The Night Starts Here: In the Flesh, Hustler Club, Shot of Love, Favor Club

I wrote this blog in pieces, subsequently demanding that y'all refresh 'til I finished 'cause I like to keep you on your toes, you know? Also, occasionally I like to keep you on the heels/balls of your feet, just to switch it up. Sometimes, I like you on your knees. Sometimes, I like you up against a wall, or bent over ... JK. Mostly, I like you right where you are: reading my blog.

So anyhow I've actually finished it now, and organised it in a way which is more aesthetically comfortable. Last night (Tuesday), I didn't finish it on account of being a monkey with Jell-O Pudding for Brains. I also said "I think I just took an Ambien but I'm not sure," and, in case you're wondering, and I know you are: I did.

I feel like "secrets" are the new "sex." Like how last week I said "lame" was the new "badass"? Y'know, the overload of sexual content in the media, which isn't bad for children or anything, it just takes away a lot of the mystery & discovery that makes sex interesting to begin with --- real secrets, naked humans, love, etc. [Pot, meet Kettle, Hi Pot.] I was thinking about that 'cause I was like, wow, this whole post is going to be sort of "sex-themed," I wonder if that'll inspire increased traffic and then I was like, "Nah, I doubt it, not like secrets do!"

Another cool part of secrets being the new sex is that sex used to be a secret. Simmer on that.

Topic: In the Flesh Reading.

Anyhow, speaking of speaking of sex, the video from the "In the Flesh" reading is now on RKB's YouTube channel! I clearly didn't locate the microphone until about 30 seconds in, so if at first you think you can't hear very well, stick with it, it gets better, I promise. Also, I think I get better as the reading goes on. Yup.

So, here's the links, it's in two parts:
Part One: New York I, New Jersey, Westchester, Astoria, the start of Williamsburg
Part Two: end of Williamsburg, East Village, Greenwich Village, Chelsea & The Meatpacking District, New York II

Topic: Our Trip to the Strip Club

Stef's recap is in CARTOONS, and hence far better than anything you'll read here. E.g., here's her picture of Lozo's lap dance. Note my facial expression. Srsly, something this amazing doesn't come along every day.
Also, now Lozo's written his recap, and honestly, I'm not lying, I LOLed like, way harder than I've LOLed at any blog entry I've ever read before.

12:36 P.M. , Monday, October 8th.

Lozo: I need to take a shower.
me: Yeah, so do I.
Lozo: I smell like stripper and subway
me: I feel covered in stripper.
me: JINX

Those are the matchbooks I took from the Hustler Club. Notice I'm wearing hangover shirt. Seriously,
I am ready to light the world on fire. Who's WITH ME?

i. I Can Jump Ship and Swim

So, on a scale of one to ten, my stomach totally hated me on Monday morning. It was like, "Really Riese, really?!!" One of the cute things I like to do in my eternal pursuit of Dying Young is pre-party. Like in college, when it usually involved more than one person, e.g., Natalie and I doing shots of Raspberry Stoli [out of coffee mugs cause no one'd done the dishes in 30 years], employing orange slices as chasers because not one of the 8 girls we lived with consumed liquid calories. Soooo anyway [I love the way Jonathan Ames says "anyway" when he's reading his audiobook. Seriously, it's the cutest thing ever, it makes me wanna be his wife or live-in companion of some sort], when I got home Sunday night @4 A.M., totes ready for dinner, I opened the fridge and found a 35% full wine bottle, implying that I'd consumed 65% of the bottle (more than "one drink") prior to departure. I was like "oh, fuck."


Anyway [anyway!, aw, Jonathan Ames], that's fine. Luckily I'm very smooth/slick, or else I've developed quite a tolerance, as I still felt relatively sober when I arrived at THE HAWAIIAN TROPIC ZONE, where Lozo & Stef were already enjoying some pre-party drinks.

ii. In the Zone

If Lozo'd been standing up, I woulda come up behind him and tried to pull his pants off, just to set it up right away that we're all friends here who can jokingly remove each other's clothing if they want to. Unfortunately, he was sitting.

Sidenote: I'm not lying when I say I've been a little weird/agoraphobic lately ... I've been staying in lately and I felt like a Brave New Girl going out into the world, like Britney. I had a discussion with Shy, one of our strip-club compadres, re: What a Hot Album That Is, especially for working out. Anyway [hmmm ... ], I've gotta say that this place defo made me feel good about re-entering the world. I mean, Times Square, that's the center of New York City and the capital of the world! [Innermost circle of hell] I LOVE people, seriously.

So, I know what you're all wondering. What's Lozo like in 3-D?


That picture isn't from Sunday night, I just found it on Lozo's myspace.

Well, let me tell you this: he has a very nice shoulder. Also, he informed me within ten minutes of my arrival that his latest blog post, when he left home, had amassed 47 comments and would possibly exceed 50 that same evening.

Also, he watches sports both on his blog and in 3-D. Luckily for his sports-fan contingency, television monitors displaying various sporting events graced the walls of all our testosterone-oriented establishments, including the Hawaiian Tropic Zone. If naked ladies aren't enough for you, there is also The Yankees. So he didn't miss a thing, like Aeorosmith.

The uniforms at HTZ: bikini tops and tiny skirts. That made me uncomfortable for them, which was a bit disheartening re: how I'd handle the rest of the night.

Michele, a.k.a. RocketDyke, and her friend Shy, [Sounds like a stripper name kinda, yeah? Well, he's not a stripper, the strippers are later in this story] joined us at HTZ. Anyhow, Shy wasn't shy, he & Michele were both awesome. Before their arrival, I'd said: "No rocket scientist jokes, you guys," 'cause of her commenter-name, rocketdyke. I thought that was pretty clever. See, I was clearly sober.

Then, skies opened up, lights flashed, and girls in bikinis began parading on an above-bar catwalk: AMAZING apparently there's a nighty beauty pagaent at HTZ. We had a plethora of laughs at their expense--the only hot girl was #13. She was dumb though, she said "I'm lucky number 13!" which isn't true, 13 is an UNlucky number. All the girls had tattoos and bellybutton rings. So do I, but less slutty. Not that there's anything wrong with sluts, there totes isn't, I'm just explaining that I have a different "look," so to speak.

I enjoyed an overpriced glass of tonic water, topped off with a small splash of vodka.

iii. Some Conversation Topics I Remember:

1. Someone asked why Lozo used the name Lozo on his blog and I was like, "Because that's his last name," and everyone was like "NOOOO it isn't." It isn't, "LOZO" stands for Legend Of Zelda Online, actually. JK. It's his last name. One of the evening's finest running jokes was that 'Lozo' is short for Lozostien or Lozo'grady or something. Get it? Funny, right? I know. We're funny in 3-D too. I'm bad at recapping actual events in my life, can I make a list or something, or tell you what happened on the teevee? [UPDATE: This is now a list.]

2. I feel like I kept referencing The Office, 'cause I hadn't sat down & watched it 'til Saturday night, when Jim & Pam made me believe in love. It's such a funny show, seriously. Very smart.

3. Lozo wanted to know how to pronounce the word "obvs," and wanted to hear me use "probs'll" in conversation.

4. Someone asked: "Is this weird?" Personally, I didn't feel weird at all. I dunno, maybe I'm not as awkward as I think I am. I rarely feel weird. I AM weird. Feeling weird would just be repetitive.

5. Lozo told me he was 6'3: "I'm just throwin' it out there." And I was like "BACK OFF!" JK. That didn't happen.

Let me tell you a little something, grasshopper, about the internets. In the past four months, I've met two new people with whom I am quite funny. If you've ever had the pleasure of Riese & Carly's company, you know that we're really remarkably funny as a duo. That's one of our selling points, in fact, re: teevee show. Also, now it's been confirmed that Lozo & I are also funny. Not Riese & Carly funny, but funny. Also, I've just met him, things could get more or less funny.

Anyhow, this would be an advantage to meeting people through blogs -- you can usually gather from someone's internets self-presentations if their jokes are gonna jive with something intangible deep inside your snarky soul. So, there. That's one. Also; Stef is the only living soul who's had the pleasure of hanging out with both of the aforementioned match-ups, which makes her the luckiest person on the whole planet.

We hit up another bar to amp up the pre-stripper likkeration via shots of Maker's Mark. It was fierce. Then we headed to the West Side Highway, like a band of wild hooligans.

iv. She Can Pop It, She Can Lock It

Haviland's been to The Hustler Club "a few times" and apparently endorsed it to Stef. Therefore, because Haviland's my BFF and a Rising Star and an expert on half-naked ladies, we went to The Hustler Club which employs, apparently, only skinny perky-breasted girls w/significant quadriceps. They wear dangerously high heels and grind against patrons half-naked, hoping to sell dances, like Yankees game vendors, except they're vending their bodies. Most patrons were male, but there were a lot of lesbians on Sunday night, probs 'cause Sunday's no-cover night and lesbians are cheap. JK, they just don't like paying for naked girls to dance on them. Still though: fun, yay, girls, dancing, gymnastics, etc.

Good choice for "first time," howevs, probs too classy for me. Next time, I wanna go somewhere that doesn't try so hard: deviants doing crazy shit, trashy lunatics galore, chaos, yelling/screaming -- general grit and swarthy underside of life shit. I mean, if I'm gonna step into the Dark Side, I'd like it to be seriously Dark, not some cartoon plastic version of darkness. This red plastic ring on my new shelf [uncovered during furniture moveathon] was an engagement ring stand-in from T[]B[], not from Count Chocula, you know? I don't fuck around.

We enjoyed a variety of activities: arts & crafts, canoeing, lanyards, and hopscotch. In our downtime, we busied ourselves ascertaining which tits were real & which were fake. I kept asking people about Perky & Punctual, but no one knew what I was talking about. That was a little frustrating, but fine.

So: THESE GIRLS CAN DO GYMNASTICS. Dude, this is SERIOUS. Like, I wanna learn to do all of those tricks. In general, it seemed the girls were totes getting a good workout & that's good, very empowering. Seriously, I want very badly to go off into feminist theory, get all Carol Queeny or something right now, but I won't.

*
vi. Are You a Player?

I kept thinking about that episode of The L Word[Episode 202, entitled "Lapdance"] in fact, when they take Tina to the strip club and Alice comments that Tina's stripper looks like Bette, which's funny, because obvs she doesn't: she's simply ambiguously ethnic w/long dark hair, like many females do. A cocktail waitress asks Shane if she's a "player," which's awesome. Happens to me all the time.

Anyhow, wouldn't it be awesome if strip clubs had a method of finding dancers who looked just like your ex? I mean, who doesn't want to re-visit getting their heart torn out, but in a safe and fun environment like a strip-club? Yeah?

"I am not getting a lap dance. If you buy me a lap dance, I will get super uncomfortable on 100 different levels/positions and make everyone feel weird. FYI. Don't do it. I beg of you." -Me

A lot of girls tried to sell us dances, though we looked much less monied than many other patrons. One smokin' hot girl Leiliani (that's what Lozo thinks her name was] wouldn't take no for an answer: she sat on Shy for a bit 'til she realised he wasn't gonna go for it, then hopped on Lozo--also uninvited, but he didn't seem to mind. I couldn't look--I just told Stef to relay via facial expressions what exactly was goin' down. I felt like it was a private moment beween Lozo and and Leliani and I didn't want to, you know, watch. Plus, she looked a little bit like my ex.

So, anyway, Lozo is deaf in one ear. If you add up all his disabilities, it's almost like Boxing Helena. It's okay. I love Twinkies.

She sorta talked like a cheerleader, like she was gonna be like "Hey! Ready to strip! LEETSS GO!!" She had a deep-ish voice. I like that in a woman. [Really, I do.] How do I know all this? Because she was forced upon me by my "friend" Lozo. I mean that in all possible permutations of the word "friend."

Leilianahaha shared the following tasty tidbits of information with me:
-"I love dancing for girls. Girls are easy to dance for, I love girls."
-"I love girls."
-"You have a really good body, I can tell."
-"I love girls."
-"Private rooms upstairs are [massive amount of money I don't have, totes tuned out] and [something else I can't afford] is [another massive amount]."

Stef said the look on my face was "priceless." Howevs, there was a price, luckily I wasn't the one paying it. There are def. worse things in the world than a beautiful half-naked girl grinding her ass between your legs with her tits in your face. But I just can't buy into it, and I've got this problem with all salespeople -- I'm always trying to engage the bill collectors in conversations about their lives. I'm like "Let's cut the crap and get real."

Anyhow, Michele told the strippers that we knew each other from blogs. Lozo & I decided it would be much cooler if we were twins who knew each other from the womb, but Raven stopped believing us when we disagreed over who was born first.

We closed the bar down, made out, and walked Lozo to the PATH train. It was all just kinda funny, yeah? It was funny. Maybe it was what I needed.

Topic: A Shot at Love With Tila Tequila

I figured this show was a strong sign of the apocalypse and the eventual destruction and complete moral bankruptcy of the entire country, guaranteed to be chock-full of bikini-clad trashwhores and bisexual stereotypes. I figured clearly I could remedy its evil by recapping it. The first ten minutes were so offensive to bisexuals I had to leave the room, Zoey and I were stunned. It was like watching a bunch of dumb elephants: who cares if the elephant is hot and bisexual, what does that have to do with me?

Made me want to die. I don't mean that, not literally, don't panic. I would never do that. I love life. For example; I love flowers, sunshine, and hugs. Also I like scratch-and-smell stickers. Do they still make those?

So though I missed the first half, I caught the second half of A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila at the gym on Wednesday (10-10) morning, because I was filled with multifarious energy of all emotional extremes and needed to run it out. Like walking it out, only faster, and worse for your knees.

Second half: way better than first ten minutes. Though she continued to say ridiculous things about men vs. women, everyone became so intensely ridiculous that the entire show reached farcical proportions possessing measurable entertainment value. Also, Tila's not as retarded as I thought. I could shoot the blonde girl who was like 'I don't get butch women, like, ew,' but I might never get that chance.

At the end, at the "big reveal" of her "big secret" (I'm A bisexual, as in "bisexual"=noun. WTF?), I found her choice of words alarming. "I've never told anyone this before ..." Except the producers of the show? Right?

The clips for the upcoming season -- AMAZING. This's going to be the best reality show of all time, and by that I mean the best/worst. Offensive, but then again, most television is offensive, it's just more innocuous.

Also: as one of the 60 gazillion lesbians/bisexuals who received the casting call for this show -- well. I'll talk about that later. They're tricky bastards, MTV. Also: Steffanie from Irvine, California? I have a feeling you're about to get kicked off the show. I want you to know you have a shot at love with me. JK. No one does, I'm an emotional basketcase obvs. JK. Ugh.

Topic: Natalie Needs a Job, Tara [D] Needs a Roommate.

My friends think that my blog is like craigslist sorta. The thing is, a lot more people read craigslist than my blog. In any event:

1. Natalie needs a job. She's very beautiful and can do gymnastics. Also, she has great breasts. No seriously, she's really smart, has a Masters in Policy and Philosophy or something something from the London School of Economics and a B.A in Psych and Women's Studies from The University of Michigan and a lot of experience in non-profits and also was a paralegal and worked at the gardening store. Her first job was at the Dunkin Donuts in Cleveland, Ohio, when she was 14. There she is! See:

2. Tara [D] needs a roommate. She's very beautiful and can do lots of "gymnastics." Also, she has great breasts. She sent me the ad they posted on craigslist, but it's a little long, and I like to be brief here on this blog, so I've summarized it for you, and also just quoted it:

-Looking for a girl to move in ASAP to a Warlem apartment and split a huge walk-through double w/curtain currently dividing the room, though a temp wall is "def an option." Spacious apartment, beautiful hard-wood floors, white walls, large kitchen, living room, bathroom. Tara's a "down-to-earth, friendly, easy-going girl" and her two "flat-mates" are "independent, intelligent, hard-working and pretty much rock!" They're grad students/young professionals in their twenties who like to "have a good time" but also "take care of business." $700/month with one month's rent security deposit, utilities are extra and split between everyone, they've got wireless and SERIOUSLY EVERY TV CHANNEL THAT EXISTS. The best part is that there's a liquor store that delivers, a good deli with an ATM, right by the 1-9 and Columbia, and you'd get to hang out with memememememe. She'd like to add that they are "LGBT and cat friendly." If it wasn't for the cats and the fact that I've already got an apartment, I'd live there, no joke. Seriously though, you'll meet a lot of hot & fun girls if you live there, it's like, instant social heaven. Also they take care of business.

These are two of your potential roommates, Tara and Vicky:

If this post really was about the Yankees, it would have an opening paragraph much like the one I just read in the NY Times while waiting for my latte at Starbucks: "Everything changes. Things fall apart." [holla, Yeats by way of Achebe!] "For 12 seasons, there was sunshine on his shoulders. But now there is darkness ..."