Friday Night….

Friend's cousin puts on a show at a club downtown. He can't make it so I help out. $80 bucks for five hours of work and free drinks. Doesn't get much better than that.

I stamp people's hands. "Call me stampy and I'll be stamping you tonight." I check people when they come down to see if they've been stamped. I have a good memory so I pretty much know whose come in and who hasn't. I wave people past or hold them up. I play around with the people as they come back and forth. I am the gate-keeper. I am important. I am loved. I am having a good time.

Everyone's in a good mood. Guy keeps on high-fiving me everytime he sees me. Women flirt with me. Sammy, the other guy I'm working with gets a couple of women to show us their red underwear. Somebody buys me a drink when I let him and his girlfriend come in for free due to the cash register jamming up. Two drunk women kiss me on the cheek as they leave. I watch people stumble in and stumble out. I watch people come in solo and leave with someone else. I get asked by a black woman where the brother's are. As if I know. She leaves with some guy whiter than white.

We head out afterwards, chasing down three woman and late night eats at a 24-hour diner. They weren't as drunk as we thought and not much fun. Oh well. We order. Gotta love late-night drunken munchies- greesy food with lots of eggs, cheese and potatoes at 2:30 in the morning.

Sammy has a friend meet up with us. He looks like the Edge in a black-wool cap and a goatee, except much cooler. He brings with him a very drunk and very coy black woman who wouldn't explain to anyone what she was doing at the Maxim party and why there were badges hanging down from her neck. Everyone at the diner is drunk. Everyone's goofing on each other, talking to each other, reveling in the drunken wave that we're all riding. Some guy tells us that he's become the number DJ at Persian weddings in the East Bay. He's definately not Perisan. When we leave and as my cab pulls up, a game of frisbee catch starts up in the middle of the street.

I get driven back home. It's close to 4. The radio in the cab is playing The End. Icing on the cake.

I love nights like that night. I needed a night like that. Cleanses the soul as it were.

The west is the best
The west is the best
Get here, and we'll do the rest

The blue bus is callin' us
The blue bus is callin' us
Driver, where you taken' us?