Adventures In CollegeTown, Part I
What a difference 48 hours can make. At the onset of my memorial holiday weekend, I seem poised to have little to be memorable about.
Yet here I sit, mulling Kafka over vanilla flavored coffee, sifting and sorting the maddening amount of information from places new and old, attempting to capture the details from the scores of characters that made up the cast of crazyness and embracing my aching body, with it's battered soul as I fight to purge the libations that make each trip all the more fun. Collegetown has once again provided me a buffet and now I must feast.
But already I am a head of myself, so before I tangent off too far, I will do my best to reign it in line by line.
Friday:
I fled the job that I am pretending to love for, birthday-themed happy hour pints. Games of pool with gaggles of work cronies while I watched the die-hard Phunk-Junkie fans line up outside. For any of you not familiar with this particular band (and most of you won't know them), a brief history. The local music seen in my beloved desert oasis is pretty piss poor at best. Flavor of the month bands spring up like tumbleweeds and the few bands that come to mind that actually had talent in my eye, were derailed by drugs, psycosis and suicide (Meat Puppets, Refreshments & Gin Blossoms). To give them credit, the Junkeez have been a staple in the scene for a little over a decade now and have changed very little. There one shot for mainstream stardom never happened, even with a coast to coast album release and a tour to support, the local boys done good are still just local boys. I first heard the upbeat punkish rockabilly while in high school and with the exception of the die hards, this is about all they attract to shows. Not my cup of tea by any stretch of the imagination. I pondered trying to sling out a few, "I'm old enough to buy beer and have a place to drink it" lines, but instead opted out the door at the first oppurtunity.
After losing track of time and wasting 4 and one half hours playing pool I was in a bind. Due to the lateness of the hour, the boat had sailed on joining the Poet for a drunken poetry slam. The Last Zion once again manifested as my savior, phoning and and advising to haul my ass over with beer to help him entertain the bevy of Betty's at a house type party in the depths of suburbia. "Score!", or so I thought at the time. Taco bell and 12-pack in hand I depress the numbers on my cellular device and am dumped straight to voicemail. Sitting in a circle-k parking lot on a friday night (of a holiday weekend no less), munching on a taco and drinking light beer out a can, whats a guy to do? I dialed everyone that seemed dial worthy in my phone book on the way home and was just about to give up and chalk up a loss for the night when two things changed my mind. First off and foremost, a strange car in the drive meaning that my roomate (whom also doubles as my sister) was getting her socks rocked off. And secondly, someone finally answered their phone.
It was a family reunion of sorts. My mad virgo counterpart who lacks a proper nickname and his diminutive sister whom we still lovingly refer to as "the gnome." Initially I was prepared to suck down several beers at the Nello's bar in an attempt to salvage my night. The suprise treat was not only catching up with the gnome, but bowing to her request and escorting her and her four friends for a night out to collegetown. I quickly nixed the idea of Club Rio and only quaffed one drink at Casey's before two of the girls loudly complained, "we're the only two black people here" and agreed to compromise and a tempe 10k journey to Fat Tuesdays ensued.
I turned on the charm, which the Gnome later thanked me for, and got everyone in a fiesta mode. Carefully at first, but once determining the comfort level of the gaggle of girls I was entertaining, I spun tales from my mental collection and kept everyone laughing and dancing until last call. At the Tuesdays, I absorbed the collected masses around me and found the odd balls amongst the suburbonites and yuppies. The butch dike at the bar, whom I conviced to press her breasts upon the bar for better service (which worked, btw) and even drew a chuckle from her scowling face by pointing out that our present locale was not the scene for either one of us, but at least she could get beads even though she was not one of the painted pin-ups in attedance; "you may not dress like a slut, but you are still a girl, my dear." "The out of place dancers" were my next target and had everyone damn nearing wetting themselves as we watched this trimunitive dance to the music in their heads and not what was being spun by the DJ.
The first guy is a regular, a main-stay if you will, a constant that you will always find him in the same spot, every friday and saturday. With his hawaiian shirts, long hair with a big bald spot in the middle combined with his uncanny knack to sweat when standing still and ability to sing everyword of the "By, By By" song, he is a truly baffling spectacle to behold. The 80's girl came next, sporting hair straight out of Flashdance and a mini-skirt truly worthy of the name. She twisted and contorted her body in ways that would make Elizabeth Berkley push her down stairs in order to take her place on the stage. She did all of this while rooted to one spot and hypnotized me with her ability to never actually move her feet. The final installment was a big sweaty guy sporting a tank-top and beads that no women would ever want, nor present bared breasts to him to obtain. His furrowed brow went well with the befuddled expression plastered to his face, as he seemed to be always trying to concentrate on his dance moves, which involved him mostly spinning in circles and doing the whitest version of The Robot this soul has ever seen. He is probably best seeking out a living as an extra in a remake of Deliverance than pursuing a carreer as a dancing machine.
Once everyone had settled in, I was craving a little attention and with five women at my immenent disposal a choice was necessary. Two of the party were married (including the gnome) and my occassional acts of bodyguard (chasing away over zealous dancing dudes) was enough for both of them. A third was promised to my virgo compatriot and stealing your buddy's thunder and cock-blocking will get you banished to Siberia faster than you can say, 'another vodka tonic vladamir'. That left two choices; do my best Spike Lee impression and get a little Jungle Fever or pray that the plane jane, non-descript girl is really smart and not socially repressed. Even though I would like to find a soul sister that can stand my antics, I opted for the mousey girl based on weight differential, since she was about my size and height, while the left over female sat most of the night because her girth made her light-headed if she stood for too long (I'm not making that up). With a deep breath, I waded in, "so do you go to school?"
While waiting for her response, I prayed silently to myself, "COME ON BIG MONEY, NO WHAMMY....NO WHAMMY, COME ON BIG MONEY, NO WHAMMY...NO WHAMMY...STOP!"
"Acutally, I'm transferring from ASU to Cambridge in July!" YES! I enjoyed mental stimulation for the rest of the night and despite her bad hair and lack of make-up, her figure was pleasent and I enjoyed grinding up against her for a couple of hip hoppin songs. Besides her trip across the pond in July, she also didn't drink and didn't smoke, so the balance of understanding each other had escalated to the point of virtual non-communication and I doubted anything beyond anti-biotics had ever passed those lips. She did proclaim that this was one of "best nights she had in a long time" and I was ribbed Unmercifully after she left as apparently, the girl doesn't smile or dance, and I got her to do both in only a couple of hours.
I declined to leave my number with her friends as they requested, but did offer up my services as escort extrodinaire anytime they need it. It is nice to know, dearest of diaries, that I still got "it", even if such revelation do manifest at Fat Tuesday in a pair of flip-flops, grinding to Outkasts "poo-poo" song with a socially reprssed graduate student. Oh Collegetown, how I love thee so.
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