did his research

It was my friend Parissa's birthday and we all meet up at her and her boyfriend's new place down on fairfax, right between hollywood and downtown. Now there were six of us there, all from UCLA, and quite honestly, we'd hardly ever ventured past the western borders of the city, after all, the rest is kind of ghetto. At last, we thought, we are old and wise enough to break free from the yuppy congested roads of westwood, west la, studio city and west hollywood. no more sunset strip for these folks, tonight we were gonna hit up Hollywood and go bar hopping.

before our departure, james is sitting on the couch taking notes from this week's "LA Weekly" jotting down the spots he wants to go to. parissa likes latin music (she's half puerto rican half persian, we call her pesiorican) and he sees it's latin night at the starlake lounge. music, dancing, booze and to top it off, a show... so he thought.

We park in this slightly seedy area. naturally i say, "james, wher are we?"
"don't worry," he responds "i did my research..."

well, i figured, he DOES live here. so we get out of the car, pay a $3 cover (which considering where we were, any cover was proposterous) and enter the bar. I notice there are a lot of guys and some of them are a bit flaming. but i figured they're latin and they know how to salsa dance, it's probably a cultural thing. but then i realized the women looked really, well, tore up. and they were dressed a bit too extravagantly. then i look behind me and this time, i'm SURE the woman was a transvestite. then i see a really funny looking guy with his hand around the transvestite and realize he's not really a guy because he sort of has boobs.

wow, it dawns on me, we're at a drag bar. but not just any drag bar, a nortena (that means Mexican FOB (fresh off the boat or border in this case)) drag bar and that all the guys dancing up there with girls are really dancing with dudes dressed like girls. to my surprise, i wasn't freaked out at all, i was kind of fascinated by the absurdity of six straight 24 year olds sitting in the middle of this bar. but i thought too soon...

the dance floor clears and out comes a drag queen and her two "show girls", strutting their stuff, as some would put it, into those skimpy show girl outfits (let's just sasy things were falling in and out of the groin bikini-like contraption). i loved how their dance had the simplest two moves in the world yet the dancers were so carefully watching their steps and were pretty, well, quite awful. Then some drag queen karaoke singer came up and during the show gross me would go up to her, put money in her bra and grab her crotch and walk away.

james couldn't it hold it any more... he stormed out of the club and started laughing like no tomorrow. the rest of us watched the drag show for quite a while because, damn it, we'd paid for that booze and we were not going to let someone else's unusual lifestyle drag us away from perfectly good alcohol.

i down my beer and we finally leave in the middle of the second act.

outside, james notices there is anothe cocktail bar across the street. he runs over to check it out and as he leaves, i start talking about how at first i thought the bar was a bit flaming when one of the gay people from the bar starts walking past us. my buddy frank grabs my arms giving me a disturbed look, letting me know that i'm about to offend this stranger walking by when i yell, "relax, he knows i'm not saying anything mean, i thought it was cool." then, the random gay guy just a few steps down the street turns around and looks at us. Parissa, starts hugging me, as if trying to tell the man that we're together (we're not, she's james' girlfriend but she doesn't want me to get traumatized here, sweet girl that she is) but then the gay guy yells (in his mexican accented flaming voice): "hey, i like the chocolate. um hmm... he's good." (james is black, very dark, good looking man i guess) Parissa then lets go of me and yells "hey, the chocolate is MINE, you can't have him".

now the situation wouldn't have been so bad except that it involved james. you see, they just got back from a rough time at new york. james was getting his masters at NYU and apparently, Grennwhich Village, where NYU is, is where the NYC gay crowd is concentrated at. Well, James was getting hit on by gay guys on a sporadic basis in the subway, on the way to class, during lunch... once, he was even almost jumped by some big dark full out OG thug gay black gangster. The guy has pretty much been scarred by all gay men who find him attractive. So of course he comes back, and of course someone tells him about the "Chocolate" comment. and of course, his gay-beaten spirits are ruined again even back home in LA.

the rest of the night only got crazier as we saw people practically dead lying down on the street waiting for an ambulance on fairfax. a couple of police chases down near beverly drive, the prostitutes and the cops who would go to make them stop, one hooker was straight eating out of the garbage, she must have a horrible pimp. and oh yeah, the drunken fighting along the sidewalks outside the clubs.

i've realized the mysteries, wonders, ghettoness, and cultural richness the not-west-side of town has. but don't get me wrong, i would never dream of going out there at night unless my more, um, colored friends are with me.