Last Night? Mission Accomplished.

Let’s Get a Weekend Going

Friday. That means it’s thisclosetobeingmyfavoritetimeoftheweek…The Weekend.  I like weekend days here better than on the East Coast.  A typical East Coast weekend typically devotes several hours to lounging around inside watching tv; a typical San Franciscan weekend typically devotes several hours to lounging around an outdoor restaurant or park watching people as they pass by.  True, people-watching is no Rock of Love watching, but you’d be surprised how many tourists have seamlessly incorporated Brett Michaels’ um, unique… style into their everyday wardrobes.

 

Like this look? Go hang out at Fisherman's Wharf for the real deal

I also love the promise that every weekend begins on.  THIS is going to be an Epic weekend you tell yourself.  Then,it’s Sunday morning, and getting out of bed is a task akin to being asked to perform a lobotomy with no tools save for a pencil eraser and a spoon, and you think to yourself: this weekend was epically unepic…what happened? Well, I’ll tell you what happened…

Once we’d gotten ourselves  dolled up at the 60% level (it was Easter weekend, we didn’t feel like wasting 100% on a weekend when many people weren’t even going to be around — why waste it?) Caitlin and I got to work on a bottle of champagne while waiting for Katie to get finished with some event she was attending for work.  About 2/3s of the bottle later, Roomie Madoff and her cousin came home.  Amazingly, this ceased to put a damper on the mood. In fact, I was more chatty with Madoff than I had been in, oh, forever.

“Katie’s here.” Caitlin announced.  Then, instead of getting up, she poured me some more champagne and started telling a story.  A few gulps later, and I couldn’t decide whether or not this glass would reappear in a bar toilet 20 minutes later, so I decided to take it easy and get my stuff together.  As I ran down the hallway to my room, my barefeet slapped against the cool, hardwood floor.  Outside, a car was blasting gangsta rap.  Down the hall in the kitchen, Caitlin’s story was eliciting ripples of appreciative laughter.  After hastily stuffing my ID, a credit card, my phone and all the cash that remained in my wallet ($4 dollars in 1’s…you never know when a strip club emergency might come up) I hurried back into the kitchen.

“Oh, oops, Katie’s here.  We better go.  She’s going to be so mad.” Caitlin grabbed the champagne bottle and started walking down the hallway.

“Where are you going with that?” Madoff called into the distance.

“Katie wanted me to bring her some alcohol.”  And with that, we slammed the door behind us.

It was fucking freezing outside.  Which means it was like, 50 degrees.  I mentally patted myself on the back for the wise decision to throw a coat on before we left the apartment.  Particularly because I had made the unwise decision to go braless that night, and man was I going to need all the protection I could get.  

As we swayed through the gate of our apartment building, the air vibrated even more distinctly with music from an album I liked to imagine was called Now: That’s What I Call a Gangsta Party vol. 6.  Caitlin bee-lined towards the source of this sound: our ride.  I slid into the backseat, just as Caitlin was handing Katie, the bottle of champagne.

“It’s about fucking time!” She yelled over the booming bass.  After taking a swig, she handed the bottle to her boyfriend, Chris.  “Oh, and I’m a little drunk from this gallery opening.” She added.  I think Chris said something too, but all I could hear was 50 cent explaining how ladies love him “like they love pot.”

“Do you mind if I smoke?” Caitlin asked.  From the driver’s seat, Chris just bobbed his head to the music.

“So, where are we going?” Katie asked, taking another swig from the bottle.  Caitlin pursed her lips out the window, exhaling a stream of smoke that turned invisible as it swirled away into the night air.

“I don’t know…I know some people are in the Spudset, but I don’t want to go all the way out there.”

“Yeahh…” Katie scrunched her face in disdain.  

Losing interest in the battle for my eardrums’ attention, I decided to let Fifty win. I stopped paying attention to the others in the car, and I started to write a very important drunk email to Mel.

“Okay, yeah, let’s do that.” I heard Chris say from the driver’s seat.  And then, the car slowly backed away from the curb, and we were off.  Chris bobbing his head to the subwoofer, Katie cradling the champagne bottle, Caitlin smoking a Parliment Light out the window, and me writing an email on my cellphone.  What a fun bunch we were.  

Then, literally five seconds later, Chris pulled into a parking space at the end of the hill.

“Okay, we’re here.”

Confused, I looked up from my email.  Wait, what? Did we literally just drive to the bottom of the hill?

“Isn’t having a car to drive, what? 50 yards? Great?” Chris laughed as he helped Katie climb out of the car.

“Yeah, thank God we have a car.” Caitlin laughed, slamming the door shut.  Me? I was just confused.  I guess we really did just drive to the bottom of the hill.

Finally, we settled on a small hole-in-the-wall bar called Tavern on Greene? Maybe? Who knows.  There was a band playing in a room off the side of the bar, and I peeked my head around, excited at the prospect of making flirty eyes with the cutest member.  Only, there was no cutest member.  They were all sweaty and dirty — and not in a good way.  Caitlin leaned in close, “this is the ugliest band I have ever seen.”

“Annnd, the ugliest crowd…” I agreed, giving the room the once over.

A few moments later, Katie went to go use the bathroom.  Instead of joining us back over by the bar, she drifted up to the stage.  Not wanting to lose her, Chris, Caitlin and I pried our way through the crowd (which seemed to be mostly comprised of sweaty friends of the sweaty band — seriously, I had no idea people could sweat this much) and found ourselves about five feet away from the front of the stage.  The view was no better up close than it was from a far.  Neither was the music — some Godawful bastardization of ska music circa the movie Clueless. 

After what seemed like an interminable period of time (about proportionate to the length of this post) the sweaty lead singer — who was a dead-ringer for Andrew W.K. of  “Let’s get a party goin'” fame — announced, “Okay, that was our last song, enjoy the rest of your night!” I was ecstatic.  Unbelievably, the crowd didn’t agree with me.

“One more song!” Some (probably deaf) guy yelled.

“One more song!” Another hearing impaired person echoed.

“One more song! One more song!” About 5 people began to chant.

“One more song!” I joined them, because I thought it was funny.  Andrew W.K. turned towards us.

“One more song?” Caitlin weakly raised a finger into the air.

“Okay, I guess we’re playing one more song!” The lead singer announced, to a crowd that erupted into cheers.  Where the hell WAS I?

“I only said one more song, because he made eye contact with me.” Caitlin whispered, as she, Chris, Katie, and I huddled together to plan our escape.  Then, as the band kicked into a ska version of Radiohead’s “Creep” — I kid you not — we bolted out of the bar.  We then found ourselves at another bar down the street (I think the only other one open at this time) where Katie proceeded to strike up a lengthy conversation with a strange man at the bar, while Chris and Caitlin gushed about San Francisco Mayor, Gavin Newsome.  I even googled him, then read his wikipedia page aloud.  Yeah, what’d I tell you? We’re a fun bunch, right? Later, Chris and Katie started making out, so Caitlin and I plotted (via text messaging of course) how to seduce our tattoo-speckled bartender so that way he would come back to our apartment with us, and annoy Roomie Madoff as she tried to sleep.  But soon, Katie was falling asleep on Chris’ shoulder at the bar, and the bartender made it clear that he thought Caitlin and I were Yuppy scum for living in North Beach, so it was time to go home.  I was never happier to eat leftover gnocchi at 2:30 am.  The next morning, I had never been sicker from eating leftover gnocchi at 2:30 am, but hey, that’s the weekend for ya.

 

Andrew W.K., or the lead singer of San Francisco's Most Awful Ska Band?