Planning Prevents Piss-Poor Performance.
The plan for last night was pretty straightforward. Go to the Brewer's Art and get drunk with wbarnett around 6, and then proceed to the Ottobar and get drunk at the Suicidegirls burlesque show around 9. I had been looking forward to this show for about two months. My birthday is on February 8th and I had decided that the Suicidegirls had scheduled their show for this week as a personal gift to me. I figured the least I could do as a thank-you would be to offer them a place to stay after the show, you know, because surely they'd be all tuckered out from all the dancing and being mostly naked and would be in need of a warm inviting place to unwind. I requested the day off work because I was scheduled to stay until 9:30pm and this would have led to my missing at least an hour of the show. My schedule request was denied, so I told my boss I was sorry, but the pressing personal business that I had to attend to on February 3rd would require me to take the day off whether it was approved or not.

Everything started okay. As is always the case when I see Wendy and Charlie, I had a good deal of fun. As is always the case whenever I see either of them, I also became rather drunk. I went to the bathroom at some point during the evening and there were a couple of girls in line bitching about how long it was taking for a bathroom to open up. Finally one of the doors opened and the girls burst into sarcastic applause for a guy who looked rather bemused at this treatment. If I had been less drunk I probably would have thought to myself: "Hey, that guy looks sort of like vees, but since I rarely actually see him I'm probably mistaken." But since I was drunk I said, "Hi, Rob Carlson!"

Fortunately it actually was him and he came over to our table. It was at this point that I suggested that they all come to the Ottobar with me to see the Suicidegirls show. Rob said that he thought it was probably sold out.

"Not possible," I said. "This is Baltimore. It's Tuesday night. It's freezing. There's no way this show will be sold out by the time doors open."

Charlie flipped open his cell phone and made a call. "It's sold out," he said.

"No!" I screamed. I very rarely scream anything.

"You already have a ticket, right?" asked Rob.

"No!" I screamed. "Are you sure it's sold out?"

"When they answered the phone they said 'Hi, this is the Ottobar, and yes, we are sold out for tonight.'"

I was too drunk to cry, but just barely. I called kewpiecat but she wasn't answering her phone. I called redlightpress and told her that I would buy either her or her roommate's ticket for considerably more than they paid for them. I was rebuffed. I swore at her and her roommate and expressed a desire that their lives ended soon and violently. She hung up on me.

Rob suggested that I call Alicia and see if she could pull any strings for me. I pointed out that not only was my connection to Alicia extremely tenuous, Alicia had moved to San Francisco over a year ago. "What the fuck I am supposed to say? 'Hi, Alicia, you probably don't remember me and I'm not certain I've ever actually talked to you before, but I used to have sex with a girl you used to have sex with and so I was wondering if you could make a call and get me into an SG show that's 3000 miles away from where you are right now?'"

"Well, yeah."

"Okay. What's her number?"

Unfortunately Rob could not actually locate her number and this plan fell through. Charlie suggested that we all go to the Hustler club instead.

"I don't want to see Hustler girls. I want to see Suicidegirls."

"C'mon, what's the difference? It's still naked girls. And they'll probably be more naked at the Hustler club."

I started trying to explain to Charlie exactly how not all naked girls are created equally, but he was insistent that I would have as good a time at the Hustler club. So insistent that I actually considered doing it for awhile -- Charlie specialized in psychological operations in the Army, so he is government-trained to make ridiculous arguments sound reasonable -- but in the end I decided I was going to try to bribe my way into the Ottobar. Sure. Why not? I'm smooth. I'm likable. All I have to do is go up to the door and when they tell me it's sold out, I act a bit surprised, I pull out a crisp $20 -- folded four times, and held tightly between the index and middle fingers -- and innocently ask, "Is it definitely sold out?" And the doorman will let me in and not only that, he will think to himself: That right there, that is a smooth operator. Baltimore could use more characters like him.

"You're drunk," said Charlie. "That's never going to work. You're either going to get laughed out of the place or get your ass kicked."

But I had to try. What would my grandchildren say if they knew that Grandpa had a chance to see the Suicidegirls Burlesque Show but did not do everything he could to get in? I caught a cab from the Brewer's Art and told the cabbie I was going to 2500 North Howard. "The Ottobar, right?" said the cab driver. "Is there some big show going on there tonight? Everybody wants to go there."

This was not reassuring. What was even less reassuring was actually getting to the place and seeing the line stretching halfway down the block. And as soon as I got in the line proper, a very large and loud bouncer stepped out of the door and boomed: Attention tonight's show is SOLD OUT and if you do not have tickets you are NOT GETTING IN.

So, filled with dejection and disappointment, I made the Walk of Shame back to my house where I placed lots of random phone calls to people around the nation (crazyred_head, michener, ilovejolt, and absquesentire, and possibly others that I had forgotten in my haze of drunken sorrow) and eventually passed out sad and Suicidegirlless.

Moral of the story: One underestimates the appeal of young naked girls at one's own peril.