the kells

I threw on a beater, my black cigarette-leg jeans, large silver hooker hoops, and comfy grey flip-flops. That’s the thing I love about the Kells: zero pretension. No need to bust out the 4-inch heels or show off any fashion prowess. Some might label the Kells as “ghetto”, but I prefer the term “undergrad”–its patrons are young, down for anything, and willing to push the limits of propriety. Perfect for the last hurrah with the former freshman roommate.

“Three double shots of SoCo and lime,” Nina shouted at the bartender over the music. She handed her friend Arian and me the miniature plastic cups filled with honey-colored libations. We toasted and marveled at the plastic cups. The Kells is awesome. We did another double shot.

“Joan, you and me together, we have to keep up with Arian!”

Pssssh. I only had to drink half the number of his drinks? Easy. “Two Long Island iced teas and one white Russian,” I ordered. I handed Arian and Nina their gigantic Long Islands and waited patiently for my Russian. When I turned around with drink in hand, Arian had already finished his Long Island. Fuck, the sophomore could drink.

“Two double shots of tequila!”

“What kind?”

Embarrassed, Nina leaned over the counter to talk in his ear. “Your cheapest.”

Arian downed both double shots of Cuervo like water. We’d only been here for 20 minutes and he’d already done 6 shots and a Long Island. Wonder how much a bottle at the Kells even costs?

As the clock neared midnight, the crowd began pouring in. The extremely ASIAN crowd. Did I black out and forget that I already moved to Singapore?

“What the FUCK, is this Asian night?! Did I not get this memo? This sucks, everyone here is Asian,” I fumed.

“Well, except for me,” a voice behind me interjected. And hellllloooooo tall drink of white white milk.

I raised my eyebrows and gave him a once-over. “I dooo have a thing for the tall white guys…”

“JOAN!!” Nina screeched in disbelief, yanking me away from my vanilla oasis. “You are SO fucking ridiculous!”

I rolled my eyes. “Let’s dance.”

Despite whoring myself out to even the shortest, greasiest, and worst dancers, I could not for the life of me score a friggin’ drink. I could hear Arian yelling, “Capitalize! Capitalize!” at me every time he spotted a new fellow entering the joanzone. What did he think I was trying to do? Get recommendations for cheap hair products?

Disillusioned with the dancefloor, I moved back to the bar where perhaps my silver tongue would get me further than my grinding. I chatted up three decent-looking palefaces to no avail. What was going on? Where was my mojo? Must be all this Asian vag around…I was like a valence electron trying to break through a thick electron shield to reach the nucleus. Stupid shielding effect. The last guy seemed genuinely interested in me and couldn’t fork over 5 bucks for my Corona.

Regardless, I touched base with him off and on throughout the night out of pure boredom, and because he wasn’t bad-looking. Oddly enough, he was there with 3 Thai guys, who were very Thai. Their English was mostly incomprehensible, but I gathered they all lived together. The one with waist-length hair sat down next to me. “My father just die yesterday.”

WTF?

“Your father just died?”

“Yes. I am sad.”

“Maybe you should be at home or something…”

White Guy intercepted. “Nah he needs to be out so he doesn’t think about it.”

This was getting a little too heavy for me. “Alright well, nice meeting all of you, I’m going to find my friends now,” I proclaimed, backing away slowly.

Sensing he was losing me, White Guy grabbed my arm. “Wait, you want to come over? We live really close to here, like right down the street.”

“Yeaaah, I don’t think so, I don’t want to ditch my friends.” I smiled, gritting my teeth.

“Oh they’re welcome to come over too!”

Ah fuck. I found Arian outside the women’s bathroom waiting for Nina. “Some white guy invited us over to his place but I don’t really want to go so–”

“Does he have weed?”

“…Are you serious? You want to go over?”

“Well does he have weed?”

I found White Guy and the three Thais where I left them. “Do you have weed?”

“Yeah we have weed and beer.”

Well, whoop-dee-doo.

To be continued in the next post…

in da club

Tonight began much like many other nights, meaning that I was on my laptop, bitching. Me and the Asian Invasion (Yim, Nee, Chen, Park, and Welsh<–yellow fever) were going out, and as usual, I wanted to leave at 10 and they wanted to pre-party and leave at 11. Which really means more like 11:30. I mean, why?? Why show up at f-ing prime time when the lines are long and stand in the cold until all your pre-partying efforts have gone to waste? Then you pay a ridiculous cover ($15-20) for 1.5 hours of grinding, and half the time is spent waiting for a $12 drink because you’re now too sober to dance.

The other thing I was bitching about was the club of choice. Venu/Rumor is basically a gigantic cage where muscle-y black/Hispanic dudes stand around in a circle, hawk-eyeing the little Asian girlies dancing in the middle. But let’s face it–we’re Asian, and naturally gravitate towards these Venu’s. And I was looking for a good time tonight.

11:45 We have been waiting in line for like 20 minutes, so Nee and Park slip out of line to show some skin to the bouncer, hoping for a free butt…to the front of the line. But since it’s freezing, they instead show off their large goosedown jackets and sexy mittens. We don’t get the free butt.

11:55 Chen gets rejected by the bouncer, who thinks her ID is fake under the premise that she looks nothing like her photo. This is in fact Chen’s real ID; she was just really ugly in high school and somehow turned into a swan in college. I am flabbergasted that they don’t let her in simply on the basis that she’s Asian and hot. We leave in a huff because that’s the polite thing to do when someone in your party can’t get in, even though silently, we are all thinking evil thoughts towards a friend. I tell Yim he should call Welsh and let him know he shouldn’t meet us at Venu because we didn’t get in; Yim claims he did already.

12:00 Strolling down Tremont, we stop by Aria. The bouncer informs us it’s gay night. This sounds wonderful to the girls, and horrifying to the heteros with us, namely, Yim. The awkwardness of the situation is elevated by a drunk queen coming out and beckoning us in. In his fervor, he grabs my ass and hoists me up so I straddle his waist. He then proceeds to hump me with complete abandon. I am mildly turned on and bruised. He starts to bite my neck vampire-style and at this point the bouncer cuts in. I am laughing so hard I feel like puking.

12:30 We finally make it to a hetero-night club (Roxy), only to find that it is Latin night (which is still questionably hetero). Luckily, Pure (formerly Matrix) is located just below Roxy and they play a classically uncreative hip hop mix which is perfect. We get felt up by the bouncers and I am once again feeling turned on for the second time of the night, which makes it a pretty damn good night. Everything is finally going dandy except for our slowly developing sobriety and our lighter wallets ($15 cover). So we’re grinding and sweating and gettin’ down to business when Welsh shows up, cops a feel from Nee (remember, yellow fever) and then knocks the drink out of Yim’s hand. Yim retaliates with a push that ends up flooring Welsh and before a brawl ensues, a bouncer cuts in. The dynamic Shanghai Noon duo then have to apologize and make nice, convincing the bouncer they are the best of friends and secretly gay for one another to avoid getting kicked out. Once the bouncer is out of earshot, Welsh reverts back to pissed mode and explains that Yim never called to say Venu was a no-go and he spent 30 minutes in the place looking for us, after paying a $20 cover and buying a $12 drink.

1:50 I yell into Yim’s ear over the music that we should probably leave before 2 if we want to find a cab. He wants to maximize our cover charge, which means staying until the lights go on.

2:00 Streets are packed with clubgoers; we cannot find a cab.

2:15 Still no cab.

2:30 No cab.

2:45 Welsh needs to pee and can’t find a bathroom so he pees behind a building. Of course, we find a cab. Welsh is forced to do a half-pee and run back before the cabbie changes his mind.

3:00 Drunk. Potstickers are so fucking good.