A crazy night in Tempe. Was going to meet this chick J down at one of the clubs for dancing, but the first place we tried was playing crappy eighties music so we fled. I didn't finish my Heineken--she didn't finish her Fat Tire--if that gives you any indication of how bad it was. We met her Egyptian friend M and M's Egyptian boyfriend visiting from L.A. and headed up to Martini Ranch. Along the way we pick up this big Indian guy at a strip club, where Jenna Jameson was giving out autographs. Chief Broom only with lots of tattoos and much weirder.
Martini Ranch was fun but packed beyond belief, a suffocating affair. We dance for a while & it is fun. Then she gets call from the guy she's seeing (Alan receives a revelation at this point in the evening) and he shows up a tattooed sleazeball. Meanwhile Chief Broom without hardly a word hops in a black limo cab and drives off. He was weird anyway and strictly impossible to make conversation with. I tried. We all 5 of us drive down to the Oasis Cafe (sleazeball getting sleazier and sleazier in backseat with J).
When we walk in it is wild, like walking through a portal into a foreign country. Lots of Arabic types but lots of Americans too, all types in fact. People smoking hookahs everywhere. Outside we sit and smoke a hookah too, wow not bad at all, way smoother than pipe tobacco. We watch a belly dancer inside for a while--there is clapping and happiness on all sides, occasionally an Arab guy jumping out of his seat with loose arms to dance beside her, but she always puts her partner in his place with her fantastic feats of hip isolation.
I drink a Turkish coffee and M--who is very nice, I like her--looks at the grounds and tells me my fortune. I will travel to a foreign country and spend as much time there as I do here. I will lead three totally separate lives, I will marry but I will have no children. My quest for knowledge and experience will be unending.
A very good vibe this Oasis Cafe gives off. At one point I just started up a conversation with another table, met a dude named CJ and another named Samson. Samson was thrown off by my rainbow shirt and asked if I was gay. I explain that no I am just a happy friendly guy and that's what the rainbow stands for. We laugh about his name--I encourage him to tear the temple down--and this sets him off on a Hulk impersonation.
Posted by Alan at July 27, 2003 03:03 AM