Overheard:

Guy A: So wait, you teach a sex course?

Guy B: Yeah.

Guy A: Do people have to be taught?

Buy B: Well, yeah, if they want to excel.

No Contest

File this one under "best laid plans".

 I was going to host a contest on this blog called the Rots 'Till It Plummets Contest, in which contestants would guess when the following dead pigeon would fall from the netting outside of my window:

But the pigeon was removed before I could start the contest. It had been there for like a week, too. The prize was going to be a sweatshirt left behind by my old roommate, the Russian.

Doing Lines Off of a KISS CD = Partying Down

Later that night, after taking in the burlesque entertainment, some gentlemen and I found ourselves resting our elbows at some joint on Twentysomething St. I forget the name of the place and what it was called, but it served good margarita and had large paintings of dogs on the wall. The paintings, I remember thinking at the time, were very good.

 When it came to closing time, we had one more person in our party, and after awhile we decided that we would accept his invitation to go to a party at his house. We whistled for a cab.

No, there were no dice hanging from the mirror, and license plate most certainly did not say 'fresh'. But the cabby was a) a dead ringer for Lewis Black's Latino alter ego, and  b) the shit-craziest cabby I've ever ridden with in my life. The two, if you close your eyes and take a moment to visualize, go together well.

 Let's just say this about the cabby:

• At one point, he tried to race another cab.
• At several points during the ride, he simultaneously floored the gas pedal while screaming as loud as he could. Really. Literally.
• Had this to say about politics: "Man, the shit we're doing is fucked up, you know? That shit's going to come back at us in a baaaaaad way." Then all of a sudden he turned to look at us, and said with wild eyes, "Not me though!" 

 (Actually, he may rank as the second craziest taxi driver I've ever ridden with. Once in DC, it got to the point where the cabby declared his hatred for my then-girlfriend, on the basis of her race.)

We got to where the party was. It wasn't 7 or 8; it was later, more like 2:30. The idea was that it was going to be a bunch of people sitting around listening to records. The opportunity to expand my musical horizons was, in fact, my main reason for coming along, and so I girded myself for what I was sure was going to be some of the hippest, most esoteric and mind-blowing underground music that San Francisco had to offer.

 Instead, some dudes ended up doing lines off of a KISS CD while listening to a bunch of classic rock anthems. This was the first time I'd been around people doing coke, and it was just like in the movies. Only, they divided up the rows of the stuff with someone's health insurance card, adding a touch of irony to the affair.

As the night waxed on, the main problem with people on coke began to announce itself: they don't stop talking, and they don't sleep. So I basically sat up all through the night--until seven in the morning--listening to people talk about Rush.

It was not very glorious. 

David Morris' (Burlesque) Journal Entry

EOD Friday* found me taking an embarrassingly circuitous route to 1519 Mission St., where--at long last--I could take in an evening of burlesque entertainment.

(I say "embarrassingly circuitous" because I got quite turned around on the way over, even for me. Let's just say that, in my attempt to get from Townsend and 8th to around Mission and 11th, I ended up at one point at 16th and San Bruno.)

I arrived at the Jon Simms Center not knowing quite what to expect. What kind of crowd frequented burlesque shows around here? What goes on in a burlesque show, exactly, anyway? I knew naked ladies figured into it--but how?

I approached the lady in the front who was taking money for admission.

"Hello!" she said. "Admission is on a sliding scale between five and fifteen bucks."

"Oh! Um. I only have three."

This was true. I only had three dollars, and no means of getting any more, because my ATM card had expired and I was still waiting for a new one to arrive in the mail. In fact, earlier I had anticipated that I might have some trouble getting into the theater due to lack of funds, and so sent a harried text message to my roommate--who was already inside--which said simply, "I need $2!!" To which he (rightly) replied, "wtf?"

Surprisingly, the lady let me through. "We don't turn anyone away", she said. Which was odd. For when it comes to naked ladies, as the saying goes, the person at the door is usually fairly discriminating.

I went inside, and was immediately confused, because the place just seemed to consist of a bunch of rooms that were buzzing with pasties-wearing, boa-accessorized ladies. Needless to say, I thought I had walked into the wroooooooong room. Amidst the chaos was a fully clothed woman sitting on a chair and reading a book. I asked her where the stage was, and she pointed me to a small doorway in the corner.

It was the theater. I crept in and squatted on the side and watched.

The show consisted of a series of what can only be called "acts". Notable entries included:

• A lady dressed as Dorothy who stripped to "Somewhere Over the Rainbow".
• A crazy lady who stripped out of a strait jacket.
• A standup base and ukulele duo who did an awesome--awesome--cover of White Rabbit. Man, was that song ever made for the standup base and ukulele.
• A husband-and-wife act who did some groan-inducing Vaudevillian comedy routines. I liked them.
• Two hula-hooping nuns. They eventually stripped.
  

Now, before anyone's eyebrows get too arched, let me clarify that at no point did anyone get completely naked. When I say "she stripped", I generally mean that she did so to her pasties.

Overall, the show was pretty good. The atmosphere wasn't creepy at all--it was more like a bunch of theater people than anything else--and it turns out that there is, accoding to my roommate, "an active burlesque scene" in the city. I grabbed a few flyers for other shows that would be going on, and left the theater wiser, poorer, and just a little bit more of a man.

In other words, I highly recommend it.

Stay tuned for Part 2, in which the author is forced to stay up all night talking about Rush!

* EOD is one of the more perverse acronyms used around the office. It stands for "end of day", or end of the working day. 

Early Morning Escape

Last Tuesday night--I suppose technically it was early Wednesday morning--I was in my room talking on the phone. Little did I suspect that I would soon be receiving a visitor.

Door-knock.

"Hello?"

It was the Russian. Attire: just boxers. I turned to face him, and an approving look--a look of respect?--crossed his face. The reason for this was because finally I was interacting with him as an equal. For I, too, was in just boxers. The two of us leveled appreciative gazes at each other, perhaps reflecting on how far we'd come over the weeks. How funny it was back then, our eyes seemed to say: I, the simple, fully-clothed lad, new to the city. And he, the strapping underwear-clad diamond thief heroin junkie who had seen it all. But now it was different: we could look each other in the eye, without so-called society's so-called rules telling us what to wear on our legs, and when.

In the spirit of the occasion, he asked me a favor.

"Hey man, can you wake me up in like twenty minutes? I'm going to take a nap."

What was strange about this was that it was already past midnight. People don't usually take naps at that hour. It would be like going on a casual stroll during a marathon. Had I been thinking more clearly it might have occurred to me that there was some fiendish motivation behind the wakeup call, but as it was I thought nothing of it. "Oh, he probably just wants to get a head start on one self-improvement regimen or another", I thought to myself cheerfully.

Twenty minutes later I knocked on his door, and heard a muffled "Thank you." I then finished up my conversation and went to sleep, little knowing that those were the last words I would ever hear him say.

The following day I received this via IM (screennames withheld):

[09:38] KC: the junky twins snuck out at 5:00am
[09:38] KC: ...so they wouldn't have to pay me
[09:39] KC: but
[09:39] David: really?!
[09:39] KC: THEY ARE GONE!!!!!!!!!!!
[09:39] KC: whoooooot!!!!!

Apparently I had slept through quite the confrontation, which included nothing less than yelling (in underwear, of course), crying, accusations, admissions of guilt, and what can only be called a furtive shove to the deltoid. Here are the assignments:

• The yelling-in-underwear was done by KC; it was directed at the Russian and the French girl ("junky twins").
• The crying was done by the French girl.
• The accusation--specifically, of leaving in the middle of the night to skip out on rent--was made by KC.
• The admission of guilt was made--in a fairly matter-of-fact manner I'm told--by the Russian.
• The furtive shove was done by KC. It represented both the culmination of all of his frustrations and the acknowledgement that the Russian could probably kick the living crap out of him.
• The deltoid belonged to the Russian.

***

Oh, and believe me when I tell you this, O reader, that there's one other thing that belonged to the Russian: a heart of fucking gold.

Of gold, my friend.

Of gold.