When Absolut vodka invites you to a Lady Gaga afterparty, you go. You don't stop and think, "Well, I was going to eat that leftover Chinese, and then watch Face Off on TV." You decide whether you're going to dress hip or stylish, and then you hit the road.
I went for stylish. Unfortunately, the dress code was sports coats for males and meth tramp togs for females.
Now, I hadn't hung around a lot of heterosexuals recently, but I was shocked by how much they'd changed. Really, now Jon Gosselin lookalikes deserved
two stick-thin, scantily-dressed Asian models? Really, now women couldn't cross their legs without the tops of their nylons being bared? Now unattractive dudes making out with smokin' hot chicks throw their hands in front of their faces when photographers appear?
The club, La Pomme on West 26th Street, could have been part of the problem. The decorator was obviously instructed to make the place look posh on a $700 budget, and that price included decorative plywood wall details, giant murals of kissing women, and twin stripper poles.
Rudolfo and I got there around elevenish, just in time to hear the DJ play every song recorded in 1972. I know it's not smart to go out before midnight, but I didn't realize they actually
punish people who do. Eventually the place filled up, and the music went Top 40 and really loud. It was definitely an improvement: when it's loud enough to shake your clothing, even Katy Perry sounds okay. Two professionals took to the poles at precisely 11:45, trying to look sexy without actually moving. It was annoying, like watching a marching band walk an entire parade route without playing a note. At 12:15 the whistle blew and suddenly they were lithe Fred Flintstones racing to little stone homes.
By now, though, the party was in full effect. Chicks were holding their cellphones at arm's length to snap pictures of themselves having fun. They vastly outnumbered dudes, and not one of them weighed more than ninety pounds or had more than six inches of fabric below her waist. The lines for the stripper poles rivaled the ones at Space Mountain.
I was horrified. Rudolfo was thrilled. "We're walking on the wild side!" he crowed.
I smiled and got another Absolut Wild Tea, which is delightfully floral with undertones of lemon. And when disaster appeared, as always, it took a female form.
We'd noticed Cronkite the minute she'd walked in. She looked fun-loving and quirky, and moved just slightly faster than a mouse with its tail caught in a trap. She worked the stripper pole like a champ when all the other girls just grinded against it and moaned. When she'd worn off most of the silver, she turned her attentions to us. Rather than introducing herself with, "May I join you?" or "Is this seat taken?" she leapt on us like a golden retriever. She spat dialogue way too fast to be intelligible, though we hadn't seen her with a drink. "What are you guys doing," she yelled, "sitting here all gangsta?"
Rudolfo hollered something in her ear, and then she turned to me. "Really?" she asked excitedly. "He's your BOYFRIEND?"
A little pink butterfly fluttered in my stomach. That's a bit premature, I thought, considering it's our first date, but who I was I to argue with employed & hunky? "Yup," I said. "Totally. We're walking on the wild side tonight."
"I LOVE gay guys!" she said. "All my friends are gay guys! But let's make sure once and for all."
And that, kids, is how a forty-year-old Sicilian architect and a blogger who looks like Abraham Lincoln got their first lap dances.
Cronkite didn't actually wait for a reaction below Rudolfo's belt, because every inch above it was screaming "You seem like a delightful woman, but please
GET OFF ME." He was leaning so far back, in fact, his head was in a different time zone. Thinking me a more likely prospect, Cronkite changed seats and my gay life flashed before my eyes. What happens if I get an erection? I wondered. Does it mean I'm bi? Will I have to download different porn? Will I have to buy ugly shoes? Somewhere a bird chirped and Cronkite's attention was diverted, though, and she climbed off and scampered away just as Rudolfo declared, "I'm on fire."
Really, this puzzled me. He didn't show the obvious signs of combustion. He wasn't engulfed in flame. Just judging from outward appearances, in fact, he could just have easily have been saying, "This rumaki is so tasty!"
"Are you sure?" I asked.
He turned and showed me the shoulder of his jacket, where he'd backed into a candle. "I put it out pretty quickly," he said. "Luckily it's fire retardant. It just kind of melted."
An odd smell enveloped the room, and reality smacked me like a hammer. "Is that coat polyester?" I asked.
Rudolfo scowled at me. "Are you really asking about the jacket before asking me if I'm okay?"
We stared at each other, without a word, and then pretty much simultaneously decided to hit the road. While we were cutting through the oblivious crowd, a man veered into our path with a camera, but we threw our hands in front of our faces and ran for the door.
