SO I’VE BEEN BROWSING MYSPACE TONIGHT

I’VE FOUND OUT A LOT OF STUFF, OKAY.

FIRST OF ALL I CAN GET UPSCALE ACCESS TO PROMOTIONAL EVENTS AND PARTIES THROUGH UPSCALE ACCESS BECAUSE THEY ARE MY HOOKUP TO THE SCENE. THE SCENE IS WHERE YOU TO TO RESTAURANTS HERE IN TOWN AND PAY EXTRA AND THERE ARE DRUNK BLONDE WOMEN THERE WITH SPRAY ON TANS. THE MEMBERSHIP IN UPSCALE ACCESS IS SO EXCITING TO THESE WOMEN THAT QUITE A FEW OF THEM ARE SEEN LICKING THE MEMBERSHIP CARDS OR STROKING THEIR CLEAVAGE WITH THE CARDS AND SEEM VERY HAPPY DOING THIS. I AM NOT SURE HOW THIS IS DIFFERENT FROM JUST GOING TO A RESTAURANT AND HAVING SOME SEX AFTERWARDS BUT I GUESS IT’S PRETTY GOOD.

I ALSO LEARNED THAT THE MAJORITY OF NEW MYSPACE MEMBERS TONIGHT ARE YOUNG WOMEN WHO HAVE JUST GRADUATED FROM HIGH SCHOOL AND WANT TO MEET FUN PEOPLE BECAUSE THEY’RE NEW IN TOWN. WHAT’S WEIRD IS THAT THEY ALL LOOK LIKE 30-YEAR-OLD PROFESSIONAL BIKINI MODELS. MAYBE HIGH SCHOOL IS DIFFERENT NOW, I DUNNO.

I LEARNED THAT SOME GUY FOR REASONS OF HIS OWN IS MAKING PROFILES FOR THE ENTIRE 1995 GRADUATING CLASS OF CORONA DEL MAR HIGH SCHOOL WITH THE REAL NAMES AND PICTURES OF THOSE PEOPLE PROBABLY WITHOUT TALKING TO THEM FIRST. THAT’S GOING TO BE A PARTY BECAUSE THEY’RE ALL ABOUT THE AGE TO BE GRADUATING FROM LAW SCHOOL ABOUT NOW AND I THINK MAYBE THEY WON’T LIKE THIS SO MUCH.

OH AND ONE OTHER THING THERE IS SOMETHING CALLED ULTRA LOUNGE NOW. IT LOOKS LIKE A REGULAR DISCO EXCEPT IT HAS TECHNO MUSIC ON A LOOP AND THE DRINKS ARE TEN DOLLARS. I AM NOT SURE WHY IT’S AN ULTRA LOUNGE BECAUSE THE PICTURES ARE JUST OF DRUNK PEOPLE OR BOOTH BABES FROM THE TRADE SHOW IN MINIDRESSES BUT MAYBE THERE ARE SOME REALLY GOOD LOUNGE TYPE CHAIRS IN THE PLACE THAT ARE SUPER COMFORTABLE.

IT WAS REALLY TIRING READING ABOUT THE ULTRA LOUNGES AND THE BIKINI MODELS AND ALL THE ENERGY DRINKS AND PROMOTIONS AND STUFF. I THINK THESE PEOPLE MUST BE A LOT MORE COMMITTED TO AN UPSCALE LIFESTYLE THAN I AM BECAUSE IT SORT OF WORE ME OUT JUST LEARNING ALL THIS NEW STUFF.

ALSO WHEN I WAS BROWSING THROUGH THE PEOPLE ON MYSPACE I SAW THIS IN THE MIDDLE OF A BUNCH OF THOSE 30 YEAR OLD BIKINI MODELS WHO JUST GRADUATED HIGH SCHOOL:

YOUR ATTEMPT TO IMPRESS THE LADIES HAS FAILED

Hey everybody! Let’s go out to Sutra tonight, get plowed, and impersonate a cop! That always turns the girls’ heads.

COSTA MESA – A 29-year-old Downey man was arrested early today after he reportedly flashed an LAPD-style detective’s badge at police at a nightclub and then later when he was stopped on suspicion of drunken driving.

Pedro R. Davila had approached two uniformed police officers at Sutra, a Costa Mesa nightclub, shown the badge and said he was a Los Angeles Police Department officer assigned to the Downey station. Later the officers realized that Downey has its own police department, said Costa Mesa police Sgt. Mike Ginther.

The same officers later pulled a gray Porsche over when it was observed weaving on the roadway leading to the Costa Mesa (55) Freeway and nearly hit another vehicle, Ginther said.

Davila again showed the badge and said he was an LAPD officer.

Ginther said the suspect was arrested and admitted that he was not a police officer but instead used the badge to impress women. He claimed to have purchased the badge on the Internet. The investigation is continuing.

Davila is being held in the Costa Mesa City Jail on suspicion of impersonating a police officer and driving under the influence of alcohol.

Pier Paolo Fettucine

I made dinner tonight consisting of: seared New England jumbo scallops; tricolor rotini pasta with fresh garlic and olive oil; and fresh green beans with butter and fines herbes. I do like to cook a good meal.

Went to D’s and Ruba in turn. I’m trying to get used to Movie Guy Dan’s way of telling a story which is in fits and starts with lots of digressions that go nowhere, and fragmented narrative that’s always getting derailed. Plus twitches. He’s just enough older than me that his “back in the day” stories are all about the big kids who were cool that I couldn’t hang out with, so I’m always hungry for the tale. But damn, it’s a frustrating conversational style.

Ruba was the usual trance-inducing mess. Fifteen-year-old rebel teenagers, twentyish blown-sideways-through-life people playing pool and smoking with “what the fuck happened” looks on their faces, and a rotating cast of alarming old men. The guy I call “Super-Catholic” was there. He’s a sixtyish guy with close-trimmed grey hair who wears Mr. Rogers cardigans and sensible shoes. The one time I overheard his conversation at D’s he was trying to get some college guys excited about the Catholic Church in a very Reach Out To The Generations With Youth Group Training way. He alarms me.

The pool playing and the weird lighting and the excess caffeine and the general Ruba atmosphere put me into a trance state in which I watched a rogues gallery play pool to an increasingly peculiar soundtrack: Billy Squier’s “In the Dark”, Van Hagar, Lionel Richie’s “Stuck On You” (worst song ever), and a long painful set of Easy Rockin’ Hits concluding with “Don’t Worry, Be Happy”. All for the benefit of the manager, a perky Middle Eastern lady in her late fifties. The kids weren’t impressed. I was pretty shocked when that awful Hungry Eyes song from “Dirty Dancing” came on. It’s like she was trying to clear the joint with music that I found painfully unhip twenty years ago.

I like watching people play pool. The rhythm of it, and trying to predict the shots, and watching them try to predict the shots, all of it. I like Ruba generally, because I’m such a complete outsider there that I don’t feel left out. I can just watch the circus go by in awe. Rich suburban boys with tough-guy neck tattoos, part-time porn stars, defrocked college athletes, half-reformed skinheads, dorkwad normals huffing on hookahs, teenaged girls trying to look older and more sophisticated, and every kind of almost-loser Orange County has to offer. There’s nothing like it.