Sunday, June 19, 2005
Gang Bangin
I went cruising in a 40-foot Hummer with eight teenaged boys last night.
As a reward for getting through highschool without any major fuck-ups, my nephew BJ was treated to a night out on the town with seven of his best buddies. I got invited when one guy baled and BJ’s parents found themselves with an extra ticket for Cookin’, the show they booked as part of a Pan-Asia-themed evening they had planned in an effort to entertain a bunch of suburban white boys as much as booze, pot and babes would, were they left to their own devices.
BJ’s a surfer-type and his friends are the kind of guys Ralph Lauren would want to take his daughters to the prom: clean-cut, athletic, 1-A Selective Service material. RL would have to call in a good house stylist though. Most of these guys wore Hilfiger -- one with an Arrow tie. Shuttled through Lower Manhattan in the impenetrable Hummer, they played with their cell phones and the dials of the chauffeur-driven car, oblivious to the ill-will the vehicle garnered from motorists gridlocked at intersections and pedestrians forced to wait while the behemoth (it was white) rolled past traffic lights. Built to comfortably seat eighteen passengers, it was likely larger than many of their apartments.
The car sailed through Tribeca like a mobile White Castle, pumping gangsta and gangsta-sistah pop, ultimately cruising to a halt in front of Megu, the cavernous Japanese restaurant around the corner from Odeon. The boys tumbled out like pack of large-breed whelps but entered the main dining room with a gentlemen-of-the-road decorum usually reserved for away games. A seven-course tasting menu had been prearranged in order to optimize their culinary adventure. Megu is a swanky place that flies its fish in from Japan, an extravagance that was wasted on the members of this crew, several of whom refused to eat raw fish. One boy, a sandy-haired Ken-doll called Tom-o, even asked if the waiter would take his sushi back so someone else could eat it. All these boys wanted was meat and they were happy to gorge on the slabs of Kobe beef that were presented to them in a variety of Neo-primitive modes. The best of these was a hot river stone delivered to the table on a bed of smoldering embers. A Japanese hostess showed the boys how to lubricate the stone with a cube of seasoned butter and fry their steak fillets on it. This, they agreed, was awesome.
After dinner everyone filed back into the Hummer to go see Cookin’ at the Minetta Lane Theater. Normally a ten-minute walk, it took twenty minutes driving due to the impossibility of executing simple turns in the Village with a 40-foot vehicle. At the theater, the boys headed straight for the concession stand to stock up on candy. Cookin’ – a kim chi mixture of Stomp, Emeril and Duck Soup-- was a loud, messy, wasteful production with a routine feeling and the shopworn look of a show past it’s prime. It did however feature a stand-out performance by a bare-chested drummer named Hong Bar Jo who briefly infused the Twizzler-scented, adolescent haze with -- was it testosterone?
Back to the Hummer for our last stop: Waikiki Willie's, a tiki bar on East 2nd Steet. A bodacious waitress in a bikini and grass skirt presented us with pink nylon leis, flaming cocktails (virgin though they were) and pu-pu platters (stuffed though we were) informing us that the hula dancer who usually performs there on Saturday nights had left for the night. Despite the sugary drinks, and the bags of Swedish Fish before them, the boys began to fade. By midnight they seemed glad to be back in the car and headed home.
BJ’s parents were with us the entire night proposing sparking water toasts, dispensing theater tickets and providing restroom directions. They plunked down a nice chunk of change to give their boy – an only child who’ll be leaving home in a few months -- a memorable night of good, clean fun and I believe everyone appreciated their efforts.
I think that when the boys got home, they told their parents about the stone-fried steak, maybey mentioning the play. At the next kegger, though, when the guy who bagged on the night asked about it, I bet it was all about cruising in a stretch Hummer and getting leid.
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