underbelly LA

Let's Get Physical

2009-02-27T07:20:00.000-08:00

Cuddling Up Against the Sensitive Underbelly of West LA

It was an unseasonably cold Friday night as I walked down Sepulveda Blvd. I held my bags close and turned into the back alley behind some print shop where a staircase led to that candlelit room of strangers convened in a circle-obscured in a haze of incense-while looking at the door, waiting for me and my late ass. Yes, patiently sitting upstairs at the Bodymind Institute was one of the most insidious rolls in L.A.’s underbelly: a Cuddle Party. Indeed, this was going to be some hardcore shit.

Yet, my previous image of the Moroccan opium den fuckfest quickly dissolved as I passed the piles of magazines entitled Aura or something, and bulletin boards covered with clipart yoga fliers and a fringe of phone numbers. The main room was not filled with orgy-goers in bathrobes, smoking pipes and drinking old-fashioneds. Rather, it was a large circle of mismatched pillows resting on four, Target-esque comforters-much more kindergarten than kinky. People were milling about wearing oversized T-shirts and PJ pants, even having juice and cookies. It looked a lot more like a blood drive than a snuggle-saurus attack.

Cuddle parties have been the darling of local news channels and “indie” media ever since their invention by New York workshop facilitators Marcia Baczynski and Reid MiHalko. Wanting to create a place where “non-sexual touching” was acceptable without the imminent threat of boning, they started the cuddle party phenomenon as this fuck-free zone. Oh yeah, and to help people communicate, or something.

After I changed into my pajamas, the “welcome circle” began. My attire included my female roommate’s pajamas, covered with clouds, moons, and super sparkly stars, an argyle sock and a tan sock (both odiferous reruns, by the way) all accompanied by an old shirt that said “suicide medicine.” Not so much a comment on the duality of man as his lack of detergent.

I joined the encircled clan for the opening welcome before we got down to cuddle business. There were about 30 people in the circle, most of various sexes, ages, and waistlines. We all looked at each other nervously as the moderator began to speak softly about some rules. It was hard to hear all of them, especially because it was about a minute into his deal that I realized I had already broken one of them long before I had gotten there. I was drunk.

Hey, it’s not my fault they scheduled the cuddlefest on Saint-Patty’s day, but I can’t say the same about the amount of Guinness and corned beef’n'cabbage I ingested at 2 p.m. Sorry, cuddlebunnies, tonight is going to be a stinker!

It was a little bit of a surreal blur as the moderator softly and gently explained the rules of (non) engagement…for the next 40 minutes. I dazed in and out of consciousness, catching only a few of the rules as they floated past my increasingly reddening face. No sex, no dry humping, PJ’s stay on, “No means no.” As I looked around the room, I counted the number of men vs. women over and over, coming to an even 12 of each every time. But for some reason, there appeared to be many more middle-aged men than nubile young vixens. It was probably like one of those magic eye things at the mall.

But in the midst of pondering the ratio of dicks to chicks, the word “erection” buzzed in my ear. I immediately looked at my crotch, where I thought the phrase originated, only to realize that the moderator-and self proclaimed cuddle party lifeguard-was bringing up (har har) the issue of “visible sexual arousal.”

“Just think of it as sexual energy just popping up to say ‘hi!’ he said as I started imagining the possibilities of a wood-sporting populace: men jousting with their wee-wees, the inevitable “light-saber-Luke-I-am-your-father” ding-dong fights. Perhaps a cock pushup or two. Just as I wondered how I’d explain these snail-trails that were going to show up on my roomie’s PJs, the cuddle fuck began!

Almost immediately, a woman clad in matching leopard jammers rolled on top of me, like that boulder at the beginning of Raiders of the Lost Arc. I was stunned and I was pinned.
In my daze I didn’t realize that my sparkly star/moon jam-a-ramas had been pulled clean off! Not only was I unintentionally breaking a cuddle commandment, I was nearly revealing my frightened pee-pee, hiding in my unwashed Fruit of the Looms. With a quick log roll, I maneuvered to the middle, where I latched onto the first lady I could see.

“Can I write the Canterbury Tales on your back?” I asked. Reluctantly, she said yes and I began using my index finger to script out the first few lines. After at least four passages, I forgot the rest and began to do long division, which did involve a few remainders. I don’t think she noticed, because every one of her appendages was being massaged and/or prodded by dudes as I was trying to see how many times nine went into 405 (it’s 45).

As if this wasn’t awkward enough, there was a Taiwanese news crew filming the entire event, while the female anchor (in matching pinky PJs) carried a ’70s style foam microphone in which she narrated to an Asian audience what the fuck was going on. With the news anchor “interviewing” people in cuddle puddles, a tantra teacher fondling a reiki master, and some divorcees who may have been violating the moratorium on dry humping (and possibly each other), I couldn’t take it any more. I left-a changed man with changed pants-and I went back to the bar. After all that, I’ve decided drinking is a much safer activity.

Sucks In the City: A dating guide for prople who hate dating

2009-02-27T07:19:00.001-08:00

Everybody knows that dating sucks. In the old days, dating was so much easier: you’d ride your triceratops up to a floating castle while a damsel (or VanDamsel) would prance a unicorn down an iridescent rainbow, and minutes later you’d perform the seventh position of the Kama Sutra (the praying mantis).

Yes, this is how my parents met.

It was the Swinging ’70s, and times were so much simpler. So what do you do today? And moreover, what do you do once you’ve met that special someone while picking up their dog’s ass dumplings at the dog park or pontificating about post-surrealism at a gallery? Do you just give up and take them on a trite dinner and a movie date? No, you just need a little help from your favorite fucker, Dan Gillis III. To make your life easier, I have created the Interstate of Dating as a roadmap to the best dates you’ve never been on.

The “Arizona”

The best dates I went on were in high school, so this date brings you back to the good ol’ days of dry humping and halfway handjobs. First, walk with your date to the closest Vons. Instruct your date to buy something “embarrassing” like a cucumber, medical gloves and Astroglide, as well as a pack of Cinnaburst gum. While your date is spinning a web of subterfuge, do your best to steal a handful of dust-covered airplane-sized bottles of booze. I recommend Goldschlager. Proceed to the parking lot whereupon you should immediately jump into a shopping cart, suggesting that your date “push you around.” While speeding around the parking lot, make sure to imbibe plenty of the stolen alcohol and discuss who would be in the best band of all time, always keeping watch for when your date decides to chew a piece of gum. Upon this occurrence, immediately say, “I don’t feel good,” and with great deftness, exit the cart. It is at this point that you should vomit (remember to be polite and aim away from your partner’s shoes) and reach for your date’s hand. Once done, your date should ask if you’re OK. It is at this point that you should make direct eye contact and ask for a piece of gum, thereby proceeding to “French” your date under the yellow humming lights of the parking lot.

Second base should take place under the bleachers.

The “New York”

Every good date in New York involves danger and hotpants. So, for this date you should begin at Latin American fusion restaurant Ciudad downtown, where you’ll imbibe mojitos and discuss how much the décor looks like Kandinsky. This will indeed impress your date, but not as much as when you say, “My friend (insert fake DJ name) is spinning at the Standard, wanna go?” Proceed to the rooftop bar at the Standard and act disgusted at “how L.A.” the people are there, even if they are Asian businessmen wearing nametags. It is now time to approach the DJ while your date is checkin’ out a waitress’ hot pants. Ask for some Lionel Richie, which they certainly won’t have, but this will give the appearance of conversation. At this point return to your date and say, “This scene is sooo dead, let’s roll.” Now begins the long walk to The Smell, where you will undoubtedly encounter a vagrant or two. Do not be alarmed, they can help you on your road to Getting-laid-ville. After not giving them any money, blame “Reaganomics” for their predicament, which will help you appear sensitive and not a Republican. Once at The Smell, tell the doorperson that you work for L.A. Alternative and you’re there to cover the show. Enter the venue, proceed to a dark corner and commence heavy petting during Bipolar Bear’s set.

The “Oregon”

This date begins in a nondescript bong store around Venice Beach. The perfect weather for said date is an overcast day with a 60 percent chance of sweaters. You and your date enter the International Youth Hostel and meet a Dutch backpacker named Tomas Jensen, whereupon you ask if you can “take him on a Los Angeles tour” in exchange for weed. Once in the car, drive up the coast pretending that you and your date are friends with Mario Lopez, impressing the Dutchman with your knowledge of syndicated television stars. Once you’ve reached Neptune’s Net (the greasy-good Malibu fish shack and CPA biker haunt), leave Jens in the car while you chow on some fish’n'chips, doing your best to reach for the tartar sauce at the same time as your date, as to have a Tom Hanks You’ve Got Mail moment. When your eyes meet, take a gargantuan bong rip (remember to be polite and let your date have the first hit) and watch the sun gracefully set over our beloved ocean.

To receive desired results, repeat bong loads as necessary.

Bye Bye Bushie

2006-11-14T09:32:00.000-08:00

The election is over and we've all put our differences aside, rejoicing in this moment where our country can unite once again. The people have spoken, and the winds of change are blowing like hot exhaust from my Mazda. We learned that this wasn't Bush's first rodeo, and that Republicans are sometimes Democrats, who are somtimes Liebermans, who kind of looks like the Monopoly Man.

It's complicated, but imagine how complicated this all is for your children, sitting in their foster homes, wondering what this all means. Well friends, I've decided to make it easier for you to connect with those children who maybe frightened of Charlie Gibson's loose neck skin. I have created a pictorial analysis of the election, which you can print out in a baseball sized card, so that you can hand it to your child through the chain link fence at school without breaking your restraining order.

I do believe that children are the future.

And this is the first step to help them understand this impending future where Democrats will rule the world with a velvet fist and guns will only shoot Obama hearts of love and ambiguity.

Enjoy!

Halloween Hangovers

2006-11-03T09:40:00.000-08:00

Learning to Bring Halloween Joy into Your Pathetic Little Life
By Dan Gillis, III

There’s nothing more depressing than the day after Halloween. Maybe the hardest part isn’t the nougat hangover or waking up in your bed still in a skirt, stockings, handlebar moustache and a dinosaur head, wondering whether being Trannysaurus Tex was a good idea.

Or what sexual orientation involves doing it dinostyle?

Instead, it’s just so damn awful knowing that you spent an entire year running costume ideas by your roommates, coworker, and rehab sponsors, for what? One night of fun and/or debauchery?

Well, cheer up frowny-face, it doesn’t have to be that way! The spirit Halloween can live in your heart and pleather halter-top all year long, if you want it.

And you have to really want it, because Halloween, like Easter, is all about sacrifice.

And bunnies.

That’s right, I said it. Halloween is about fucking bunnies, goddamn it. Not the actual act of coitus with our floppy-eared friends, may I remind you, but it’s more about taking ownership of your life and being a bunny, or a unicorn, or even an incontinent yeti to the best of your ability. For that one day, you have complete control over what people think of you and you get to be the bunny you’ve always wanted to be.

So why not get into that costume throughout the year? Imagine the joy of your coworkers when you walk into a company conference about logo placement on cocktail napkins dressed as Sloth from Goonies?

Wouldn’t your parole hearing proceed much smoother if you wore Kasier Wilhelm’s ensemble?

You can even put the “fun” back in funeral dressing like a crucified Kanye West at your Nanny’s wake.

But don’t take my word for it, try it for yourself. There are plenty of bar mitzvahs, family interventions, and pap smears you can make into parties, just pick some of these zany costumes and get ready to giggle your pants off.

The “Accidentes” Lawyer: You know you’ve seen this guy staring back from the back bumper of a bus, with those beady eyes, slightly gapped teeth, and pencil mustache a top his Latino lip. He’s practically begging to you to be him. First, you’ll need a large piece of cardboard which you should cut a hole in the center. Have your mom do this with a sharp knife or pair of scissors. Then place your face through the hole after you’ve mustachioed yourself. Get one of your unemployed artist friends to replicate that Spanish slogan across the cardboard and use part of a beer helmet to attach the sign to your head. This is a classic that only brings an air of sensibility that can be especially useful during your DUI trial.

Hawaiian Hitler: Everyone knows that dictators make great costumes, and if you want to be taken seriously during your the next Powerpoint presentation, this is the way to go. Usually I recommend being some sort of rapper/mass murder combo like Ballin’ Stalin (this requires a track suit, a clock, and an ultimatum for Ukrainians) or Kim Jong License to Ill (he’s already got the shades, just get some Air Jordans). But this year, I’ve decided that because of our noble war, we should be more sensitive with our dictator costumes. Chairman Meow is a real crowd pleaser, with that cat ear headband, green teeth, and khaki shirt. But not even the Allied forces can beat Hawaiian Hitler. The recipe is easy. Take one square mustache and apply it to the upper lip. Comb your hair to one side, or just leave your hair alone if you’re an indie kid. Then slip on board shorts, a flowered shirt, and some Vans. The costume cannot be complete without that sassy look of veiled happiness over your acquistion of the Sudatenland and those rad checkered slip-ons. Try this at the next family BBQ.

Jane Fondle: This costume brings together two of my loves: middle ‘80’s jazzercise videos and clergy molestation jokes. The key to this get-up is the detail. It may take some time to get some of these items, but it will definitely be worth it. First, you’ll need to call my mom. No seriously, it’s cool. And ask her for her light pink legwarmers and the one piece blue unitard. Then talk to my brother. Actually not my brother, just a Brother will do. Try Brother Smolders, a Catholic priest and only an “alleged” child porn “researcher.” He’s real nice once you get to know him, and he will give you the shirt off his back. Which you should take, especially if it has still has that cute little white collar on it. With this collar in conjunction with your aerobic attire and a bag of Dum-Dums and you’re set. Try this one out at a PTA meeting.

Tijuana Go Back to My Place?

2006-10-26T09:27:00.000-07:00

Down and Striking out in Mexico's Mecca of Class

Posted LA Alternative 10.25.06

Tijuana is the place that good souls go to die or go crazy. It’s the other half of the North American dynasty, a city that’s really just San Diego cut into two separate but unequal parts. For TJ, the city throbs with a multicultural populace funneling in from everywhere south of minutemen of Texas. The people wandering the avenues come from every diverse state in Mexico, and the indigenous people sell goods on the sides of the roads, displaced from their farms by multinational agribusinesses. Last Thursday, I went to TJ to hear Marcos, the leader of the Zapatista’s army for indigenous rights, hold a forum about the social ills festering along the symbiotic creature growing along the U.S.-Mexico border

And meet some hot Zapatista babes in the process!

It’s true, these ladies were muy caliente in the most extreme sense and I had to get in on these sweet cinnamon sprinkled churros before they went back to Chiapas and their revolutionary boys armed with bullet chains and sweetie poetic nothings to whisper in their ears. All I had was my press credential and a video camera, and that was step one to getting in with these cute little mariposas, right?

The beginning of this dirty millennium was the best time for love to sprout in a time of discord. It was also a great time for boners to sprout after meeting some fairly crustaceous protest chicks.

I mean females.

I’d been to every protest you can imagine. “Don’t attack Iraq,” “No Blood for Oil,” and I’d even stood outside Forever 21 on the Third Street Promenade shouting things about workers rights or something. I couldn’t really remember cause I was just looking at that one foxy broad – I mean female – in the bandana and the side bag she got in Argentina. I didn’t care that she had a little hedgehog of hair taking a nap in her armpit, for these girls that’s a stinky little badge of honor.

I am woman, smell my pits.

And don’t get me wrong, I was trying to smell those pits, especially the pits of that translator who was standing on stage right now in this broken down theatre on Constitucion Ave. “Pinche Migra” she said with her black jacket drawing tight as she raised her hand in the air. The gesture was for emphasis, I think, but really it just showed off those sexy homemade patches that she stitched on there herself, like the indigenous women of Oaxaca.

Or maybe it was made by the Prada tribe.

I tried to “interview” her later only to find out she was from L.A. Such a buzz-kill knowing that I might see her again at crossing her arms and rocking at Spaceland or eating squid at Cobras & Matadors. I wanted this to be a special moment.

Just you, me, and my camera makes three, baby.

But no dice, so I went to talk to the babieBrown Berets, essentially a Mexican Black Panther movement in the 1960s that was resurrected in 1994, when people were really into Rage Against the Machine and those Africa necklaces. They were looking all cute with their berets tipped to the side, so I sequestered two for a mano-to-womano moment, one step closer to my Zapatista dream.

What, you’re from San Francisco?

This was not good. I probably saw them some antiwar protest in ’03, and I most likely gave one of them a wink at the “Food Not Bombs” booth. “Oh yeah pumpkin pants, I think we should be dropping corn dumplings all over Kimmy Jong Ill”

This was going to be harder than I thought, where were my indigenous honeys – I mean females – with those hot little scarves around their necks?

I should have known, after my failed attempt for Gypsy, the cute dreadlocked gutter punk anarchist I met in Mexico City while I was there building community gardens, these ladies didn’t want some guy from the suburbs. They want a guy with a real stuggle.

And I thought a struggle was accidentally ordering a no-foam latte.

The day ended with Marcos saying a bunch of stuff in Spanish, of which I understood approximately fourteen words. So I packed up my cameras and headed for the border, empty handed and not even close to being embedded in a bed (or two) in Mexico.

Taking another bite of my pollo taco, I sat at the stainless steel counter of a restaurant in sight of America. I had gotten the numbers of some ladies I interviewed, but they were from exotic places like Santa Monica, Hawthorne, and Ventura. I was looking more for San Cristobal or Cuernavaca.

I put some more lime on the taco as the vendor said, “You need anything else?”

In my head, I began the plans for my next trip and my next attempt for getting out from behind the boring ladies of the states.

Cuba. Yeah, that’s it. Cuba, hold on to your Che hats, ‘cause here I come for all you Commie mommies!

I mean females.

Whip it good!

2006-10-23T12:38:00.000-07:00

A Little Peek into the world of S&M

Published LA Alternative 10.18.06

In this postmodern world where truth is merely an agreed-upon lie, the aperture of reality forever opens to the point of complete saturation of choice and consequence, paralyzing us with endless possibilities.

So where can I find an S & M club in this god forsaken town? And more importantly, what should I wear?

Yes, my felines, it’s been something that you’ve struggled with for years, possibly more than choosing a 401k plan or weighing the advantages of using Pantene Pro-V. I know this because I was once like you, a mere sapling growing in a dark forest of latex and ball-gags. But with a few S & M trips behind me, (and at least one trip to a South American hospital) I feel confident enough to give you a little peek-a-boo into your first visit to a darkwave fuck club.

My first jaunt into this underworld was a few years ago (cue flashback sounds please) at a club charmingly called Dungeon, where confused tourists from Manchester, New Hampshire would mingle with black nail-polished convenience store workers to songs about Manchester, England. It’s an intercontinental meeting of Level 4 sages who hate their parents in Calabasas and have names like Thistle or Anguish Panda.

Then there was me.

I went there to meet with a group of young writers, many of which had more experience watching SNL than with S&M, and I thought this would be a good introduction for them to the world of bootlicking—which is not to say that I was a guru of whipped ass either. At this time, my dominatrix experience was limited to one who I met, fatefully, at her 30th birthday party. She took Polaroids of her no-no zone and apparently made the physical act of love with a young gentleman through the bars of a cage.

It was complicated, I think I need to draw you a diagram.

It was at this tender young age when I could never know that I would later go on to work with two whip wielders (one was a 300-pound snaggle-toothed dominator, the other was the former editor of Juggs), but what I did know was that there was some shirtless man walking toward me with arms raised.

“Why did he just emerge from that curtain, and why am I wearing an ‘80s prom dress?” I thought to myself.

Oh yeah, he’s just my friend Mike, and I slipped into that backless dress in the parking lot. I’m so forgetful sometimes.

I entered through the fake velvet curtain as the crunching sound of my ruffled sleeves mixing with the low bass drum hits kicking in my chest. The room was large with exposed brick walls—it would have made a great loft in the Real World London—and in the center were ladies in corsets hanging upside down from ropes, their nippies covered with electrical tape.

I hadn’t seen that shit since middle school.

We got closer to what was called the “suspension area” and watched as men in pleather pants (he got ‘em at Ross) were whipped by those ladies from Hot Topic. It was an epic battle of the strip malls and I was there to watch, all while Skinny Puppy droned in the background and dudes in black lipstick swayed like sea anemone.

As one guy received some sweet little front-whips on a chiastic crucifix, I thought about the future, hoping that someday I would be able to see this same goth-a-rama at in a town outside of Santiago, Chile.

And luckily, three years later I did—if you just replace “some guy” with “my buddy Anthony” and “front-whips on a cross” with “chain whips in front of a bus,” then my premonition would be correct.

Don’t worry kids, Anthony ended up being fine after being “Double Dragon-ed” outside “El Cure Noche” at Club Mascara and we had a nice little visit with the stray dogs in the Chilean emergency room and that one senora screaming about machetes.

But that was thousands of miles away from Hollywood and for some reason Mike and I were now dancing on the elevated blocks to what sounded like Depeche Mode. An overweight Asian woman in our group was shooting a disposable camera up my skirt, and this led to an accidental “back sweep” that was the first in a surprising sequence of events that reaffirmed that I wasn’t gay.

The second happened during a reach for popcorn while watching the movie Troy. We were stoned, ok…

Don’t tell Dad.

So, you’re still interested in S&M clubs? Just remember that you will need a safe word if you decide to put your ass on the block. I suggest you use something that cannot be misconstrued as some crazy shit you say during sex. For example, say “Hall & Oates” not “You’re a man-eater!”

Trust me, you don’t want to end up in a Chilean hospital.

Lord of the Ring (not a hobbit)

2006-10-12T09:47:00.000-07:00

Friends and Fuckers,

This is a new era for DG3, like a giant onyx monolith descending into a world of irritable gibbons, I bring you... video blogs! I will be posting these every other Wednesday, in between my farticles. Make sure to subscribe to my videos at YouTube under my name DanGillisIII. So tell you mom and grandma (if she doesn't have glaucoma [but if she does and smokes the ganji, then it's cool]) to check out the page and until then.

Dancrest out.

Ah yes, hula-hooping. It was my favorite past time as a child, second only to Slip-n-slide, which had an unfortunate ability to smoosh my genitalia. But speaking of ambiguous junk, this is a video of Karis, the hula-hooping extraordinaire, twisting and gyrating during the halftime show of the LA Derby Dolls. Karis is best know for work with the burlesque girls and wrastlin’ hombres of Lucha VaVoom, but if you’re lucky you might catch a glimpse of this ring wrangler in a bizarro world near you.

Enjoy the abs.

An Apology to Becky about Barf

2006-10-12T09:32:00.000-07:00

Published LA alternative 10.10.06

Dear Becky,

I’ve been known to party from time to time.
But just between you and me, I really don’t like party surprises, especially when it has an impact on my impending alcoholism. Recently, I succumbed to paying a cover for some lame-ass bar that charged an assload just to get my kicks through the door. I know. It’s not my style, but hey even Dan Gillis needs to get his drink on! Sauntering in like Mr. Fancy-Pants, I snaked my way through the crowds like I owned the joint (or at least like I’d just smoked one). As I gazed around the room, looking for my vast list of foes to avoid, my attention moved from admiring my own awesome attire to defending myself against a knee to the groin or a coaster to the elbow. (Hey it happens! Some people want me dead around this town.) It is in this moment of weakness that I inadvertently took a misguided and unfortunate step onto a strangely viscous piece of Earth.

That’s right bitches, it’s barf. And not my own.

I was up to my Chucks in it … again! It is an infamous tradition that has been a celebration of agony for my sweet sneaks that leaves no venue unscathed. No matter if I’m seeing Joanna Newsom or Cannibal Corpse, if there’s puke in the venue’s vicinity these boots were made for walking in it. Which begs the question:

Who spewed on my shoes this time?

Was it that guy in the cargo shorts holding the red cup? Perhaps it was that 15-year-old with the airline bottle of Goldschlager? Or maybe it was that kid with the thick rims and the asymmetrical hair mixing an “irony beer” with veggie burgers.

We’ve all seen these people. The barfers, the tossers, the pukers and even the yakkers. But on this particular night, there is a danger from below as a ferocious face emerges from the crowd for a breath of fresh bile.

Yes, that’s right my kittens. I’m talking about the queens of queasy: the beauty barfers. They used to show up at few places outside of frat rows and high school bathrooms, but recently they’ve reared their prettily powered faces to emit steady streams of spew into the populace.

And directly onto my shoes.

It’s not a pretty sight, these ladies all hunched over, low-rise jeans revealing an ass-crack and the ubiquitous dolphin-jumping-over-a-sun back tattoo. But these few, more often than not, are the puke perpetrators. It’s a scientific fact that beer breeds barf. And barf, consequently, breeds barf (see also: Stand By Me). Thus beginning the disgusting journey from glass to the ground to my kicks. It’s like these girls were planning it all along! I can only imagine their pre-party, where they get together over a dinner of carrots and Hidden Valley ranch dressing, giggling about what lucky fellow (or lady) will get to enjoy their masterpieces of mastication.

Well, tonight that fellow happened to be me.

But Becky, you already know this, and so here I am telling you a little secret. You see, I barf too. Many moons ago, we all went to the Beauty Bar, where our friend was working at the bar. The free fucking drinks flowed like water from my cracked radiator and we couldn’t resist.

I know it sounds like a blessing, but friends, it became a curse as one Jager shot turned into many. Gin and tonics replicated themselves like cellular mitosis and jumped into my tummy. It was several minutes later that I found myself explaining to different attractive ladies how I was a doily maker and that I cut them oh-so-delicately with the precision of a Christmas elf. Things got shadier as I found myself sensuously humping random inanimate objects, and once I think I tried to wipe my ass on the ground like a dauschund puppy.

It’s signs like these that point to impending disaster.

Needless to say there were some problems later, mostly involving a slice of pizza, my somersaulting stomach, a moving car and a window. I might add that that I did mention to my kind friends in the back seat that “I feel sick” but of course that probably should have been mentioned before I heaved while cruising west on the 10 freeway.
So to you people out there seeking to assault the Adidas of sweet, innocent fuckers like myself, I say: Eat a dick.

And to Becky, I say sorry about barfing on your face.

Sincerely,Dan Gillis, III

Gimme Dat Nut

2006-09-22T12:48:00.000-07:00

A Fair to Remember or a Journey to Peanut Hell?
Published LA Alternative 9.22.06

I know of nothing more pure and true than my unadulterated love of anthropomorphized foodstuffs. Whether it’s empanadas with tap shoes, jumbo shrimp with sunglasses, or even a torta playing the trombone, I just can’t get enough of these cute little fuckers. So, when I was awarded the opportunity to meet one of these adorable shit heads, I jumped on it like a husky kid on a beanbag chair. This was my chance to finally make consummate this love of my loins and partake in an epic journey that would make Das Rheingold look like Candyland.

I was going to the L.A. County Fair to find Mr. Peanut.

That’s right, the peanut king himself; that top-hat wearing, black cane-wielding, charming and monocled chap who holds the answers to all the burning questions roasting in our salty little brains.

Or that’s what Mr. Peanut’s publicist led me to believe, anyway.

It’s true, the peanut has a publicist, and why not? It is the centennial for the Planters brand and this year they dusted off the ol’ Nut Mobile for a cross country tour, smoothly spreading across the Wonderbread of the heartland to its crust here at the L.A. County Fair.

First, of course, we had to trek through the five levels of carnie hell, trudging through Dante’s Inferno incarnate in this panopticon of pain we call the County Fair. As an accomplice (in nut crimes) and I soon found out, even a voyage this sweet has some crunchy chunks along the way.

We encountered our first challenge shortly after exiting my Mazda when we could almost hear the words of the great poet echoing in our earballs. “Through me you enter eternal pain, through me you enter the population of loss.” And a population of the lost it was. Poor souls wandered amid the Ford F-150’s, mothers clutched their children, fathers cursed this infernal parking lot, all under the heat of the Inland Empire sun. We could see those hellish gates in the distance, rising up from the earth like stale Pringles.

We were passed by shuttles of people expediting their descent to the underworld like Charon’s skiff sailing the river Styx (no, thank you very much, Mr. Roboto). Arriving at the gates, we said adios to the world as we know it, and passed through those vicious three-pronged Cerebus turnstiles into this city of woe.

“Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.”

On the other side, we were greeted with the sounds of distant screams and the smell of a TGI Friday’s on fire. We were now in the second level: Land of the Gluttons. “They suffer here who sinned in carnal things, their reason mastered by desire,” my homegirl told me. And this was undoubtedly true as we caught sight of the equatorial belts bisecting the bellies of those who passed us for the cotton candy, copious underarm flab hanging from Target tank-tops, and pregnant teens nearly bursting at the seams.

Next, we waded through the gauntlet of squanderers and horders, as the carnie-harpies enticed us to try a game. At one booth, kids jumped for the late ’90s stuffed animals (winnings from the ring toss), while a carnie counted his money, one leg raised nearly exposing his testicles from his too-short khaki cargo shorts.

I believe Dante called this the “moose knuckle.”

This didn’t phase us, though, as we focused on Mr. Peanut-pants. We weren’t deterred even as we broke through the next two trials: The Petting Zoo of Putrescence and The Great Hall of Terrible, Terrible Children’s Art. Meanwhile, I rehearsed my questions for the immense nut: Have you ever done a tour with the Weiner Mobile? As a homosexual, how do you feel about gay marriage? Aren’t you a legume?

I could see him in the distance, his top hat towering over the throng of onlookers. Sensing that my goal was in reach, I got out my tape recorder and approached Mr. P, determined for answers. Suddenly I was caught in a whirlwind of Planters employees, and the next thing I knew I was in front of a green screen superimposing myself on Times Square. It was during my fabulous poses that I stole a glimpse of Peanutface pinning my homegirl up against the Peanut Mobile.

Mr. Peanut just wanted some poon!

With his once noble visage gone, we left Mr. Peanut to his perversions and headed back into the hellfire. As for the adventures on our hasty exit from Hades?

Well friends, that’s another story for another time.

Dear Party Girl...

2006-09-22T11:13:00.000-07:00

What Would Dan Do?

Dear Dan,

I'm thinking about quitting my job and becoming a fulltime party girl, but I don't have the finances to do that sort of thing, now I was thinking I could do a side gig, that wasn't so labor intensive. So I've narrowed my choices down to:
a. drug dealing
b. call girl
c. cat burglar
Which choice do you think I should make?
Teex

My Dear Teex,

If I could take a minute here to tell you about the one most important piece of advice my father ever gave me. "Dan," he'd say, "Don't ever try to lift up a girl, that's how I got a hernia." But If I could give you the second most important piece of advice he gave me, it'd have to be, "do what you want to do and you'll find the money later." To this day, I have heeded his advice and spent wild amounts of money doing what I really want to do.

If you want to be a fulltime party girl, I suggest that you start at the top and work your way down. First, open a few new credit cards, preferably ones with a very high limit. Next, go and buy some very expensive clothes, preferably made by Indonesian children, so that you can look the part. Once you have the look down, this is when you need to hone your party talk. When at a record release party say the following, "This would sound so much better on vinyl." Or "god, this song brings back bad memories about balling the drummer from Darker My Love in the Spaceland parking lot." At an art show say, "Illustration is so in right now, I could stick a pen in my ass and draw a picture of Alf and get 2 grand for it." At the Beauty Bar mention, "Oh, I wouldn't sit on that, I once gave Pat Smear's cousin a handy there."

With these simple phrases, you will impress your fellow party goers and then this is where the money comes in. You will be repaid for your clever witicisms with drinks, vials of coke, and more importantly a good reputation. With this reputation you'll be able to sleep your way into a rent free existence, as you hop from house to house, bed to bed, Scandinavian sofa to Scandinavian sofa.

This will be your full time job, you'll never have to work ever, ever again. Cut up those credit cards you opened. Sublet your duplex and you can save this money for any "clinic" visits you need to make. Jobs like cat burgling, drug dealing, or call girling, only make you into a sleaze.

Mooching, fucking, and snorting will make you a star.

Poker in the Front, Liquor in the Rear

2006-09-08T14:45:00.000-07:00

Rootin’ tootin’ good ol’ poker time, in tha’ hood.
Published 09.08.2006

I snapped my mother-of-pearl shirt snaps, tightened my screaming eagle bola tie and fastened my oversized belt buckle while my boots stomped the parquet floors in my kitchen. The excitement didn’t stop as I felt the stares coming out the drive-thru window as I retrieved my medium Mr. Pibb and Spicy Chicken Burrito. They just didn’t understand. Tonight was a night for me. Tonight was a time to connect with my inner honky, activating those latent “cracker” genes hiding behind my Diesel jeans. I was well on my way to a legendary poker tournament of epic proportions, one that rode that gold vein back to 1849, while I rode my trusty Mazda into the untamed West and the Cheeto-smeared sunset receded in my rearview mirror.

Actually, it was more of a southeasterly direction, or wherever the fuck Cudahy pops-a-squat in the outer Inland Empire.

We were heading to Club Caribe Casino, purportedly “the best kept secret” in the Los Angeles area poker underground, according to my poker senseis Jean-Claude and Claire. Like a pair of Miyagi’s to my Macchio, they had been training me for months at their weekly poker gatherings where they patiently re-explained rules that I forgot every week and never uttered a discouraging word as I would A) sensuously hump the table or B) pretend the chips were my nippies.

But for tonight, the game turned serious as I clutched my $45 (one 20, a 10, two fives and five ones). We were going to take these mofos to the bank! Or maybe just the ATM that’s near the unhappy potted plant by the entrance of the casino. There were about 10 tables scattered around the room, each monitored by an ’80s style security camera installed into the high paneled lunchroom-like ceilings. The Tropicana, Excalibur, Circus Circus-all paled in comparison to the carpet at Club Caribe, where teal seashells and leaves scattered the floor under my boots.

“This is perfect camouflage for vomit,” I thought, as I surveyed the room. Not a single person shared my enthusiasm for the rich and quintessentially Western attire of the casinos of yesteryear. In fact, my cohorts and myself were the only ones that didn’t have Ross Dress-For-Less written all over us. Most people-primarily lone gentlemen-hunched over the tables as if invisible monkeys were perched on their backs. The dealers were Asian, which seemed to explain the large Chinese characters on the wall and the pervading smell of Moo Goo Gai Pan.

It was nearly 7:30 p.m. and the game was about to begin, so I cashed the entry fee ($10) and sat down at table one where I took a good look at my opponents. Two seats away was “Fernando” with a plaid shirt tucked into his faded black jeans. Followed by “Michael,” the Asian guy with partially dyed black hair. “James,” the emaciated white guy with a Palm Springs trucker hat. And “Todd,” the mustachioed veteran who told the waitress she looked “very sweet.”

This was going to get spicy, fast. And it did as the cards started flying and the chips started stacking up. I knew that these people were wary of my bola tie and me. Did they think I was some sort of virtuoso from Fort Worth? Perhaps, an online gambling guru? Or maybe they could see the cheese remnants still encrusted on my jeans after a nasty burrito spill in the car.
Either way, I was ready to take these fuckers down, and with this pair of eights, it was time pack your bags and go back to your duplexes, bitches.

Well, maybe not with that pair of eights. But with this King and Queen of diamonds, in your fat face, Todd! OK, so the diamonds were a no go. What about this pair of fives? I’m raising the motherfucking roof on you and your 110 pounds, James. Feel my heat, Michael, you can’t handle these sixes! What about this ace high? Or this seven and nine. Um, or this three and eight? Wait, where are my chips, where are my fives?

Help me, Jean-Claude, you’re my only hope!

At 7:56 p.m. I was at the bar, pockets empty, sipping a Long Island iced tea and watching Demolition Man en Español. The bartender Mi Lai (seriously) drank rum out of a Styrofoam cup while I stared at Sly Stallone being defrosted in a future Los Angeles.

Maybe, like Sly, I wasn’t meant for this time or place. So, with that invisible debt monkey squatting on my back, I straightened the bola and moseyed off into the sunset (or just toward Sunset Boulevard). It was time to party like it was 1849.

Fart Yeah Fest!!

2006-08-25T13:08:00.000-07:00

How to save face when faced with farts.

published LA Alternative 8.25.06

So, it’s happened. You’ve met that special someone who knows the difference between an AE-1 and Aeon Flux; who prefers silk screens to silk sheets; and who is hotter than Chuck Berry’s forehead on a summer’s day. Without any clever cajoling, you’ve gotten him or her into your Mazda for the date of a lifetime. But, there is only one thing that can make you take a wrong turn from Coitusville, USA.

Farts.

That’s right, it’s that noxious issue your high school gym teacher was afraid to tackle, curled your rabbi’s sideburns, and made your stepmommy turn back to the sauce.

Now, it’s percolating in your pants. Maybe it was the cheese fondue, the tacos de cabeza, or whatever ill-informed culinary decision that floated through your cabeza during dinner, but your ass is barking, and someone’s gotta let this stinky puppy out.

How can you take this date to the next level if you’re making toot on your butt trumpet? And what do you do if this happens in the boudoir?

First, never admit that you have “passed wind.” The key is to create a veil of subterfuge. I suggest the “blame it on the dog” trick. This has been a winner in the past, especially when your date shows up unexpectedly at your door right before you laid a rotten egg. Right before you open the door, call any sort of pet over tell them “sit,” “stay” and “good boy” as you envelop the happy fella in your mist of death stench. Once your date makes that squint of recognition, make sure to say the following: “I know, stinks doesn’t he? This dirty bird needs a bird bath.” Then commence nervous laughter as you quickly usher your date to your aforementioned Mazda.

Please don’t be intimidated by the name of this tactic, because it’s really just a frame of mind. It could have been named “Blame it on the sewer/my son/grandma/that homeless guy.” The specifics don’t matter as long as you build up a credible culprit in close proximity and pin it on he/she/it.

If you do make it through the date and back to their house free of a natural gas leak, and you still feel the urge to purge, I suggest the following. Whatever you do, try not to go to their bathroom. If you do, there might arise some suspicion that you are smelling their deodorant with some sick underarm obsession that you’ve cultivated after years of studying humanities at La Sorbonne in Paris.

That would just be sick.

Instead, tell your date that you “have to get something out of the Mazda” and head outside, trying to conceal that strange little scurry that happens when you’re walking with buttcheeks clenched. Once outside, get as close to a dumpster as possible and assume the “downward dog” position. If you’re not familiar with this yoga pose because you don’t live in Santa Monica, you begin by kneeling with the hands and knees on the floor, hands under the shoulders, fingers spread wide, knees under the hips, knees about 7 inches apart, spine straight and relaxed.

On a deep exhale, the hips are pushed toward the ceiling, the body forming an inverted V-shape, and you expunge your ass gas.

But remember not to push too hard if you feel an impending poo-poo because—as everyone knows—you don’t honk your horn if there’s a car in the garage.

Return to your date’s apartment, and explain that you got a phone call from the office, regardless of whether you work at one.

After impressing your date with your work ethic, there’s nothing stopping you from getting between those sheets.

Unfortunately, this is where the danger grows much more severe. When you’re one-on-one, there’s not much room for error. So you need to distance yourself from your date’s olfactory system. Start by licking a knee pit, fondling a pinky toe or chewing on a heel, so that the ass-to-nose distance is at it’s maximum. Then, like a move from synchronized swimming, kick a nearby dresser at the exact moment of fartitude, thereby covering that embarrassing sound with the goofy sound of your “clumsiness.”

If you don’t have an armoire to boot, then I’d suggest you start making ungodly noise or start talking during the act—the weirder the better. Start talking about economics, “Diversify me, split my stocks!” Make exotic animal noises, like a cougar or a manatee, or perhaps start shouting your own name.

That one gets ’em every time.

What I Learned from Regis and Kelly

2006-08-11T13:28:00.000-07:00

An Astute Analysis of Daytime TV

Over the last few months of writing for L.A. Alternative, I’ve taken part in some pretty bizarre activities: going to cuddle parties and cyber-clown sex chat sites, stoned dining excursions, and even a colossal colon blow. But nothing compares to the carnage that ensued this last week, as I succumbed to the arduous ardor that can only come with one atrocious thing: Regis Philbin.
It’s true, being newly unemployed has given me the chance to test my endurance against this assault on the senses as I sat through an entire episode of Live with Regis and Kelly, determined to dissect the show with a sharp eye and a pen.

With this precise exactitude, I give you the following three things I extracted from the strange and terrifying subliminal world that underlies daytime television.

1. Don’t you know I’m loco?

Regis can’t control his voice. Nor can he control the content of the odd stuff that jumps out of his mouth. Perhaps it’s something that happens when you get older: you start going gray at your temples, wrinkles appear on your hands and you begin to inexplicably shout at the end of your sentences. Kelly will say how excited she is for a new Disney-affiliated movie to come out, then Regis will yell, “Sacagawea!” or “Kelly’s a slutastrophe!” Well, maybe those were not his exact words, but it was certainly implied. He’ll just look confused as Kelly has to explain what an MP3 is, or carefully explicate power door locks.

2. Girls just wanna have fun.

If you ever accidentally buy a time machine at Costco that had that ability to leap 400,000 years into the future as imagined by Maxim, I’m certain you’d catch a glimpse of the Pleasure Sexxxbot 2000 (being retro will be all the rage 397,994 years from now). This robot would look something like Pris (the pre-tree punky Daryl Hannah) from Blade Runner, or possibly a FrankenFergie (from the Black Eyed Peas, not the Duchess of York). Programmed only for pleasure, these gine-a-zoids would be the solution to the Great Boner Depression of the 400th millennium.

But today, seeing as though there is a war on and we need to conserve our resources, time machines aren’t as easy to find as they were in the ’90s. So for the sake of rationing, we could just take a look at Kelly Ripa (aka Gigglebot) today. With her pumpkin-colored fake ‘n’ bake skin, straw hair, and Michael Jackson nose, Ripa has either been grown in a lab or constructed by a gaggle of Teutonic scientists. She is a glimpse of the Brave New Girl of the future, where agreeable smiles and giggles and a sympathetic arm squeeze are all preprogrammed.

Exhibit A:
Ol’ Reege: I’m incontinent and lonely, HA!
Kelly Belly [rubbing his arm]: Oh Reg, you’re such a silly-billy, let me get my knee-pads and wet naps. You’re sooooo funny.

What kind of message is this sending to the youth of America? Probably nothing, ’cause they’re just doing crystal meth under the bleachers. But as for their single mothers in West Covina, they look up to Ripa and her robo-retorts. It must seem totally believable that Ripa shops at Kmart like she espouses, and she does have the same concerns that we have: picking up her kids from school, making dinner for her servants, or perhaps getting a Brazilian wax in Brazil.

3. You’re fat and you piss your pants.

Over the course of a Live episode, you’ll actually see an equal amount of advertising as you will Regis’ baseball-glove-like face. It’s during these commercials that you can get a clear view of who is watching with you. Looking at the subject matter of these ads does not paint a pretty picture. Especially about my mattress.
I guess I will love it at Levitz.

The vast majority deal with the issue of weight, magnitude or bulbousness. A commercial advertising new Happy Meals for kids, with a kid dipping an apple slice into a pack of sweet and sour sauce will run next to an ad for pocket-sized diabetes testers, as though there weren’t any connection between the two. A Crystal Lite ad with leaping middle-aged ladies in one-piece monochromatic bathing suits will explain how they found a new way to put Splenda into water.
Of course, these will be followed by a stern discussion of the issue of OAB.

Oh yes, that’s OverActive Bladder.

As a man and woman are canoeing, they share a look of concern as the man asks the woman if she “has to go.” She grabs her oar and say confidently, “I’m OK,” while paddling out into Lake Ticonderoga or wherever. I’m sure it’s a very serious issue, this I-Pee-Peed-My-Pantsies syndrome, and it opened my eyes to the most important lesson of the morning:

Bring toilet seat covers for the bus.

Hell's Bells: An Evening with the Derby Dolls

2006-07-28T13:43:00.000-07:00

Hell's BellesAn evening with The Derby Dolls

Published LA Alternative 7.28.06

Thora Zeen flies past Broadzilla, crouching low to the track, her skates hugging the curves as her curves-hugging skirt flips up like the tail fin of a ’57 Chevy. Candy Striker clenches her teeth and scowls as she delivers a hit to Markie d. Sod, who falls face first to the masonite, narrowly missing a skate to the face from Maggie Mayhem.

As dark monsoon clouds hang in the distance over the Inland Empire and the fucking heat wave subsides, we watch from the edge of this swirling tempest of skates and skirts.

Actually, that’s just Tawdry Tempest tearing past the row of fishnets and extended, tattoo-sleeved arms.

This is the world of the Derby Dolls, world famous resuscitators of ’70s roller derby: the edgy sport that once rolled its way into the coliseums, fair grounds and YMCAs of the Riversides and Barstows of this country. You should ask your mom about it, she may have even been a derby girl herself. Well, that was before she popped you out, moved to Temecula, donated your college money to Jim Baker and found Jesus (Velasco, your former pool boy she escaped to Mexico with, to head a black market organ harvesting syndicate).

Oh Mom, what a goofball. (Please call…)

Anyway, in its third year, the Dolls are back skating on a banked track built just for this occasion in some industrial area adjacent to downtown and the Grease part of the L.A. River. Today, it’s the Sirens vs. the Trust Fund Terrors, in an all-out female frenzy hotter than USA “Up All Night” (but slightly less hot than 1992’s Bikini Car Wash Company or the Meatballs quadrilogy). Gone are the Farrah Fawcett hair flips and disco balls, now replaced with Betty Page bangs and nautical stars inked on every imaginable appendage. The Trust Fund Terrors claim to be the daughters of industrialists, flaunting their USC communication degrees and throwing their excess bling into the audience. With their bleached white tennis skirts, Lacoste-ly looking shirts and white panties, they proved that they weren’t afraid of getting a few skidmarks.

The Sirens, however, came to break up the notorious sorority smashers and break their birthday nose jobs. Dressed in their best blues and badges, these ladies were rough and tough with their handcuffs. It’s a good thing I remembered my safe word. (It was “Geddy Lee.”)

Actually, I remained in my safe position ringside as the ladies began their “jam.” Apparently, the object of the sport isn’t skating around the track punching one another’s kidneys and devolving into to a lascivious bout of tickle fighting and/or semi-nude grappling. But I did real shitty on my SATs and didn’t really get it, so I just yelled, “Fuck yeah!” as much as possible.

After the collisions, the insults and a few broken bones, the first half was over and it was it was time to bring out the half time show. In a sport already dominated by scantily clad females, what could possibly be more entertaining?

It’s Roky Roulette, the world’s only pogo-striptease artist. But you already saw that one coming.

Roky’s unique talent of stripping while deftly wielding his pogostick has gotten him fame and fortune (I think he’s paid in coke) across the known universe. I met him back stage at Lucha VaVoom—the other site of femme fighting and Mexican midget tossing—and he truly grabbed my attention while trying to touch me where my bathing suit covers. So being an old buddy of Roky’s, I was delighted to see him run onto the track in some sort of Colonel Sanders meets Big Bird get-up and proceed to get down to business. I believe that there was a well-waxed chest involved, some jury-rigged KFC bucket undergarments, and a few multicolored feathers sprouting from his crotchular area.

It was at this point that one of my companions said that he “wasn’t feeling well,” which I think had a little to do either with Roky’s rocket or the buttery sheen of his chest. Of course, it was probably related to the dirt-flavored hotdogs we had eaten earlier.

As we walked back to the car, I realized that I wasn’t disappointed that my telekinetic powers didn’t aid in any nipple slips (a power I refined while watching Skin-a-Max) or that I never once knew the score. I was just glad to finally see a bunch of nice young ladies beating the ever-loving shit out of each other.

Snakes on the Brain: The Music Video

2006-07-14T11:46:00.000-07:00

My Life as A Snakes on a Plane Booty DancerPublished LA Alternative, 7.14.06

In the way that some people wait with fingers crossed and eyes closed for the next My Bloody Valentine album, I kneel next to my bed every night, press my hands hard together and pray: “Dear Mr. Jesus, I thank thee for thine blessings of this day, and thou hast blessed us with iPods, handiwipes, and most of all… Snakes on a Motherfucking Plane, boiiiiii!”

This exalted reverence for Snakes on a Plane’s upcoming birth from the celestial cinematic uterus has festered in my skull ever since the rumors of this campy, Samuel L. Jackson film lumbered into every crevice of the Internet nearly a year ago. I couldn’t help but dive face first into an obsession with Snakes on a Plane, not just as an iconic summer flick, but as an impossibly long conversation (mostly with my stuffed animals on my bed) delineating every possible snakie permutation that could possibly insert itself into the plot line. Are they going to descend from the overhead bins like oxygen masks? Is Sammy J. going to use some black mambas as nunchuks against some oversized irritable python? What kind of ass-biting, legless beastie will emerge from the stainless steel toilet?

Is that motherfucking Cobra Commander behind all this shit?

Fucking awesome, I do say. So awesome, in fact, that I decided I needed a slice of this slithering action, and volunteered to be a sexy dancer for the “Snakes on the Brain” music video shoot for local Nintendo-epic rock legends, Captain Ahab. Blowing up like a Magnum condom on a hairdryer, Captain Ahab’s track “Snakes on the Brain” won a contest fronted by Tagworld.com (the poor man’s MySpace) to write a song that would play over the credits of the film. Upon winning this enviable spot on the best ‘animals attack’ cult classic since Weasels Ripped My Flesh, Ahab’s Johnathan Snipes and Jim Merson recruited director Larry Klein to put a video together that should air alongside the names of the grips and gaffers at the end of the film.

So I suited up in my best ’90s apparel and headed north to the nondescript industrial wasteland where I was going to etch my face into the Background Dancer Hall of Fame.

I arrived at the shoot in Sun Valley (which should have been called Surface of the Sun Valley) early in the morning and followed the crowd of flannels and cut-offs to the garage-like space where the end dance sequence was to be shot in front of a 1988 red Corvette. The theme of the video was Salt ‘N’ Pepa meets Biohazard, which explains that tattooed guy with the cut-off sweat pants and that girl in the glass heels and the weggimus maximus cleaving her caboose.

I looked more like I should have been in a Fall Out Boy video, but that didn’t stop me from resurrecting the moves I learned from practicing in front of MTV’s The Grind when I was 12. As the tape—or pixels or whatever—rolled, I began to do a little rolling of my own.

I believe it’s what they call the “Tootsie Roll.”

With my hands on the hood, doing what JJ Fad once called “shaking it like a donkey,” I began to gyrate my cut-off Dickies in ways that would be illegal in 49 states (including Puerto Rico). As our dance party turned up the crunk, our enviable moves shifted from Dave Chapelle to David LaChapelle as we waved our hands in the air in a manner in which we appeared not to care. And I didn’t care that I wasn’t as sexy as the other ladies (or that I was a sunburned white dude)—I gave it my all as I tossed non-existent gang signs at the lens, trying my hardest to shake my pants dry.

It’s true, I wet my pants. But this time, it wasn’t like that incident where I pissed my friend’s couch in New York City. No, this happened under much more normal circumstances.

I was jerking off a champagne bottle that I sprayed from crotch level onto a slithering dancer.

“Sorry about that, I’m actually an amateur feminist,” I tried to explain to the nearly naked, tattoo-sleeved lady while the cameraman was shooting what appeared to be an up-skirt shot. “I just thought after you balanced that tall can of MGD on your ass, I should get some Crissy up in Hizzy!”

Wait, I just thought up that last part…but regardless, she seemed to be cool with it. As she pulled up her red mesh booty shorts over her cranberry colored thong, saying, “It’s OK, sometimes you just gotta do that.”

And she was right, sometimes you just gotta pour one out for Captain Ahab, Sammy J. and those motherfucking snakes on that motherfucking plane.

Sucks in the City: An LA dating guide for those who hate dating

2006-07-03T09:42:00.000-07:00

Published LA Alternative 6.29.06

Everybody knows that dating sucks. In the old days, dating was so much easier: you’d ride your triceratops up to a floating castle while a damsel (or VanDamsel) would prance a unicorn down an iridescent rainbow, and minutes later you’d perform the seventh position of the Kama Sutra (the praying mantis).

Yes, this is how my parents met.

It was the Swinging ’70s, and times were so much simpler. So what do you do today? And moreover, what do you do once you’ve met that special someone while picking up their dog’s ass dumplings at the dog park or pontificating about post-surrealism at a gallery? Do you just give up and take them on a trite dinner and a movie date? No, you just need a little help from your favorite fucker, Dan Gillis III. To make your life easier, I have created the Interstate of Dating as a roadmap to the best dates you’ve never been on.

The “Arizona”

The best dates I went on were in high school, so this date brings you back to the good ol’ days of dry humping and halfway handjobs. First, walk with your date to the closest Vons. Instruct your date to buy something “embarrassing” like a cucumber, medical gloves and Astroglide, as well as a pack of Cinnaburst gum. While your date is spinning a web of subterfuge, do your best to steal a handful of dust-covered airplane-sized bottles of booze. I recommend Goldschlager. Proceed to the parking lot whereupon you should immediately jump into a shopping cart, suggesting that your date “push you around.” While speeding around the parking lot, make sure to imbibe plenty of the stolen alcohol and discuss who would be in the best band of all time, always keeping watch for when your date decides to chew a piece of gum. Upon this occurrence, immediately say, “I don’t feel good,” and with great deftness, exit the cart. It is at this point that you should vomit (remember to be polite and aim away from your partner’s shoes) and reach for your date’s hand. Once done, your date should ask if you’re OK. It is at this point that you should make direct eye contact and ask for a piece of gum, thereby proceeding to “French” your date under the yellow humming lights of the parking lot.

Second base should take place under the bleachers.

The “New York”

Every good date in New York involves danger and hotpants. So, for this date you should begin at Latin American fusion restaurant Ciudad downtown, where you’ll imbibe mojitos and discuss how much the décor looks like Kandinsky. This will indeed impress your date, but not as much as when you say, “My friend (insert fake DJ name) is spinning at the Standard, wanna go?” Proceed to the rooftop bar at the Standard and act disgusted at “how L.A.” the people are there, even if they are Asian businessmen wearing nametags. It is now time to approach the DJ while your date is checkin’ out a waitress’ hot pants. Ask for some Lionel Richie, which they certainly won’t have, but this will give the appearance of conversation. At this point return to your date and say, “This scene is sooo dead, let’s roll.” Now begins the long walk to The Smell, where you will undoubtedly encounter a vagrant or two. Do not be alarmed, they can help you on your road to Getting-laid-ville. After not giving them any money, blame “Reaganomics” for their predicament, which will help you appear sensitive and not a Republican. Once at The Smell, tell the doorperson that you work for L.A. Alternative and you’re there to cover the show. Enter the venue, proceed to a dark corner and commence heavy petting during Bipolar Bear’s set.

The “Oregon”

This date begins in a nondescript bong store around Venice Beach. The perfect weather for said date is an overcast day with a 60 percent chance of sweaters. You and your date enter the International Youth Hostel and meet a Dutch backpacker named Tomas Jensen, whereupon you ask if you can “take him on a Los Angeles tour” in exchange for weed. Once in the car, drive up the coast pretending that you and your date are friends with Mario Lopez, impressing the Dutchman with your knowledge of syndicated television stars. Once you’ve reached Neptune’s Net (the greasy-good Malibu fish shack and CPA biker haunt), leave Jens in the car while you chow on some fish’n'chips, doing your best to reach for the tartar sauce at the same time as your date, as to have a Tom Hanks You’ve Got Mail moment. When your eyes meet, take a gargantuan bong rip (remember to be polite and let your date have the first hit) and watch the sun gracefully set over our beloved ocean.

To receive desired results, repeat bong loads as necessary.

My Little Ponies and Me

2006-06-18T13:00:00.000-07:00

Playing the horses at Hollywood Park.

photo courtesy Joel-Peter Witkin
Published LA Alternative June 16.2006

I was never really one to play with girls’ toys when I was a child. Sure, there was an occasional time that I would give unneeded attention to April O’Neil’s smelly plastic likeness instead of Donatello or Raphael, but when it came to “girlie” stuff in my childhood, I called it quits with those animal posters you get at the mall. Yes, it’s true, I had that poster of the doped-up kitty dangling from the tree branch wittily encouraging, “Hang in there.” Remember that one of the brown steed running through a meadow of pansies?

That was just to the right of my window.

I definitely had something going on with horses (not like going on, though I’ll be getting into that later with my upcoming “Donkey Show” article), but there was some kind of obsession percolating in my Ranger Rick loving, prepubescent brain. I watched The Black Stallion like, a hundred times, and I even sat patiently through Hot to Trot, Bobcat Goldthwait’s abysmal post-Police Academy film about a talking horse.

So, nearly a decade and a half later, I sought to delve into my repressed memories and revisit my sick interest at our neighborhood horsie party, the Hollywood Park Racetrack.
Oh yeah, it was also $1 hotdogs and beers night.

Located deep in the heart of the thriving metropolis of Inglewood, Hollywood Park emerges from an expansive sea of parking lots adjacent to The Forum, as if to say to it’s dilapidated friend, “Yo, buddy, eat a dick. I got mothafuckin’ horses, biatch.”

And motherfucking horses, it has.

Walking from my white Mazda 626 (with 60,000 miles on it, $5k, OBO), we traversed the asphalt toward the huge stadium, high-fiving every so-often along the way, ready to get our irony on. We slid our seven bucks to the lady in the booth, gently rotated the turnstile (so as not to be hit in the genital region), and proceeded into what can only be described as “the control room.” The ambiance was somewhere between Eastern European train station and mall food court, with the plaque-colored linoleum stretching far off into the sunset.

Well, maybe not into the sunset, but it did stretch under the grey New Balance sneakers on that guy in the motorized wheel chair. And under that guy sitting by himself in front of the row of TV’s, ticket in hand, eyes glazed over and half-eaten hotdog waiting patiently for another bite.
These guys were everywhere; over by the Bud Light stand, waiting in line for the urinal, and some were blankly looking at the expansive course. Not that I blamed them, the actual course was gorgeous; complete with a lake (flamingos in tha’ mothafuckin’ hizouse), freshly cut greens, and some horsies, giving the course a Hieronymus Bosch’s “Garden of Earthly Delights” look in the heart of the not so delightful Inglewood.

It was now 5:56 p.m., and more people began to show up as the dollar beer and hotdog extravaganza began! I’m sure some people were there for some sort of race that was planned to occur, but looking at the new change in audience demographic, it was definitely the 6-9 p.m. hotdog-a-thon that brought in this younger crowd. We took our seats in the VIP section, which, for $3, puts you in some box seats near the finish line. This was our ticket from East to West Germany, and we took it in stride.

The races began with us not really understanding the betting process. Like with all sporting events, I chose the winner solely upon aesthetic value. Here, I bet only on horses by the ridiculous nature of their names. And since I was betting $2 a horse, there was not much to lose other than a hotdog and a beer. Yet, as the races commenced and I lost one after another, I began to realize that betting on Epic Commander, Smooth Talk, or even Funny Souvenir, might not have been the best of ideas.

What was a good idea, however, was engaging in the hotdog eating contest that I waged among my companions. I now realized that I was having real fun, not just that irony fun that I espouse while ridiculing Members Only jackets at The Smell.

At the end of the night I called it quits at five hotdogs and five beers (for 10 bucks!) and after my friend who teaches religion to catholic school girls out-drank me. We were out of cash and full of highly processed meat, and it was time to go. Who really cared about horses anymore, anyway?
We now pledged our allegiance to beer. With this, we peeled out of the gargantuan parking lot, attempting to hit 88 mph and perhaps go back to my childhood to kick my own pony-loving ass.

Naked Lunch

2006-06-14T00:22:00.000-07:00

Exploring the culinary art of the strip club lunch.

Like on most Sunday afternoons, I like to take some time to myself and steal away to a secluded brunch sanctuary where I can reflect, enjoying a moment of tranquil clarity as the week of working and worrying melts away in a moment of relaxation and refuge from the rigors of the
everyday.

All while a stripper squats in my face.

Perhaps this isn’t the way you spend your Saturdays and Sabbaths, but for the past few weeks I’ve put all good taste aside and delved into the underground world of strip clubs, following the most insatiable and intelligent organ on my body: my stomach.

4 Play Gentleman’s Club

There is no doubt about it, 4Play Gentleman’s Club is where the pros go. Located a thong’s throw from the 405 freeway in West L.A., 4Play is housed in a nondescript building pinned between furniture stores. A red carpet and canopy extends from the front door, bordered by luxury cars valet parked very visibly, and large, bald bouncers wearing black suits.

This is some serious Sopranos shit.

Owned by the same people as Plan B-the other Russian mobster-looking bar in West L.A.-4play is a fully nude club that, like all other strip clubs, claims to have been voted “Best Strip Club” for the last eight years. Once inside, we got a taste of the stripping Vegas-style. Usually a $10 cover, we got in for free with “VIP” passes you get from their website. The interior was immaculate with leather and brass chairs surrounding the center stage, while candlelit tables were scattered around the perimeter. Looking slightly Victorian and a little like Houston’s (the restaurant, not the porn star), the walls were adorned with framed pictures of classical nudes and bronze casts of well proportioned females.

“So, you wanna have some fun?” Tammy asks me as we sat at a table, spilling out of her black bra and miniscule g-string, rubbing her hand on the leather chair across the table from me. “Are you looking for a good time?”

“Naw, not really,” I commented, “I’m just here for the food.”

Tanya or Toni or whatever her fake name was, looked at me suspiciously, as I went back to looking at the expansive menu while White Zombie’s “I’m Your Bogeyman” played in the background.

The menu seemed as impressive as advertised. With New York strip (har har) steak ($12), sandwiches ranging from $5-$9, and a wide variety of very expensive non-alcoholic beverages, this club seemed to have all the trappings of a classy joint. Well, as classy as you can make a place with tie-less business men getting a face full of crotch.

We started with $5 cranberry juices and Diet Cokes (our two drink minimum) and the chicken quesadilla ($5), which took a while to arrive as our young, Russian-accented waitress would go sit in the empty VIP section-probably to do her homework. After some informative talks with passing strippers about health benefits, pole-climbing mishaps and ingrown hairs, we got our quesadilla, lukewarm with some stale chips. Not quite as glamorous as that 18-year-old doing naked squats on stage, but hopefully our entrées would be a little better. After contemplating the T&A sandwich ($6) I went with the “Choose Your Pleasure Melt” ($6), which, in a true democratic style, lets you choose your cheese and meat. I got turkey with provolone, while my companion ordered the Philly cheese steak ($6). We sat through an excruciating triple set of Puddle of Mud, Creed, and 3 Doors Down before we got our meal, which was just mysterious deli meat on white bread. Our tasteless sandwiches were nearly identical (just like the Siliconny and Barbara Botox text messaging before going on stage), with iceberg lettuce and a tomato on Wonderbread.

A few bites in, we looked up and realized we were now the only ones in the club; the business guy and even the boyfriends were absent. The bouncers now out-numbered the strippers three to one and when we tried to get a check we encountered a blank stare. After enduring their stares, tightening fists, and an empty stage for an entire Enigma song, we went to the bar, closed out our juice tab, and got out of there before our feet were fitted for some concrete shoes.

Location: 2238 Cotner Ave., West L.A.Phone: (310) 575.0660
Atmosphere: Hey, we run a clean respectable business here.
ATM Availability: Next to a gaudy mirror, and the stairs to the “bed dancing” room. No questions asked.
Lady Friendly?: Yes, bring some ladies. The strippers are talkative about their technique and recommend the use of hemorrhoid crème to lessen the bags under their eyes.
Service: Virtually nonexistent, but polite and forced flirty.
Girls: More machine than human.
Radio station equivalent: KROQ.
Overall Rating: 3 out of 5 Jimmyhats

The Wild Goose Adult Cabaret

Most of these strip clubs look roughly the same from the outside: they’re brick, they’re in the shadow of a freeway and they’ve got more satellite dishes on their roof than that radar field in Contact. The Wild Goose is no exception to this rule, as it lurks beneath the 105 freeway, next to a motel called “Motel” and literally on the other side of the tracks from the airport. With its Swiss ski lodge exterior and somewhat intricate stained glass window (which has yet to have someone thrown through it), The Wild Goose reveals its 40 years as an institution for thirsty pilots, hungry international business travelers and frat guys from El Segundo all lining up for the buffet with eager anticipation written on their faces.

Actually, that’s a lie; we were the only ones in line for the buffet, which looks like it may have the same exact food as when it opened in 1966. Stocked with beets, stale croutons, lettuce from a bag, and those tiny corncobs you get at Sizzler, the buffet was a sight to see, especially with its impressive selection of Hidden Valley dressings. Juan-a fedora wearing “chef”-waits behind the counter to man the nacho cheese machine or help with the arduous decision between Fritos or Doritos. Juan peeks his head up over the sneeze guard, takes your order with a smile and a handshake, then ducks into a room that may or may not be a kitchen. I went out on a limb ordering the open-faced hot turkey sandwich ($4.75) while my companion decided to play it safe with the chicken tenders ($5.50).

We both decided not to go with the $1.25 fish taco.

We continued into the main room that was as spacious as it was sporty, with pool tables, a large mirrored stage and a booth area where a few guys were getting open-faced boob sandwiches. Looking like bored Victoria Secret cashiers, the strippers barely got the attention of men who were more attuned to the numerous TVs showing Univision soccer games.
As we sat with our salads at the bar, the wholesome but takes-no-shit-from-anyone bartender, Shannon, made sure our palates were ready for a treat. For me, my treat waited as I pulled out a long black hair taking a siesta underneath a lettuce leaf. Gracias, Juan!

He’s such a kidder.

As fast as you can hit “Reheat” our food arrived. My turkey sandwich didn’t look too bad with the side of corn and mashed potatoes covered with light gravy that, in the neon light, looked a unique shade of pink. The first 11 bites were fantastic, but the canned corn and dehydrated mashed potatoes were hard to stomach without ample amounts of the $3 Budweiser. The true gem of the afternoon was the chicken tenders, which reminded me why I was so obsessed with them in elementary school. We devoured the six tenders faster than you can say “salmonella.” And when dipped into the plastic cups of BBQ sauce, the flavor can only be described as “l’awesome poulet de barbecue,” as the French say.

The Wild Goose’s true specialty was the complementary pizza offered between 4-7 p.m. everyday. Of course, we were there at 1 p.m., so we weren’t able to enjoy a slice of what was so beautifully depicted on their website. But it’s definitely worth another visit to try the mysterious buffalo burger ($5), the hot beef dinner ($5), or even the soy burger ($5) that Juan reheats so well.

Location: 11604 Aviation Blvd., Inglewood.Phone: (310) 643-9769.
Atmosphere: Just some dudes hanging with dudes. In a totally not gay way, ok?
ATM Availability: Near the dartboard and a golf video game.
Lady Friendly?: Yes, Shannon really needs some cheering up.Service: Fifty-year-old ex-strippers and Juan are at your service.
Girls: All 31 flavors.
Radio station equivalent: JACK 93.1 FM.
Overall Rating: 4 out of 5 Jimmyhats

Sam’s Hof Brau

In an industrial area of downtown L.A., Sam’s Hof Brau is adjacent to an enormous yellow warehouse that is certainly not going to house any luxury artist lofts any time soon. From the flashing marquee, an ale-holding, mustachioed Teuton beckons to pervs like a moth to a skank flame. The parking lot is surrounded by 9-foot fences and offers $5 valet parking in the secured lot. Fancy? You bet! Especially as you step out of the car to a list posted outside of the valet hut, delineating the Hof Brau rules: “No camera phones, no guns, all head tattoos must be covered, and no pencils or pens.” Yes, a side of shivving with your entrée was not out of the question.

After a friendly pat down from a uniformed security guard (and the last bit of action you’ll get for free) we entered through the heavy curtain to the main open area of the club, which looked like a hybrid of Cheers and a Robert Rodriguez film. The center of the room showcases a large stage with multiple poles, while men-obscured by gyrating ladies in thongs-occupy the booths around the periphery. The Sam Malone of the establishment, a friendly Mexican fellow with a flat top and an oversized orange G-Unit T-shirt, gave us a warm welcome. Surrounded by innumerable inflatable beer paraphernalia, El Sam nodded to the reggaeton blasting from the PA and motioned to the beer specials of the day ($3 Heineken-the cheapest of the 25 brews offered). Fulfilling our two-drink minimum, we ordered a few and perused the illogically cheap menu transversing the golden oldies of the barroom delectables. From the “Hoppin’ Jalepeno poppers” to the chili cheese fries, the appetizers ranged from $3 to $8 for the sample platter. As for the expansive list of entrees, we grazed on the not too greasy quesadilla ($4), broiled chicken breast ($7), the lightly battered fish ‘n’ chips ($6), and the oh-so cleverly named ham Sam’swich ($6), all of which were accompanied with thick cut fries or a side of salad on a disposable plastic plate. Waiting for the food, we had a chance to watch the ladies stomping across stage in their Payless heels, sometimes topless and maximizing what can only be described as the “jiggle factor”.

And I’m not talking about their breasts.

They were truly the hard working Willy (or Wilma) Lomans of the stripping world, the everyday woman for the everyday man, where it wasn’t too hard to imagine them taking their kids to day care, fixing a faulty toilet or quite possibly driving a city bus. You had to root for them, with their little panties and no nonsense bodies with thigh bruises, ankle tattoos, dangling boobies and all.

With its surprisingly satisfying food, strippers with a corazon (and some teeth) of gold, and the friendly (and felonious) atmosphere, Sam’s Hof Brau may be the three-legged underdog of the L.A. stripper scene, but at least the food doesn’t taste (that) cheap.

Location: 1751 East Olympic Blvd., Downtown.Phone:( 213) 623.3989.Atmosphere: Muy loco, and don’t touch anything under the bar…
ATM Availability: Right next to an inflatable Tecate.
Lady Friendly?: Yes! Gentlemanly staff that only shine flashlights on the stripper’s asses. Service: Hands off when you’re eating, hands on if you wave a bill.
Girls: More bounce to the ounce.
Radio station equivalent: Latino 96.3.
Overall Rating: 4.5 out of 5 Jimmyhats

Pirate All-Stars

2006-06-14T00:03:00.000-07:00

Kickin' Balls and Drinkin' Booze

Published June 2.2006

Standing in deep right field on this heavenly Sunday, I drank in the summer smells of barbecue and fresh cut grass, as the cool breeze crawling in from the coast tickled the back of my neck with the hair emerging from under my mesh hat. I closed my eyes and took a slow yogic breath, enjoying the peace and tranquility coalescing at this particular slice of time and space.

“I’ll fucking impale you!” Jim, the pitcher, yelled as he rolled the red ball across the earth toward home plate, where Herpy Hancock met it with a swift kick. I snapped out of my pensive state, quickly setting my beer in the grass (my faithful companion in deep right), and watched as Herpy (aka Aaron/Sexface from bands Anavan and Explogasm) ran around first base with his cut off sleeves revealing a fetus tattooed on his slightly sunburned shoulder.

This sure ain’t your Grandma’s kickball.

This is kickball 2k6, the softball-with-your-foot-and-beer sport for those few who smoked out under the bleachers, made anarchy signs on their gym uniforms, or were sentenced to a life of being picked last. This was a second chance to reclaim the game that for so long was the fodder of jocks and people who think the Rapture is just the subject of Kirk Cameron’s Left Behind movies.

This is pirate kickball coming to pillage the Igloo cooler, set the barbecue ablaze, and, um, kick balls. Hard.

These kickballers come from all over the globe with cameos from various bands, DJs and artists meeting at Mar Vista Park to get their kick on. Dressed in a sort of Spaceland meets Special Olympics couture, it being not uncommon to park your Vespa (today there’s only two parked near the backstop), roll up your Diesels, or slip on some short shorts (mostly on the gentlemen), then hit the field when you’re six beers deep. The stands are filled with on-lookers, some homeless people like “Mary” who lives in the Port-o-Potty (dude, serious) or the elderly Asian lady who gleans for cans (when she’s not being attacked by wandering dogs), and some confused families that usually leave after having to explain the free flowing expletives to their child.

“Mommy, what are Arabian Goggles?”

As this diverse crowd cheers on the teams, the energy grows like a boner of lightning. Many of the players have multiple names, according to their band, DJ or Myspace name. This can be confusing, but after a bit you have no qualms referring to Brandon Perry as Paula Poundstone, the Black Knight or LL Cool AIDS.

Today was one of the largest turnouts as nearly 40 ballers swarmed the field. On this epic Sabbath, the gloves had been dropped as The O.C. Kickballers drove north on the 405, then waited in some traffic, had some arguments about if they were “too old” to see the Blood Brothers at Chain Reaction, parked, and came to challenge the KXLU All-Stars.

It was Athens vs. Sparta—well, it was more like Mars Volta vs. Sparta—but it was the second most important kickball game in one-bazillion years. The first being several months ago, when the separatist KXLU team was nearly subsumed into the World Adult Kickball Association (WAKA) who tried to recruit this rogue team into their burgeoning global organization. Refusing to succumb to the globalization of the kickball craze and stringent rules, this rogue team trounced WAKA 2-0 in a game so newsworthy that NPR even covered the event.

If there was a patron saint of kickball to grace bodega candles and the back windows of pickup trucks, it would be the International Voice of Reason (aka Dan Rowan/DJ Truckload), who felt a great deal of pride in the defeat of WAKA and even told NPR, “WAKA can go walk-a their ass off of our field. They want everyone to be 21. They want every one to have medical insurance. We’re poor people, we are the working class, we don’t need your fancy rules, your high falootin ‘no-screaming-at-the-other-team’ rules.”

With his wise beard and form fitting Adidas warm-ups, Mr. Rowan also acts as scribe and team historian for his team, chronicling the rise to power from it’s humble beginnings in 2003.
Unfortunately, today, Rowan looks a little more intense, especially after the 9-0 defeat by the O.C. Kickballers. It was quite an upset, but the day went on with innumerable games, which even mixed the lineups of L.A. and O.C. teams. This is truly the dream Martin Luther King Jr. dreamed, all bathed with warm Pabst Blue Ribbon.

Which leaves me, still in right field, drinking beer from a neon green cup, watching Abbey Abortion eating Jell-O shots with her fingers, Joe Denver rounding the bases in his short shorts, and all of these rogues and miscreants coming together on one field to celebrate life, liberty, and the pursuit of debauchery.

Stinko De Mayo

2006-06-13T23:54:00.000-07:00

The Benefits of Hydrotherapy, or How I got my Colon Blown

Published May 12.2006

Milk, milk, lemonade. Round the corner fudge is made.
-Anonymous, Egypt 32 BCE.

It was meant to be the usual May 5: a night of sitting on the front porch, drinking chilled Coronas, eating hand rolled enchiladas, and shooting the proverbial shit with extended family and friends. But this Friday afternoon was drastically different than those that had preceded it. As I shook the wrinkled hands of the uncles and grandmas, introduced myself to brothers-in-law and giggling babies, I nervously carved a smile into my face trying to hide the life-altering activity that occurred merely 15 minutes before. You see…

I had my shit shot.

That’s right, I got a colonic. That newly popular, self-imposed assplosion meant to clean the pipes from inside out. Not that the idea of giving the ol’ chocolate factory a once-over is new-there’s evidence that the ancient Egyptians cleaned out their rear sarcophagi too-but it seems that everyone and their grandma (yes, even the one eating nachos on my couch) is talking about the benefits of colon hydrotherapy. With all the celebrity addiction to health fads, and the overpopulation of the Westside with a myriad of health spas, I decided to flush myself down into the world of the shitterati.

Oh yeah, and I was dared too.

As usual, it all started at a bar a few weeks earlier with a two for one drink special. In that way that can only happen to a group of twenty-something males, the conversation was comprised solely of dick and fart jokes. We slammed our two-fers and I lamented on the state of my innards, whining about the 24 pizza slices I had ingested for my previous article and pontificated on the subject of my next one. Then, like being dumped on by an incontinent pterodactyl, it struck us: we were going to get a group colonic!

We talked of it like it was a trailer for The Real World Culver City: “This Friday, five guys join as hetero-life-mates, pushing their hearts and anuses to the limit, as they celebrate Cinco De Mayo the hard way…” We made cheers, talked about making “Team Colonic” jerseys, and discussed the hypothetical contents of our slightly hairy tummies. What would we find? Some corn? A bread-tie? A live trout? A G.I. Joe arm? Even our waitress, who we deemed the unofficial 6th member of “Team Colonic,” was excited after she revealed that her first colonic made her feel “like I was walking on heaven.”

We were ready to get pumped!

Two weeks later, I found myself in a room, rolled on my left side, caught in a storm of words like “lube,” “self-insert,” and “apparatus.” Team Colonic had dissolved faster than Alka-Seltzer in acid bath, and I was left to my own devices. Well, I at least was left to self-insert the device, as the extremely kind hydrotherapist tried to make me more comfortable.

“You seem to hold a lot of tension in your body,” she said concernedly, as she turned on the machine that was to pump the triple-filtered water through the device that already made it’s grand entrance into Chez Poopy. This wasn’t as easy as that waitress said. After all, I’m the guy who only visits the beach at night, I’m terrified of farting in elevators, and I even get skittish peeing in “the trough” (if you ladies have any questions, just ask a dude). I could actually feel my lower lip sticking out, as the process began.

The woman carefully explained the process, where body temperature water would slowly pump into my colon until I was “full.” The image of Oompa Loompas rolling my burgeoning blueberry body to the Juicing Room came to mind. But as the process took place, there was not much discomfort, especially as the hydrotherapist massaged my arms, legs, and back. I’m sure she saw the look of panic in my eyes, and was doing her best to clam me down.

She explained the benefits of the therapy, and showed me laminated pictures of disgusting colons that had been abused by years of fast food and dietary destruction. I couldn’t help but think of the Scoe’s #2 I ate at Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles the night before, and I hoped she couldn’t see a drumstick float past as the formerly clear tubes removed the poo-poo from my bottom.

About 45 minutes went by and I grew tired of the Supersoaker being sprayed in my cornhole. We removed “the apparatus” and I was ushered to an accompanying bathroom, where I was urged to “blow it all out.”

In my long history of traumatic stools, this ranked third, slightly behind my Port-au-Prince port-o-potty debacle and the Andean atrocity, where I had to clean house with a wool sock and a map. It did, however, rank right above my Aztecan assplosion, where I defiled the temple of the sun.

Actually, that was kind of fun.

When I returned home to the smiling dentured faces holding paper plates slathered with guacamole, I couldn’t help but reflect on the fecal fiesta that I had just attended. I wondered if anyone noticed my post-colonic glow, or if people questioned how I could eat four extra large enchiladas effortlessly.

But no one noticed.

It was just a little secret between me and my colon.

Baked Fresh Daily

2006-06-13T23:32:00.000-07:00

Published April 14.2006

There was no sign of it letting up.

No indication of how long I had been sitting there, no mention of how this was going to end, as my eyes were caught in a staring contest with the un-inflated airbag hiding in the dashboard. It was a Thursday night in Reseda and I was waiting for it to hit me-that feeling of stoned exhaustion, a bodily blowout enveloping me as the cab of the black pickup filled with smoke. We were parked between the curbside blue and gray trashcans, and I was wedged in the middle of this never-ending assignment.

After all, it was garbage day, and I was here to get trashed.

This is a story that begins in the middle of things. “In Medias Res,” as those literary dicks say. It’s the feeling of “jumping right into it,” and for this story it’s the only way to eat my way out of this pizza supreme; from the hot gooey center to the outer crescent crust of existence, piece by piece by piece. Reconstructing reality, one slice at a time.

This was my third day of the routine, and I was beginning to feel my body shift from idle to haggard as each smoke and slice suck a little out of me. If I only knew what was going to happen once I got out of that truck or the insanity that these drugs would bring, perhaps I would have paced myself a little more. But as I said, this is the middle of things, and I still had a long way to go, and a lot of mental wreckage to incur before it would all make sense.

The Dough

As all good stories begin, this one starts on the porch of a yellow Craftsman in Highland Park. Knocking for the second time, I saw a Moog in the window as the door opened to reveal one of my editors, always smiling and still basking in the cheesy glow of his Grilled Cheese Invitational trophy from the night before. I was there too, but I had no trophy to show, just lingering paranoia of the woman in the Kraft-single skirt who used breast milk in her ’sammiches.’ It’s Freudian, and it’s disgusting, and I’d rather think about the matter at hand.

Or rather, the green matter in my hands. I had a story to write, and in my grasp was a lidless spice jar of pot, which was slipped to me just as nonchalantly as this bizarre assignment weeks before. As usual, my role of human guinea pig was going to be put to the test, as I put our fair city to the test to find that fleeting slice to end all slices. This was the pizza litmus for the Alpha Slice, a culinary vivisection of this psychotic town, tasting the sociological toppings offered by a Los Angeles pie with everything on it. All seen through a lens of green. The idea was to thrust myself into the un-stoned public to take the brunt of embarrassment face-on, head first, and without fear. If I could inflict enough awkwardness upon myself, would anything hurt anymore? Could I become an outsider looking in on the social machinery of L.A., examining the rituals and habitual grazing paths that establish the routine, the status quo, and the scaffolding that holds together the pieces of a perfectly boring life? After all, don’t we sit in the Laundromat to not be alone? Don’t we search for things to say between sips of latte, or smoke pot and call Dominos?

Now, it was time to invert this perfect panacea for the mid-week bore as I set out to deliver my baked ass to the pizza.

The Sauce

When you begin a journey with no destination, it’s best to go with what you know, and what I knew was that Abbot’s Pizza Company reigned as a foodie favorite for the finest in pizza fare. A wooden stake in the ever-farting heart of Venice, Abbot’s consistently wins “Best Of” titles and holds a special place in tourist books for confused European travelers. It even has a fucking Myspace page. Of course, this is Abbott Kinney, the thread holding together the patchwork of aging hippies, dot-com soccer-moms and performance artists that speckle the Venetian landscape.

It is here that I fall into it, staring at the chalkboard menu, in the midst of deciding between a slice of Popeye’s Chicken pizza (featuring spinach, mushrooms, and tequila lime chicken) and the Greek (with fresh sliced tomato, red onions, olives, mozzarella and feta cheeses). Behind the counter, a man tossed the dough into the air, impossibly spinning like that slow-mo bone at the beginning of 2001: A Space Odyssey. I begin to think how we were betrayed by the Hippie Generation. The ultimate hypocrites. The free-loving freedom lovers hoping to break the paradigms and change the world, just to burn out, check in, and settle down 40 years later. The lies of love-in only led to our generation’s wave of fatherless children, whose dads were not taken by a war of bullets, but by a war of shifting values and unattainable ideals. We are caught in the crossfire of the changing tide that our parents’ parents lived in, the first casualties in a war of spirit.

Fuck, man. What’s in this pizza?

And it looked like I’d ordered both slices. As my hunger peaked, my motions slowed down, and I alternated between each delicious slice, which somehow now included a third slice of cheese-undoubtedly ordered by my stoned-self as a “control” slice, the common denominator. I stood at the stainless steel counter and watched the people come in, with their Escalade-sized strollers and warm-up pants.

I began to get paranoid, as I was obviously eating with my mouth wide open. Soon, it subsided as I remembered that if there’s one thing you can count on in Venice it’s that the help is just as stoned as you are. It was a wonder that they could contain their munchies with such delicious delectables within snacking range. The slices were thin crust, low on sauce but garnished with fresh basil leaves and roasted garlic. The tequila lime chicken was hugged by melted mozzarella as warm spinach wove through the cheese toward the sesame seed bagel crust, a signature specialty made famous at Abbot’s. They were so good (and I was like, famished, dude) that I even tried to construct a pizza-wich…with mixed results.

The fresh toppings, thin crust and fine cheeses of these slices are actually muy tipico of that newest pizza beast: the California pizza. Just like Wildfour on Main Street in Santa Monica (where coincidently, I lost control of the volume of my voice three days later, while trying a slice of wheat crust pizza), this “California” pizza has these distinctive qualities of being light, thin, healthy-probably the trait most similar to Italian pizza in Italy, not the grease buckets we eat while watching Super Bowl commercials.

It’s no wonder that California Pizza Kitchen has capitalized on this prototype. Not only bringing the style of healthier pies to the masses, C.P.K. also espouses the commodification of California, the idea of California Dreamin’ in these boardwalk and beachside joints, harkening back to their grand opening 30 years ago, serving up the slice of our hazy coast that represents all of L.A. in the global collective memory.

All coming to a freezer near you.

Yet, there is another side to this cliché L.A. coin that becomes elusive to most of those who call this sprawling city “home.” For our relatives around the world, they’ll be the first to ask if you’ve ever seen a celebrity, yet they never ask if you’ve seen a celebrity high. Actually, I should rephrase that: while high (’cause I’ve seen Seth Green at the Puma Store on the Promenade, and he looked like he was starring in Austin White Powders).

With this in mind, I put on a suit, booked a reservation, toked, then sat on the couch for a bit, watched the first half of Last Action Hero, tape-recorded my stoned friend pondering if Helen Keller could “see color in her mind,” then, an hour later, showed up to The Ivy by the Shores. If there were a better place to “network,” I couldn’t think of it.
After getting lost for 10 minutes, we ran to make our reservation (have you ever seen a man run in a suit? It’s not pretty). We arrived to white-clad waiters opening the doors and ushering us to the outside seating area. I think it was a hint to air out our hot-boxed jackets, but it turned out to be advantageous as we watched the sunset over our Pacific Ocean, which I suddenly realized I all-too-often take for granted.

That’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, man…

I gazed out the window. Well, not directly out the window, because there was a woman who looked way uncomfortable while caught in the periphery of my slightly crazed stare. But fuck her, dude, it was pizza o’clock and it was time to order the most expensive thing on the menu. After our waiter Charles-or whatever name he used in his acting career-gave us the upholstered menu, I changed my course of action, ordering the $18.75 imported smoked salmon pizza. My companion ordered the gulf shrimp pizza (also $18.75), while the word “chutney” rattled around in my brain.

I’m sure there’s a chutney to accompany every dish at The Ivy.

Although the pizza was the size of a Wham-O Frisbee, it was very filling after having some beers, which helped us feel like this was a business lunch-or perhaps a power dinner-where serious decisions were being made about some serious fucking shit. We complained about the “bear” market (I think that means bad, right?), we proudly announced cutting health benefits to all employees, and eventually continued our discussion of Helen Keller.

If only I could have been Ms. Keller and not heard or seen what happened in Reseda, the night before…

The Meat

Pulling myself out of the airbag stare, we eventually parked in the ’70s style strip mall, and I stumbled out of that black pickup in a toot-like cloud of weed, aiming my trajectory toward Casa De Pizza and its soon-to-be-infamous “Sinatra Room.”

Reseda is a grim reminder of what 90 percent of our country looks like: strip malls and drive-thrus. With no centralized Italian community like in New York or Chicago, there is no Little Italy in L.A. anymore. Especially after the Italian persecution during World War II and the dispersal of its former Downtown location. So Los Angeles only has caricatures of Italian restaurants from movies, copies of copies, like some sort of post-modern nightmare. With meatballs.

The Sinatra Room in Casa De Pizza proved to be one of these Xeroxed places, complete with walls checkered in Sinatra memorabilia. We were showered in the gaze of a thousand pairs of Ol’ Blue Eyes. Not only were these 8×10s and movie posters sketchy, but we were sitting at a booth in direct fire of a drum set that was crammed in the corner of the room. There was going to be a musical act and I hoped to god that it wasn’t Vito, the man we met in the parking lot with the Andrew Dice Clay meets Bilbo
Baggins shtick.

We ordered the deep dish Sicilian, and before it arrived at our table Vito walked in with his “band,” comprised of the finest unsullied specimens of male pattern baldness and Hawaiian patterned shirts this side of Palm Springs.

“How does Michael Jackson know when it’s time to put his kids to bed?” Vito asked into the microphone as he slung his guitar around his neck.
“When the big hand is over the little hand! Booya! Seriously, folks, it’s great to be here tonight.”

Parents held their kids closer, kids looked at each other, and I stared directly at the Parmesan cheese shaker on the red and white tablecloth. Before you could say “awkward,” he launched into a surprisingly dead-on rendition of “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” as I nervously watched the waitress slide our pizza on the Plexiglas tabletop. Without hesitation, we started jamming pizza in our faces, trying to get out of there before Vito could single us out for one of his soliloquies about how old he was, or how he “loved broads.”

Supposedly, the 74-year-old, black clad Vito was the son of the original owners of Casa, and when they passed, they passed it on to him-one-liners and all. Now, it seemed that as the resident musician his main job was to berate the customers with disturbing jokes over Doogie Howser sounding keyboards. Somewhere around my sixth slice-and way past the point of satiety-I caught Vito pointing at our table and inquiring about our ages.
We promptly responded between greasy, cheesy bites.

Vito retorted, “I’m your age tripled! My god, you kids should have stayed at Chuck E. Cheese.”

Which didn’t sound like a bad idea at all.

The Cheese

Two days later, I found myself standing onstage beside an animatronic rat in Inglewood. Maybe it was Westchester. Wherever it was, it had to be in the proximity of Magic Johnson’s T.G.I Friday’s. We rolled in around 9 p.m. and the joint was jumpin’. Lights flashing, skee-balls flying, sliders sliding, kids leaning against arcade games unfolding rolls of tickets, all with a Robotic Mr. Cheese at the helm of this runaway groove train. This was the other side of the tracks from Sesame Street, for this was baby Babylon, and there was no escaping the mental carnage that would ensue.

I slowly inspected the perimeter, taking small steps like I was following an invisible walker. A tiny African American kid in a Yao Ming jersey ran past as what appeared to be two sets of identical septuplets crowded around the cybernetic Chuck E. Cheese. This was their Golden Calf-Mr. Cheese was their messianic being of pure light and goodness. Wading through their paper crowns, I headed back to our table where our order number (33… just like Jesus!) and my three tokens remained (representing the trinity). Tapping my feet furiously, I was succumbing to the culmination of a week’s worth of grease and weed. My senses became hyperaware.

It was like Zen.

I could hear the children climbing through the cheap plastic tubing suspended above us; I could see the grease on the soda fountain buttons; I knew that the middle aged white lady in the rhinestone miniskirt was not there just for the pizza. This was a pickup place for single parents. This is where to go before the bars open, or if you weren’t old enough to get into them. Fixated on the roadmap of cellulite on the back of her legs, I didn’t even notice that our pizza sat in front of us, our number was gone, and a half-consumed cup of construction-cone-orange soda, or Sparks or something, had appeared on our table.

I felt sick. This was too far.

But this wasn’t about me anymore. It was about all those stoners out there, petrified by fear, afraid that prepubescent children have taken over our beloved pizzerias, forcing us to stay at home and sit on our futons, while trying really hard to remember the number for Pizza Hut and watch Robocop at the same time!

This will not stand! The munchies will prevail! And later that night, they did.

The Crust

Somewhere around your 24th slice of pizza, you begin to hallucinate. Even now, I’ve put my Polaroids in line, shifting them like Tetris pieces, trying to make sense of the skewed angles, the disembodied hands and random fragments that I amassed over the week, but to no avail. I try to read my notes, but all I see are the words “Sweep Foot” and “Crotch Punch,” jotted down from the depths of cheese. It seems like a dream, but I have the zits to prove it.

In the end, my journey wasn’t really about pizza; it was about finding something unique in L.A. and searching for what truly makes you happy. From Vito and his guitar, to Chuck E. Cheese and his plan for robotic domination, you may encounter roadblocks along the way. The journey may not be easy, but with determination, you can really take a great big cheesy bite out of life.

Oh yeah, and weed fucking rules

Clowning Around

2006-06-13T23:24:00.000-07:00

Exploring clown-sex under the big tent of the World Wide Web

Published March 10.2006

Everyone loves a clown, right? But the real question is: Who in their right mind would love to be fucked by one?

On a quest for truth, I turned to the virtual slut-o-sphere, home of the one-night-stand and the one-dollar-hand-job, for definitive answers. I posted the following woman-seeks-clown ad, sat back and let the perv parade begin:

Ok, so I’m not sure if this is normal, but I’ve got this fetish that I can’t seem to ignore…

My boyfriend was really great (really fucking great) and the sex was phenomenal, but he moved away suddenly for work and I couldn’t go with him. I’m so angry he left, but I keep fantasizing about it.

I know it’s weird, but… he was a performer in the circus and we used to do it when he was still in his make-up, after a LONG, HARD day of work. His clown makeup. I’d get so horny watching his makeup run as we steamed things up, feeling his red nose against me. (I’m getting hot thinking about it.) And I NEED this now.

Show me your inner clown and maybe I can blow your horn if you want it tonight! Serious replies only, with photos of you hot and ready to be my clown. I’m not clowning with just anyone, only those adventuresome few who are man enough to slap some drama on my derriere.

This is in or around Hollywood

After my posting, I received about 40 responses-most within the hour and some of which were simply jpegs of engorged (and strangely curved) wieners. Most gave their names and phone numbers, some even looked familiar (their faces, not their dongs). Others would send pictures of themselves in their natural habitats: on the couch, in the glow of a monitor, next to a donkey, reading a sundial. You know, the usual places pervs hang out. So, without further ado… Bring in the clowns! The names and e-mail addresses have been changed to protect the perverted, but their typos are all intact.

22 SWF wants to Clown Around TONITE ONLY!XXX
Reply to: pers-137962951@online.orgDate: 2006-02-28, 9:24PM PST
From:Sent: Tuesday, February 28, 2006 9:47 PMsoundz good .i m 25 ll dress up n wear sum clown make up n do u.watch the make up run down us both while we are fuking hard n intenseemail me back n i ll give u my #

From:Sent: Wednesday, March 1, 2006 3:37 PMSubject: i will clown around with uIf u would loike to talk or speak with me u can contact 323 XXX XXXX thankyou I know ur deepest desire ur fetish doesnt seem that funny to me

From:Sent: Wednesday, March 1, 2006 8:34 PMHello there, how are you today? I’m 27 from west LA, 6′ 190 lbs. Looking for some fun? I just might be your man. My oral skills alone with have you screaming with delight. I love to lick and I would love to lick you up and down, in and out, front and back. Thats right, I would love to spend as much time licking your ass as I would that sweet puss of yours. Aside from that, I think we can have a lot of fun, and I would love to take care of any need or desire you just might have. Lemme know what you think.

From:Sent: Wednesday, March 1, 2006 9:14 PMI saw your ad. I’d love to hang out. I have an ad too, its titled I CAN MAKE YOU SMILE. Take a look, let me know what you thimk…

From:Sent: Wednesday, March 1, 2006 9:15 PMOh, I’ve also got a 10 inch cock, so there…

From: Sent: Thursday, March 2, 2006 12:15 AMSubject: Interestedi would love to be ur clown!!! we can even have the clown song play in the background!!!

From:Sent: Thursday, March 2, 2006 2:42 AMshow me haw real you are and ill fuck you and eat your ass and pussy im a clowns get up send pics of you you know haw it is ill do it for you but sow me your real

From:Sent: Thursday, March 2, 2006 8:33 AMAttachment: autofellatio102.jpg (0.05MB)Hi, Not sure about the clown? I was dared by a gf to self suck if that is crazy enough:) 27 6′2 180 athletic green eyes dark hair attractive male here.. in los angeles area. love to rimm a hot girl to orgasm. anyway you sound fun hit me up

From:Sent: Thursday, March 2, 2006 11:27 AMi don’t have any clown make-up or a red nose but i do have a big nose maybe we could work something out?????let me know.

From:Sent: Tuesday, February 28, 2006 9:51 PMHey i’m 20 native american and would love to service you till ecstasy. I’m 6′3 dark skin and long hair. if you are interested in getting slammed let me know.

From:Sent: Tuesday, February 28, 2006 10:08 PM you need a doctor not a clown..

Let's Get Physical

2006-06-13T23:08:00.000-07:00

Cuddling Up Against the Sensitive Underbelly of West LA
Published March 24.2006

It was an unseasonably cold Friday night as I walked down Sepulveda Blvd. I held my bags close and turned into the back alley behind some print shop where a staircase led to that candlelit room of strangers convened in a circle-obscured in a haze of incense-while looking at the door, waiting for me and my late ass. Yes, patiently sitting upstairs at the Bodymind Institute was one of the most insidious rolls in L.A.’s underbelly: a Cuddle Party. Indeed, this was going to be some hardcore shit.

Yet, my previous image of the Moroccan opium den fuckfest quickly dissolved as I passed the piles of magazines entitled Aura or something, and bulletin boards covered with clipart yoga fliers and a fringe of phone numbers. The main room was not filled with orgy-goers in bathrobes, smoking pipes and drinking old-fashioneds. Rather, it was a large circle of mismatched pillows resting on four, Target-esque comforters-much more kindergarten than kinky. People were milling about wearing oversized T-shirts and PJ pants, even having juice and cookies. It looked a lot more like a blood drive than a snuggle-saurus attack.

Cuddle parties have been the darling of local news channels and “indie” media ever since their invention by New York workshop facilitators Marcia Baczynski and Reid MiHalko. Wanting to create a place where “non-sexual touching” was acceptable without the imminent threat of boning, they started the cuddle party phenomenon as this fuck-free zone. Oh yeah, and to help people communicate, or something.

After I changed into my pajamas, the “welcome circle” began. My attire included my female roommate’s pajamas, covered with clouds, moons, and super sparkly stars, an argyle sock and a tan sock (both odiferous reruns, by the way) all accompanied by an old shirt that said “suicide medicine.” Not so much a comment on the duality of man as his lack of detergent.

I joined the encircled clan for the opening welcome before we got down to cuddle business. There were about 30 people in the circle, most of various sexes, ages, and waistlines. We all looked at each other nervously as the moderator began to speak softly about some rules. It was hard to hear all of them, especially because it was about a minute into his deal that I realized I had already broken one of them long before I had gotten there. I was drunk.

Hey, it’s not my fault they scheduled the cuddlefest on Saint-Patty’s day, but I can’t say the same about the amount of Guinness and corned beef’n'cabbage I ingested at 2 p.m. Sorry, cuddlebunnies, tonight is going to be a stinker!

It was a little bit of a surreal blur as the moderator softly and gently explained the rules of (non) engagement…for the next 40 minutes. I dazed in and out of consciousness, catching only a few of the rules as they floated past my increasingly reddening face. No sex, no dry humping, PJ’s stay on, “No means no.” As I looked around the room, I counted the number of men vs. women over and over, coming to an even 12 of each every time. But for some reason, there appeared to be many more middle-aged men than nubile young vixens. It was probably like one of those magic eye things at the mall.

But in the midst of pondering the ratio of dicks to chicks, the word “erection” buzzed in my ear. I immediately looked at my crotch, where I thought the phrase originated, only to realize that the moderator-and self proclaimed cuddle party lifeguard-was bringing up (har har) the issue of “visible sexual arousal.”

“Just think of it as sexual energy just popping up to say ‘hi!’ he said as I started imagining the possibilities of a wood-sporting populace: men jousting with their wee-wees, the inevitable “light-saber-Luke-I-am-your-father” ding-dong fights. Perhaps a cock pushup or two. Just as I wondered how I’d explain these snail-trails that were going to show up on my roomie’s PJs, the cuddle fuck began!

Almost immediately, a woman clad in matching leopard jammers rolled on top of me, like that boulder at the beginning of Raiders of the Lost Arc. I was stunned and I was pinned.
In my daze I didn’t realize that my sparkly star/moon jam-a-ramas had been pulled clean off! Not only was I unintentionally breaking a cuddle commandment, I was nearly revealing my frightened pee-pee, hiding in my unwashed Fruit of the Looms. With a quick log roll, I maneuvered to the middle, where I latched onto the first lady I could see.

“Can I write the Canterbury Tales on your back?” I asked. Reluctantly, she said yes and I began using my index finger to script out the first few lines. After at least four passages, I forgot the rest and began to do long division, which did involve a few remainders. I don’t think she noticed, because every one of her appendages was being massaged and/or prodded by dudes as I was trying to see how many times nine went into 405 (it’s 45).

As if this wasn’t awkward enough, there was a Taiwanese news crew filming the entire event, while the female anchor (in matching pinky PJs) carried a ’70s style foam microphone in which she narrated to an Asian audience what the fuck was going on. With the news anchor “interviewing” people in cuddle puddles, a tantra teacher fondling a reiki master, and some divorcees who may have been violating the moratorium on dry humping (and possibly each other), I couldn’t take it any more. I left-a changed man with changed pants-and I went back to the bar. After all that, I’ve decided drinking is a much safer activity.