I'm a big fucking dork. I swear. I'm actually glad I have this forum in which to admit it, because I'm good at playing cool and so no one really knows the truth: I am a big goofy insecure dork. I feel it most acutely at times like last night. I was invited to an "industry" drinks gathering at a very nice Supper Club (what the hell is a Supper Club anyway?). I had another drinks scheduled before it with a producer - but he had to postpone - so I ended up being only a half hour late to the Supper Club. The bouncer found me on the list and lifted back the rope and let me in...

...there were like 20 people there.

So I made a quick sweep of the place, but no sign of the person who invited me. OK. So suddenly I'm turned into wait-boy. I am very very bad at this. I'm at a big empty swanky party. I'm the only person not with someone. I know absolutely no one. I can't leave and walk around the block because the bouncer won't let me back in. So I wait. Poorly.

Were the cool version of myself truly reality, this is how I would have liked the next half hour of waiting to go:

9:30 I stroll in, taking no note of the emptiness that is the Las Palmas Supper Club, cuz like, who cares: I'm stee. I strut to the bar and order a beer with a tequila chaser, cuz I'm just that fucking cool. Down the shot. Swivel around on my stool and lean back into the bar. I swig my beer holding it with that really cool one finger draped over the bottle neck thing happening, and survey the crowd. Pretty good, I think, in all my thinking-to-myself hipness. She's alright. Yeah, I might... Maybe. No. Yes. No. She wishes. No. Whatever. I finish my beer and the bartender hands me another just as my cell phone rings:

"Stee here talk to me. Hey babe. Yeah, I'm at some networking thing putting in an appearance. Yeah... Maybe. I'll see what I can do, but who knows what'll happen here, you know. You'll be waiting for me? Wearing what? Yeah, sugar. I told you I'll see. Maybe. You take care now. Buh-bye." The cell goes off another few times, but I ignore it.

9:37 People keep coming up and talking to me, but I'm really not in the mood, like, to deal, you know? So I grab my beer and head to the back, being stopped on the way by a few women on the dance floor, rubbing up against me. I smile and lower my shades briefly then step out into the back courtyard. Everyone looks at me. I flash another smile and lean against the wall. I light a smoke and just chill. Hard. Very hard.

9:46 I finish my smoke and once again excuse myself from the crowd gathered around me. I head to the bathroom. I wash my hands and check myself in the mirror. Ayyyyyyyyy...

9:51 The phone rings again and this time it's the person I'm supposed to meet - she's on her way. She's all upset that I'm there alone but I assure her It's Totally Cool. Why wouldn't it be? I grab another beer and settle back into the bar. I think some deep, awesome, cool thoughts for a while, not noticing the table sitting in the dining area staring at me. I wave and shoot them the "hey" fingers. They giggle and look away. I'm so cool it hurts sometimes.

10:00 My friend arrives. She startles me because, you know, I was so relaxed and unselfconscious I didn't see her coming.

Here's what actually happened:

9:30 I walk in, my jaw dropping that there are only 20 people here. Everyone is looking at me as I half back-out of the place, running into the doorman who mutters either, "no returns" or "loser loser loser" - I can't quite tell. I put my head down and slink to the bar and order a gin & tonic from a guy who looks like he was on Melrose Place but was kicked off cuz he was too good looking. I swivel around on my stool, knocking into a walking twig with D cups trying to order a drink. "Sorry," I mutter, and look around for my friend. I don't see her. I sip my drink, realizing mid-sip how gay drinking from those 2 little straws looks. I take out the straws and sip from the side of the glass, spilling gin & tonic on my shirt. I try to act cool but I keep having itches. My shirt is very uncomfortable all of a sudden and I start to sweat for no reason. God I look lame just sitting and looking around and twitching. I need a prop. Ooh, cell phone!

I call my house, but the toll saver lets me no there are no new messages. I decide to play my old messages. I listen to 7 messages I've heard before. By the time my mom is reminding me to vote for Jeff Kent in the All Star Game because he really deserves it this year, I realize just how lame this is, and I hang up and put away the phone.

9:37 I get off the phone having just checked my voice mail for the third time. No messages. Just making sure, you know... I order a beer. I'm pretty sure the bartender laughs at me as I pay him 7 bucks for a Guinness. Oh, a courtyard. I head for the courtyard, weaving my way between a trio of D-Girls all reading scripts and talking on cell phones at the same time. I step outside. Everyone stares at me. I bust out the cell phone again. I light a cigarette and kinda stand against a closed outside bar. I consider playing the Snake game on my Nokia, but instead call my friend's 800 work number half way across the country. I don't leave a message or anything. I just needed a number to call. I look down at the bar I'm leaning against - I am covered in ants.

9:46 I finish my smoke and the ant dance, and head to the bathroom. I push on the wrong side of the door until someone who looks like Mel Gibson breezes past me, pushing the correct side. I wash my hands and check myself in the mirror. My hair doesn't look like this, does it? And why am I sweating? Oyyyyyyyyy...

9:51 I sit at a little side bar inside near the D-Girls. I pretend to be very interested in the Cuban band setting up their instruments in front of me. I am such a loser. I should just leave. No. Relax. Just be mellow. Hey, I wonder if that's an alto sax or a tenor sax in that case? I notice a table staring at me. I head to the main bar even though I'm not done with my drink yet. I order a Corona. I crane my head around for the next 9 minutes, looking for my friend, but feeling like I'm just pretending to be looking for my friend because I'm alone and a loser and what an old ploy pretending to look for someone is - but I actually am! I swear. Really.

10:00 My friend arrives. She introduces me around to the people I was just trying to silently convince that I was actually really waiting for someone. Ha. See, I showed them.

I don't know what's wrong with me. I just can't look cool in those situations. Smoking helps. It really does - I hate to say it. If you're waiting somewhere for 7 minutes and smoking - you're smoking, if you're not smoking, you're just kinda maybe loitering/creepy/lonely. When I quit I'm going to miss that. But generally, I really wish I could stop thinking and just mellow and assure myself that people aren't looking at me going, "look at that alone dude, all alone and shit... what a loser." And just when I convince myself that they're not thinking anything of the sort and I'm just being very silly - I think that of someone else who's alone. I do. I go, "Look at that dude. He's all alone and just kinda staring. What's wrong with Mr. Lonely-pants?" So basically, I would hate to run into myself if I showed up at a party alone because I'd be all making fun of myself. My world sucks like that.

The evening was actually very much fun, though I ended up talking to this chick visiting from Canada for most of the time. And since her friends read this page, she was convinced that everything she was saying to me, I was going to end up writing. And I wasn't planning on even mentioning her... but paranoid Canadians are funny, eh?

Elsewhere...

I just got it and I don't understand how/why this isn't Tool, but even on first listen I LOVE this A Perfect Circle CD. Maynard's voice makes me, on a day where I'm so bored I could put my head through the wall, tingly all over. (Have you ever been so bored you can't move? That's how bored I am.) The tingly thing is much how I'll feel, I imagine, when I see Eddie Izzard tonight. Much like I'll feel when, in a week, I see a SECRET UNDERGROUND SHOW by one of my favorite bands, who've not put out an album in 4 years! If you don't know, I won't tell you until it's over though, because you might go and get in line ahead of me and then I won't get in and I'll have to beat you over the head with a broom and no one wants that. I'm selfish like that. (OK, if you guess and you PROVE that you're a huge fan, I'll tell you. But if you're a huge fan and you don't know about the secret show already, then are you really a huge fan? Hmmmmmm? Ask yourself that, happypants.

Finally...

Of course.

---

The Larry King Happy Song Corner

 
 
We were ring-around-the-rosy children. They were circles around the sun. Never give up, never slow down. Never grow old, never ever die young. Synchronized with the rising moon. Even with the evening star. They were true love written in stone. They were never alone, they were never that far apart. And we who couldn't bear to believe they might make it. We had to close our eyes. Cut up our losses into doable doses. Ration our tears and sighs. You could see them on the street on a Saturday night. Everyone used to run them down. They're a little too sweet, they're a little too tight. Not enough tough for this town. We couldn't touch them with a ten-foot pole. No, it didn't seem to rattle at all. They were glued together body and soul. That much more with their backs up against the wall... speaking of which. You could see me on the street on a Saturday night. Back in the 50's. Yes, sir, I used to spend most of my time on the streets. Those were the "lean years". Yup, the corner of Jane and 11th Avenue was all mine. All mine. I was good too. The johns used to ask for me by name: "where's ol' Larry Kingschavitz?" Not that anything untoward happened. No sir. I'm not a poofer. Not this young buck. But times were tough... you know? Anyway, I don't consider a man giving another man a 5 minute spit & sweat handjob behind the Waverly Coffee Shop "gay", do you?
 
 
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