18:33:28 - 2000-04-25
strip club
The Gem, ay-yi-yi. Two wizened latino hooker-sisters and a beautiful Thai girl (fired from her old club because she shamed the family of some local gangster/customer by showing up at his funeral) dancing on an apple-crate stage to a boom-box. The Thai girl (Casey) finishes her act, sits down on a barstool, kicks off her shoes and sets her bare feet in the lap of this older black gentleman in one of those bus-driver style jackets. Without a word he proceeds to massage them. He doesn't look up, he doesn't speak or smile. His focus is entirely on his work. Likewise she keeps her eyes closed and doesn't speak- breaking her reverie only to sip beer from a little orange juice glass. There's no exchange of money. Thirty minutes later she's back up dancing and he's staring down at the laminate bar-top...
Somewhere in the valley, I don't even remember the name of the place; I'd just heard they had a happy hour. It's all plastic stripper-types dancing to the new-style heavy metal; some typical goof-ball MC bringing everybody down. I'm about to leave when a new dancer steps up. Real tits, long legs, old school tattoos; but the thing that really knocked me out was her outfit. Glittery silver g-string, glittery silver super-high heels...and a flat-black home arrest anklet courtesy LA municipal court system. Viva la valley.
BIKINI BAR RIOT! Sounds like a Russ Meyer film- it looked like a Russ Meyer film. I'm talking to a dancer at the bar at the "Hollywood A-Go-Go" when I hear this loud BANG! type explosion. Before I can even turn around, BANG! BANG! BANG! The tension that had been building all night between this one giant Indian biker-type and these chollo gang-bangers had erupted into a melee involving like, nine dudes. As usual, the pool tables were doubling as arsenals, only this time, in addition to braining each other with the cues, combatants were employing the balls as projectiles. And since Hollywood A-Go-Go (like most strip clubs) has mirrored walls, every ball that didn't find it's target was BANGING! into a mirror and exploding into a shower of broken glass (bad place to be in a bikini and high heels, I'd imagine). So I instinctively (I was too drunk for it to have been otherwise) rolled backwards off of the barstool, hoisted it up in front of me, and started clearing a path (lion-tamer style) towards the back door. Once I'm out I realized that my fucking keys were still inside. So I braced myself for a return to the fray, only to find the back door locked. Shit. Rounding the corner from the alley, headed towards the front door, I run into one of the chollos who started this whole thing. It seems that he had left his automatic weapon in the car, and had stepped out to retrieve it. Now he was on his way back w/it tucked under his arm. I figured maybe I could look for my keys later...anyway nobody got killed so that's always good; and of course when the cops showed up (I was under the bar looking for my keys)- nobody saw a thing.
