Okay, all I care about is movies, dancing, fucking and drinking. Oh and writing. I’ve gone on and on about this before. I fear that I become redundant. Because though I might watch a ton of movies a week, each film offers its own commentary. Whereas dancing isn’t something that one can talk too much about. You either get it or you don’t.
I am good at it, though. I know this because people tell me this. I go to the Short Stop. The Short Stop is owned by (among other people) Greg Dulli. I had never met him before Wednesday. Wednesday night I showed up and ran in Joe, who is one of the Stop’s biggest regulars, Justice the bouncer, and Terrell, the manager. I showed up around 10:30, because the Kogi BBQ truck was going to be parked a block and a half away. In Los Angeles there’s a number of taco trucks, but Kogi’s has distinguished itself by being a Twitter phenomenon. They post where they’re going to be on Twitter, and usually there’s a crazy line around it. They use Korean barbecued meats and foodstuff (like Kim-chi) in their tacos and burritos to make some interesting taste combinations. Bottom Line: The shit’s delicious. And such is why people like Gwyneth Paltrow have brought the truck to the set of Iron Man 2, etc. I’ve talked it up to my friends at the Short Stop, but most of the gang hadn’t been there before.
Justice was drunk. He had been there since the afternoon, because there was a Dodger game, and the bar is right near the stadium. Justice told me that during the course of the day one guy started flashing his sheriff’s badge. Joe started going on about how he didn’t know that cops were allowed back in the bar. I’ve always had a fascination with the Biggie/Tupac killings, and am fascinated by the tangential elements. What I didn’t know is that when the Rampart scandal went down, it was The Short Stop where the tapes were made that implicated a lot of cops. Such may explain why for a couple of years there was no dancing at The Short Stop. Cops were barred from the Short Stop, but I guess that got lifted. There’s always cops driving by at night, but such is life. I am intrigued that a number of the people I dance with are cops. It’s sort of like a secret identity.
So a whole group of us walk over to the truck, including Terrell, who’ve I’ve become friendly with, and he’d never had Kogi’s before. Justice was a bit pickled, so he kept saying he had no money, and no one would step up to say “hey, I’ll cover you” until I finally did. As we head over Greg Dulli shows up with a musician friend, and I look at him with that “that must be the guy” eyes but I wasn’t totally sure, as I was never an Afghan Wigs fan. As a reg at The Short Stop, everyone who doesn’t go to the club likes telling me that Dulli owns the joint. I talked mostly to the musician friend of his about burgers in LA, and the Apple Pan and Umami’s came up. I was hearing a lot of talk three months ago about Umami’s, and it is fucking delicious, and it is one of LA’s best burgers. Supposedly they’re opening a new joint on Vermont St. in Los Feliz. If that’s the case, I may make it a weekly stop. LA has a weird, kind of awesome foodie culture. Justice, drunk, puts me in a headlock and tells Greg that I’m one of his best customers. This is funny because I generally don’t drink whilst at the Stop. Or at least not that much. Greg asked if I came on Sundays, I told him yeah, that I was often there for Soul Sundays as it was often my favorite night. He told me I was an inspiration, to which I responded “You mean like a lifetime movie of the week?” To that I smiled but in that way where I tried to show that I was happy to get the compliment. Terrell decided to buy everyone everything, which was nice, and Joe ordered two burritos, but Justice, in his state, told Joe that he was taking his second burrito. And he did. And such was life. I had to order for both Justice and Joe, who wanted the chef’s choice. I got them the Pork and Beef burritos. I hope Justice got on of each. Hard to know. At one point Justice said I was his nigger. As one of the whitest people who aren’t albinos, I was delighted to say “yes, I am your nigger” to a group.
Last night I went out again. Such is my life. I showed up around 10:20. I stopped at Ralph’s beforehand to get an energy drink and some beer for later. As I was driving to the club, I had that 50/50 “Do I want to go out” feeling. The Short Stop has the Lord of the Rings pinball game. I often carry change with me so I can play it. I played three times last night, winning one replay, which made me feel good.
I came to the dance floor. I went over and saluted the DJ’s, as I have to. Tonight is Sunday, and I am probably staying home. The DJ Dia will notice that I am not there, and if I go next week will mention it. I will feel bad about missing tonight, mostly because Sunday has the best boobs-to-wiener ratio. But I was out Friday and Saturday, and I didn’t get to bed last night until 5:30 in the morning. I hit the floor after my pinball, and there was a girl who I could tell wanted to dance. The floor was empty, but the tables around the floor were mostly filled. The bar was not full crowded, but it was a person deep. I like to look around before I get going. If there’s nobody there I generally won’t hit the floor by myself because I’m pretty much doomed to cut the rug alone. But if I can tell that there’s enough people that if I start dancing by myself, then I know two songs later, the floor will pick up. And I have no problem dancing by myself. I can use the whole floor to my advantage.
Side note: Girls dancing by themselves can be hella slutty and often don’t want other people on the floor. Men dancing by themselves – no matter how lascivious the dancing may get – either come across as confident or gay. Maybe it’s just from my perspective as a dude. Because of this, I want to enact the musical number from Purple Rain, when Prince does Darling Nikki. If I were to writhe on the floor, I think people would be amused. I know I would be.
Oh yeah, on Friday Anderson Cooper shot an interview with Drew Barrymore at The Stop. I was hoping both would hit the floor at some point, but that didn’t happen. Neither are my type, though.
Anyway, around 10:30 last night, I looked at this girl, and she wanted to dance, and I wanted to dance, and so I hit the floor, and so did she. We danced around each other, giving each other shit in that playful way that happens on the floor. The performance aspect. When the floor is not that full, I get into walk around it, dancing around it. Strutting. Getting full peacock.
That reminds me, on Friday night some girl was totally grinding on me, and all that, and we dance together a couple of times during the night, then at the end, she told me we had met before, and was actively annoyed that I didn’t remember her. Yeah, sorry. Note to self: Attractive women don’t like not being remembered.
Anyway, at the end of the song applause broke out. I looked around and riled the audience, smiled, bowed and flicked the “come out here” hand to those around. I realized that I wasn’t surprised that I inspired applause. This has happened before. Today I thought about this. When do adults get applause? Post high school, it’s quite possible that there’s a high percentage of the population who never get people to clap at them again. Basically, you have to be put in a position that requires a group of people to look at you. I think that sort of reaction is why I love to go out dancing. It’s an addiction. People respond to me in a usually positive light. So that affirmation is definitely something I like/crave.
My friend Nayla showed up around midnight. I am blond. She is blond. We’re both very Nordic. She’s a good dancer, together – if we were on Solid Gold – we’d be the Aryan Nation dancers (reruns for my twitter peeps). We went to the bar after a bit, and the bartender bought us our drinks, because – as Justice calls me – I’m the firestarter. This was awesome because Nayla is a woman, and it’s nice props, though my favorite was a week ago when Justice called my name on the dance floor, and brought me over a shot. Nayla and I talked for a bit, about Michael Jackson and movies and such. I hadn’t thought about it before, but my opinion on Michael Jackson molesting children is that I think MJ was a fucked up dude, and though there may have been nudity and touching, I don’t really think it was malicious. I think Michael Jackson regressed at some point, and young children have a more exploratory attitude toward sexuality. I’m not saying that what Michael Jackson didn’t do inappropriate things, and hell, he may have fucked little boys, but I also think he was doomed.
Nayla and I hit the floor some more, and at some point a guy was just on her back. I grabbed her and kept repositioning her to get her away from the dude, who was not taking the hint. There was a guy earlier who said to me “Your girlfriend is fucking gorgeous” which is half rude, but you have to take it and hope they leave you alone. There is a level of inappropriateness and ignored social signals, that when avoided either lead to violence or awe. I didn’t want to have to tell this guy “back the fuck off” but both Nayla and I were laughing so hard that it was hard to get my ire up. Then, after I repositioned Nayla a number of times, the guy talked to her, telling her that he was a Mormon and wanted to take her to church tomorrow, and then to the Lobster fest. Crossing the line into awesome. Nayla and I took it to last call. I bet I could have stayed there after close, but I want to call that card when it’s worth calling.