a trendy gay bar with a smattering of women…mostly Aliza and her friends. The place is cool enough, but T, Zena and some others are heading over to meet up with Christina. As of 6pm on Friday, she was not very happy with me at all, so going there didn't seem like the best idea.
Aliza and I hang around, kill another drink and then head out to the corner. I bring out a joint, but I'm not ready for it. The speed with which I finished my last red bull vodka combines with the pot and I feel like I want to unload everything in my stomach out onto the street. Meanwhile, as I fight nausea, Aliza is touting the benefits of going to the Marina and meeting up with the rest of them. I tell her that she's only making me want to throw up more with those kinds of ideas.
I settle my stomach and put what's left of my game face back on. I tell Aliza to lead us to a bar, to which she responds, in her own neighborhood, that she doesn't know any good places. She tries to take me into this place called "Boy Bar," but I explain very nicely to her that as a straight guy and a lesbian, we should probably be exploring our options in a bar with more actual women of either orientation.
We stagger down Market and I suggest the Mint. She doesn't want to do that. I suggest another bar, that one sucks. Then she tells me, "dude, no good bars are going to be open."
"Aliza! It's Friday night at 12:15. If we can't find another bar to get a drink in, you're fucking fired!"
She takes me to Lucky 13, which is basically a biker/punk/goth type crowd on Market. It's cool enough and we have another drink before Aliza starts looking sloppy enough to take home.
We walk back to her place, relax on her couch and smoke another joint. She's convinced that there's three of us in the room, asking me about Renee, their roommate. I explain to her that Renee is most likely in bed and that there's only the two of us in the room. She asks who the third person is before realizing that this is just her seeing double of me.
She excuses herself and I get to listen as she throws up in the bathroom. She then politely tells me that she's heading to bed.
I walk out of her house and immediately think that buying a 22 of Mickey's for my cab ride is a fantastic idea. The cab driver looks at me sideways, but I keep the can down so he can't say anything. By the time I show up at Swig, the momentum that I lost listening to Aliza vomit has been regained through the power of Mickey's.
Swig is just how I remembered it, and it's already late. I get one glass of water in there by the time last call hits, and I jump back in a cab to go home.
This is where my night turns to shit. I get out of the cab at the Caltrain station and think that hell, this is the perfect time for some dancing in the street videos. I take two good ones. I'm on my third, and as I head back to the camera, I make the exuberant mistake of scooping, rather than picking it up off the ground, and watch in horrified slow motion as it somersaults, bounces off the palm of my hand, and lands lens down on the sidewalk.
I almost get mad, then realize I could have prevented it. I almost cry, then realize that it's a spilled camera, so no use in that. I look at it very disappointedly, like somehow shame on you camera, get in my car and drive home.
Saturday night I head up to the city with the idea of hanging out with Brigid for her birthday. I mean, c'mon people, this is Brigid we're talking about here! I start in the Sunset at a place called Ireland 32 with Damie. They're there to hear a friend of theirs play drums for the band on their cd release party. We're there for a bit when Aliza and her crew of basketball coaches make it over from 6th and Clement to meet me. Solid crew, those people.
They want pizza, they get pizza. At this point, it's almost midnight (yea, I got started real real late Saturday, mostly, I think, from being exhausted from the ultimate frisbee tournament I played that day, which I then followed up with 3 taco supremes, 2 gorditas and a chalupa from Taco Bell). You can call me a chalupa!
Aliza, again, is agitating to go to the Marina, which is odd because she wanted to go there Friday night, and here she is again going after it. The difference is that tonight, we have a crew to meet there…Cella, maybe Julian and some others for Nicky Gillette's birthday party.
We walk into Mauna Loa, and the excitement that was moving Aliza towards the marina fades when she enters and sees what she will only refer to as "straight white America." She begins to get agitated. I explain to her that A) she had wanted to go to the marina, what did she expect? B) we're only there to meet some people, and C) I happen to be straight and white, so she should stop trying to stereotype it all.
All of a sudden, I'm seeing shades of Aliza wanting to fight. Talking loudly about the people she doesn't like in the bar, getting aggressive when someone bumps into her, and yelling at some poor girl playing the arcade basketball machine…the girl misses a few shots and Aliza "Michael Jordan" Parpia yells out, "What the hell are you doing?!" I take her away from the game and back towards the bar.
Mike and Julian never show up. I don't know what their story is. We head outside, and Joanna, our companion on this little adventure into straight white America, is confused as to why I'm not taking a cab with them. I explain the triangle that is the city to her, and how her destination and mine are on different ends of that. She gets it, hops in the cab with Aliza, and they're gone.
I stagger up to Bar None where I had seen JK walking to while we were outside Mauna Loa. We hang out for a bit, and then he heads home, I head up the street, walk around the corner, sit down and smoke until the infamous Maurod the Cabbie shows up to drive me back to Damie's, where much to Derek's dismay, I smoke him out at 3:30 am before passing out.
Another successful night in the city. Stay tuned. |
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