A new recipe for disaster: another destructive night out in the Queen City

Ingredients:

6 Long Island Ice Teas at Christie's in Clifton while watching the Eurocup Semifinals and playing bags and bocce all afternoon
1 margarita at Don Pablo's on the river
1 bourbon and ginger at Chez Nora
4 beers at Jefferson Hall while listening to a mediocre cover band
countless number of double bourbon shots and beers at Lodge Bar downtown.
3 bacon double cheeseburgers from White Castle
1 filipino accomplice
dozens of douchebags and K-fed look-a-likes ....EVERYWHERE
1 notepad and pen

Here's how one might combine these ingredients for optimum stupidity:
While watching a smashing football match, that ended in a German victory (of course), I spent the afternoon with my friend Bryan chillin' out in the biergarten. It was pretty fun, too! I beat him at Bocce, but he KILLED me at cornhole. I totally suck at that game. This went on from about 2-6. When I left to go back across the river to meet some girlfriends at Don Pablos, I remember having a solo dance party in my car, which means that I probably shouldn't have been driving. However, my friend drove for the rest of the night, and we ended up cabbin' it back to KY so we were safe. We meet up with Junior (who is a total cutie) at Mainstrauss and go to one of my favorite places, Chez Nora. Even with a male present, the 55+ men have no shame and will douse you in unwanted attention and interrogate you for personal information that they could eventually use to develop a strategy to get the strange that they came out looking for anyway.

Junior had some law school buddies who were going to the party in the park after-party at Jefferson Hall. I was a little apprehensive about going to J-Hall, since last time Lou-Lou and I ended up there bourbon drunk, we received EMAILS from strange men who felt the need to attach pictures of themselves. (Neither one of us could remember what the hell dude looked like) I won't elaborate too much on this story here, but I will just say that it is quite confusing to find photos of strange men with long black hair in your inbox. You start to take a step back and re-evaluate your lifestyle after such instances. That was my most recent J-Hall experience before last night.

It was at Jefferson Hall that I realized the power of the notepad. Since I've been scolded on several occasions for not including certain stories, quotes, ect. on my blog, I've been making a conscious effort to jot down things I need to blog about (as well as things I need to buy, return, do, ect.) on a wee notepad that I keep in my purse. Anytime something happened, or I thought of something funny, I wrote it down. If you could have seen this notepad this morning after last night's debauchery, you would cry from laughter. However, the power of the notepad exists on many levels. Not only is it a useful tool that compensates for my flakiness, it also gives other people the impression that you are very important. As soon as people see you whip out a notepad and start writing, they wonder what they hell you are jotting down, if it's about them, what it's for, and where it will be published. It's the most empowering item that I carry in my purse!

I "interviewed" a drunk guy with my pad and pen in hand. It went like this:
me: If you could describe tonight in one word, what would it be?
(Minnie Interrupts: ...and cunnalingus is taken!)
drunk guy: As I'm lookin' at you, I've gotta say "sexy".

quality, quality people.

So at J-Hall I decided to use my notepad to fuck with the cover band (Kissing Pat). I really did want to post about them on here, as they did a Muse cover (Muse is another one of my all-time fav bands). They played "Hysteria" from the 2004 Muse album Absolution. A fucking great album! Standing right up in front of the band, I locked eyes with every musician except for the drummer, and every 30 seconds or so I would write something down on my note pad. It made them nervous, and it was quite obvious - especially the singer, who kept looking over at me. I was trying to look very serious. Whether they thought I was writing a review for citybeat, or just some eccentric drunk is neither here nor there- because I had fun acting! The notepad successfully transformed a giggly drunk chick into a pretentious, critical journalist. My advice to friends: from now on, you should make it a point to carry a notepad with you at all times. You will remember so much more about your life and trust me, it WILL elevate your status.

As for my pretentious critique: I give their Muse cover 4 out of 5. My newest crush, the guy on keys (Pat), is not only a very handsome fellow, but also a classically trained pianist. They could have done so much on the keyboard - but I guess they didn't have a synth? I don't know why they didn't explore that, but the lines that I would have played on keys they had their bassist playing. It was not my preference, but I give them props because that's technically VERY difficult. It was definitely bass-man's moment to shine.

It was really helpful through the entire performance that a booty dancing fatman was right in front of the band doing body rolls that should have been outlawed a long time ago. We referred to him as the Dumpling, because he was such a frump-ass shakin' all of himself all over the damn dance floor. This was possibly the most distracting thing I have ever seen in my life. Probably even more distracting than road head, but I'm only guessing because I don't have a penis.

We left J-Hall around midnight, dropped Junior off at his place and ventured back across the majestic Ohio river to one of Cincinnati's finest establishments: Lodge Bar. A few weeks ago, I promised myself that I would never go back to this place because of all the douchebags that frequent this bar. (I wish I could now enter a footnote here: One exception to the douchebag populus is a guy I met at lodge bar who deserves a mention...we will call him Charlie because I think he would make a very good Charlie. He is quite intelligent with very cute hair, and is also responsible for making me aware of the mysterious BlackFinn drunk to which I often refer and even posted about a while back. In fact, my friend and I even vowed to each other that we would be in bed before "LODGE" was the only word we had the capacity to utter.)

So let's discuss the Lodge Bar crowd-

Ladies First: All the girls will have wrinkles and cancer by the time they are 35, because they are too tan. They also commit horrendous fashion crimes, such as spider lashes, shortie mc short shorts paired with spaghetti strap tanks (i.e. too much skin), lower back tatoos, bad dye jobs, fake coach purses straight from the street corner, and more ill-fitting tops and dresses than you've ever seen in your life. What do they all have in common? They all think they are sexy as hell. So, they dance on the stage, on the bars, ect and have really dramatic bathroom conversations about the guys they are hooking up with. I don't think I'm cool enough to understand this culture and lifestyle. These girls are extremely attracted to the gentlemen who also enjoy the lodge bar.

Men at the Lodge Bar: No taller than 6' even. Ever. If they aren't wearing a shirt with horizontal stripes, they look like Kevin Federline repros. A whole flock of them. They stand in groups and objectify women with their, literal and figurative, male gaze. Every once in a while one of them gets enough *liquid* courage to approach a girl verbally with a horrible line such as, "Hey girl I wanna getta know ya," At this point, he can determine whether or not he will be getting laid by the female's response. The super-tan fashion disasters will smile and submit to a good 2 hours of getting the bad touch on the dance floor. (For those of you who are unaware, the badtouch is defined as the nudge felt by a female, usually on the rump during some sexually charged dancing, caused by a drunk horny guy's bangin' boner. Add that one to your vocabulary.) Chicks like my friend and I take a different approach. I respond to a dbag advance in one of two ways: I either resort to being an ice queen and completely reject the advance, OR if I have the energy I employ a type of Socratic method to patronize the ignorance of drunk men. I make them look like retards, and they don't exactly catch it so they feel flattered and I amuse my friends. It's really a win-win situation.

One example: (this guy was a retard, high on his horse. I was the most sarcastic person in the world, and he of course didn't get it because his ego was in the way of his comprehension. So I made him feel good while laughing on the inside.)
guy: Hey you, what's your name?
me: what's yours?
guy: Brad (or whatever the fuck he said his name is, don't really remember)
me: What are you all about, Brad?
guy: Do you ever watch any football?
me: Sure do.
guy: Because I play for *such and such* University, and if you watch them play you'd know that I was the quarterback.
me: Oh wow. I didn't know that. You must be quite the athlete. What kind of skill does that take?
guy: I have a good arm, and I have great hands...(poor attempt to set-up a suggestive comment, that I diverted by interrupting with...)
me: ...so you get a degree out of this, am I right?
guy: oh yes. three of them.
me: three of them! my, you must be *SO* talented. What are you studying?
guy: I am working on my doctorate in criminal justice.
me: *wow.* you are practically a doctor. that is so impressive. how did you even manage to do everything that you've done and be so successful?
guy: I've always been an over-achiever.
me: Well yes of course, that's obvious in the way you carry such an interesting conversation. It comes across right away.
(the best part: this guy obviously didn't know where I worked!)

On the other hand, there are also always a random selection of just fuckin' weirdos who are nothing like the douchebags. Last night we encountered 1. stupid men over 40 and 2. west africans. I've gotten into a pretty bad habit of, upon seeing a black guy who dresses like a white dude, just going ahead and speaking french to him. Funny enough, it works every time! I've found there to be a prevalent population of West African immigrants in the Cincinnati. My favorite cab driver who has done everything in his power to keep this drunk kentuckian off the streets of Clifton at 3AM speaks french with me, and I think that's why we get along like we do. What's really funny is that I'm so used to only speaking in french with africans, that when Charlie the whitey asked me if I spoke french at the gym the other day, I hesitated - I was taken back that a white guy in Cincinnati could speak french! It really threw me for a loop!

The african guy, Moe, made me feel guilty for practicing drunk french on him, so I did tell him that I would write down his number. In my notepad, I have written below his name and number: "WORST MISTAKE OF MY FUCKIN LIFE: LODGE BAR ON COLLEGE NIGHT." Yes, it was college night. I felt a little out of place, not having a fake ID and all. However, this didn't stop the 40+ Michiganders. These guys from Detroit were annoying as hell. So annoying that I left my friend to chat with them herself while I found some people that I knew from UC. My friend has way more game than I do anyhow, so she's more apt at entertaining these types. In fact, she had caused one of the guys to speak these wonderfully quotable lines with unbelievable fervor:

"All those curves....all those dance moves....you're DRIVIN' me CRAZAY!"

Dear god. What a night.