Reflections. Last Few Days Before South Africa Trip.

What I learned (in some cases re-learned) In the Past Few Days

1. Los Angeles is a gazillion times sexier than the Bay Area
2. There is a math major at ASU who works at a titty bar unbeknownst to her parents
3. David Sedaris is not nearly as funny as he thinks he is.
4. Israel is ridiculous.

Tomorrow I Fly to South Africa

Last night I hit up a titty bar in Scottsdale, AZ. In the morning I woke up when I woke up and read another chapter from my David Sedaris book while in the pooper. I have what I perceive to be a smart looking frown on my face whenever I’m reading this sucker’s book. A not-impressed you are silly I can’t believe people listen to you frown (aka a slightly jealous frown?). He is worshiped by the literary types as one of the funniest contemporary writers of our time. He is a good writer, I’ll give him that. But his funny is not my type of funny. It’s like middle-aged suburbia type of humor. I’m both disappointed and motivated though by this finding. If this is the kind of literature that gets rave reviews in the world of letters then there is surely a gaping hole that needs to be filled. Maybe I can contribute a pebble or two in this effort. David Sedaris is gay, he’s white and he’s middle-aged, and somehow that adds to his chops as a writer. Well, I’m in my 20’s, fiercely heterosexual and Iranian. Shouldn’t my perspective be just as compelling?

I was really hoping to get pulled over while I was in Scottsdale. It would have made great conversation back in San Francisco, which is where I’m headed now. At this very moment I am sitting in seat 9B on a Southwest Flight with my laptop propped up on my tray table. Ordinarily, I’d be too self-conscious to do such a thing. But lately I’ve become more self-aware about being so self-conscious. The fact that I need a little more ‘I don’t give a f***’ in my life is self-evident.

I applied a good dosage of the ‘I don’t give a f***’ when I decided to drive 30 miles to the nearest strip club last night. The circumstances surrounding this decision are worth recounting. By sheer coincidence another friend of mine was in Scottsdale for a conference. I had driven a dozen miles (all the while hoping to get pulled over) to a remote location where I met with him and a group of his doctor friends, who were all getting wasted at somebody’s parents house who were apparently away for the weekend. After a little drinking and socializing and learning that the only two cute girls there were dating each other, my friend and I decided the only rational thing to do was to drive into the desert night for an evening of story and adventure.

I volunteered to drive. My buddy was riding in the passenger seat, and a friend of his who was in and out of consciousness was in the backseat. We get to the strip club. It was a dicey area. We tried to pay cover and enter. Didn’t happen. My friend’s friend was too inebriated. My friend’s charm offensive was employed delicately, but to no avail. The fat guy blocking our way, perhaps the manager, had a stick far up his ass and refused to let us patronize the titty bar. The stick far up his ass, however, did not prevent him from running towards us fifteen minutes later in an empty parking lot while we were talking to “his girls.” Two of the strippers were on break and we were chatting them up, something that is apparently against the rules. You can shake your pussy at strangers but by no means have a civil conversation with them. The three of us were startled when the fat guy was approaching in an almost hostile way, wearing an expression of exhaustion and desperation, sloppily demanding us off his property.

We are men of deep resolve, and were determined to spend our 1’s elsewhere. Luckily the next titty bar was what one listless man called a “baseball throw away.” This expression was parodied the rest of the night as our inebriated doctor vowed to “throw a baseball through the fat fuck’s face.” We get to the next destination and find seating at a reasonable distance from the pole. The inebriated doctor got comfortable quick with a beverage, while my friend was seated next to me comparing and contrasting strip clubs in Jamaica and Scottsdale. Even in morally dubious circumstances we maintain a degree of cultural astuteness, an unrelenting intellectual awareness that radiates even as the smell of strippers busies the air around. And I thought David Sedaris was full of gimmicks.

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