The Wingman Chronicles, Part V: Messy Midnight Oysters

Okay, I'm sorry. I know. I went MIA. But, wait baby, don't go--I'm back. And, even after that inexcusable absence, The Wingman Chronicles is back with me, returning for its final installment (for now). Reliable future posting, and an explanation of my disappearance, to follow.


Thus far The Wingman Chronicles have delivered us blues-singer sex, Ivy Leaguers on balconies, a free strip club romp and a shameful home invasion perpetrated against an award-winning actor. There's only one way to trump all that for this, the final part of the chronicles: 

Bivalve Mollusks.  

The Night of the Midnight Oysters crossed over into new territory, requiring one maneuver I'd never tried in flight school. I'd heard legend of the controversial move, a socially dangerous combination of laziness and perfectly calibrated match-making, but never dared try it: A Double Wingmanning? Mythic, beyond me, like the Five-Point Exploding Heart Technique or a public health care option. 


Ariel was, of course, the ideal partner for the last piece of my official reintroduction to the wild, a "low key" night she declared would be run, casually, on her terms.  (RED FLAG: Ariel metabolizes gin the way normal people do Vitamin C. So unless you're Keith Richards or Liza Minnelli, "low key" may be misleading...)


Due to a random work commitment, Ariel, two gay pals and myself were forced to begin our evening in what is the New York social equivalent of Dante's hell: an 80s prom re-creation/dance party set in the upper level of a bridge-and-tunnel cesspool on the LES. Bitter but motivated, we (the only attendees not dressed in stretch fabrics) did what any dedicated band of Saturday night revelers (who make under $40K annually) can do in such situations--roll in with flasks and an hour's tolerance for drunk bachelorettes dueting Bon Jovi covers with actors crammed in a fake varsity jackets. 


The night thankfully took a turn for the better at midnight (after we escaped the club, stealing a bounty of Ring Pops in the process), when Ariel decided New York City had but one jewel worth seeking, one orgasmic drug to be ingested: raw seafood.


"Oysters?" I half-protested as she grabbed my wrist, leading us down a side street. Her chin was tilted slightly upwards, a gesture midway between militant defiance and a hungry pit bull sniffing the air. This was followed by an even more skeptical "the Meatpacking District??" when she Pied Pipered me (the gays dropped out at the first suggestion of oysters, heading off in search of a very different kind of briny valve...) onto Gansevoort Street. "We're going to spend our night in the fucking Meatpacking District?"


"No," Ariel called calmly, ignoring my distain as I stumbled (literally...WHY are the streets cobblestone in a stretch of city that heavily trafficked by stilettos??) behind her. "We are going to spend our 'fucking' night with really good oysters."


Just then, my phone rang. James was on the line.


James is a blue-eyed, dark-haired professional modern dancer who happens to be my sister's ex-boyfriend. Having amicably parted from sis several years ago (actually she broke up with him in a not so savvy way--I told her she was crazy, then made it clear I was still hanging out with him whether she liked it or not), and having carefully sculpted himself a body ready for the pages of Why Wear Clothes At All? magazine, this laid-back Adonis was recently snatched up by a high-profile celebrity trainer. He now travels the globe shaping the bodies of blockbuster action heroes and willowy indie-ingenues, occasionally landing in NYC (though not nearly enough).


[Fun Fact: James drinks a gallon of whole milk every 1-3 days. He needs an extra-large refridgerator to support his crippling dairy addiction, which I find hilarious since his clients usually end up on strict "no sugar, no dairy" diets. Meanwhile, their Personal Jane Fonda's secretly got a cow's udder running teat-juice intravenously into his heart-stoppingly chiseled biceps. I digress...]


James got into NYC that night just in time to inform me that A) he was looking for a good time, B) it was his BIRTHDAY and C) he was hoping I was free, because his birthdays "always suck" and he needed a wingman. After emphasizing to Ariel his epic existential sulk about a shit string of birthdays, she agreed to make our duo a trio. 


"He's pretty," she also commented, off-handedly, when he met us shortly thereafter.
"And a giver, according to my sister."
"I didn't mean it like that," Ariel, ever-stoic and emotionless, said. "Too young. Too pretty." A pregnant pause. "Oysters."


Not to get all Proustian and shit...but Proust wrote, upon tasting his first madeline: ..."a shudder rain through me, and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary thing that had happened to me. An exquisite pleasure invaded my sense, something isolated, detached, with no suggestion of its origin."

That's what that first oyster was like.

Before Ariel paraded us into that French brasserie, I'd never had an oyster. Despite growing up on the shore, and maybe because of the year I once spent shucking be-shelled tongue-surfers for a clientele of frat boys and local businessmen at a local Hooters, I'd managed to go 26 years without tasting one. I know...not a big deal.

But for some reason--be it the company, the three carafes of red wine consumed, the gentle reminder I've seen and experienced so little that even nights begun at a faux-80s prom can be righted--when that first salty, squirming nubbin of satin protein swam down my throat in a flourish of brine and lemon, an unjaded piece of me stirred. It was like The Awakening (only instead of walking into the ocean like a suicidal bitch at the end I sucked down bougie shellfish...but you get the point).

The combination of oysters and wine slammed into my brain like a bag of Columbian narcotics.


"Dancing!" I declared. "We must dance! We must drink! We must drink from the cup of life!"


"You must stop talking like that," Ariel said, wearily, from across a mound of empty shells. 


"No, she's right. We should dance," James chimed in, eyeing Ariel. "It's my birthday." 


Having blown a week's worth of responsibly budgeted cash on bivalves and wine, we had to do continue the night on the cheap...which meant hiking across the city to the one bar where we could dance, and drink, for free because Ariel knows the bartender. A schizophrenic half lounge/half sports bar boozehole in Murray Hill isn't really our scene, but if you want to shake your hips with a strong drink in hand for free at 2:30am, anyplace will do.


Especially if you roll in with a gorgeous professional dancer on your arm, one who commandingly twirled, spun, lifted, arched and salsa-ed (alternately and, more impressively, simultaneously) with Ariel and I while pounding back birthday beverages. 


Until three large, bejeweled, slightly terrifying hoodrats interrupted us. 


"Hey, yo, my man," the leader, a 6' thug with a flat-brimmed BROOKLYN cap and a Puerto Rican flag jersey on, said to James. He was rubbing one hand suggestively around his chest, that creepy motion which signals heartburn more than sexual prowess if you're anyone but LL Cool J circa "Doin' It." "You bein' greedy, my man. You can't keep both these beautiful girls to yourself. Bro's gotta share."  His wingmen nodded in agreement.


"Well, bro, it actually looks like I can?" James answered without hesitation, drawing both Ariel and myself into his hips. "Because you're the guys with no one to dance with."


I fell mildly in love with him at that moment.  


But I also saw the exit strategy, the move that left me capably in my element--manipulating social retards--while Wingman One and Wingman Two, intoxicated and by now flirting shamelessly despite Ariel's "too young, too pretty" mantra, were left as a pair. You're takin' one for the team, so your friend can live the dre-ee-eam....


"Papi," I said to Alpha Male Interloper, extending my elbow and leading him away from the pack. "I like your hat. See, I need a little Brooklyn help? I just moved into the 'hood and am pretty sure my white ass is going to get shot..."


Half an hour later, my new friend "JoJo" had called his dogs off James and Ariel, bought me a drink, taught me how to properly haggle with empanada vendors in Bushwick (3 for $5 is standard) and given me the number of his weed dealer. (Uh, thanks Jojo.) More importantly, my wingmen had been dancing.  With their hips very close. Without Ariel coming over once to tap out. I eventually thanked Jojo, gave him a kiss on the cheek, took his number (deleted it the next day) and headed to the dance floor to approach my duo.


"Guys, I'm sooooooo drunk," I (half) lied. "We have to get out of here."


"'kay, you'll shtay with me, right?" Ariel slurred, subtly, to me.


"Only if you help me convince Birthday Boy to come back with us."

Her eyes narrowed.


"I know what yerrr doing," Ariel hissed in my ear as we started staggering out of the bar, James a few steps behind.


"Doing? What do you mean?"


"He's too young. And pretty. I don't do young and pretty," she protested. 

Right. Cuz chiseled virile reciprocating oral-sexers are such a bad idea. 


"I know." I hailed a cab.


"No, but for really. Heeees sleeping on the futon with you," Ariel declared.


"Sure. Hey, Birthday Boy! Get your ass in this cab..."


It took precisely seven minutes for both of them to disappear into her bedroom when we arrived in Queens. It doesn't matter who shut the door.


I myself pulled out the futon, my Queensian home away from home, poured myself a trough of water and turned on the television, peeling off my tights and dress while Planet Earth annointed the Midngith Oysters with a vibrant array of sea creatures (including an octopus that could run on two of its eight legs, which is fucking awesome). All the while I was smugly thinking: I wingmanned my wingman my wingman. Mission, even if done so lazily, accomplished.


The next day, back in Brooklyn, vowing to lay off the expensive socializing until I jump into the next tax bracket, I mused on The Chronicles. What, exactly, had been the point? Originally it had been to re-socialize myself after five years of sequestered nesting in suburbia, but...honestly, on some level I knew it was all shallow, booze-soaked behavior that meant nothing in the scope of the universe. 


Then, later that day, two texts came in: 

JAMES: Best. Birthday. Ever. Missed you. Miss you.

ARIEL: Well played, Wingman. Welcome back.

Ah, there it was.

The point.

Good to be back. 

#11: Wingman Chronicles Part III: Lap Dances and Emmy Award Nominated Accidental Wingmen

Oprah calls it secreting. Religious types call it praying. Psychologists call it delusional and put you on meds. I call it common sense: ask and ye shall receive.


Wingman Red, she of blues-singing sexual dalliances, casually mentioned a few months ago that she'd never been to a strip club and would like to go, unknowingly sending that request into the universe on an Oprah-shaped comet in the process. Fortunately, I was standing close enough when she did this it to be included in the return.


A personal note on strip clubs:


1.) I love 'em. I've never denied my significant other the right to go and ogle some boobies, with our without me there. Though I will say they have more fun when I'm there, because girls have more fun at strip clubs than guys. Period. Guys, if you don't believe me, bring your two most fun-loving, sexually secure wingwomen to the club next time and see how different the experience is. We're like a vagina-ed bridge between you and your fantasy, because no good female wingman will let her male counterpart be a creepy customer while she's around, and strippers know it. They will flock like sequined moths to an Alabamian bug-zapper in mid-July.


2.) I, personally, can't get behind the feminist argument that ALL strippers are being degraded. And I'm not getting into that argument here, so moving on...


3.) I may or may not have brought Alex to the strip club for his birthday several years ago and ended up onstage with a bottle of champagne giving him a special birthday dance with the help a stripper named Violet who I kind-of-sort-of-maybe-hooked-up with in the bathroom for half and hour while Alex swigged beer and watched. May. Or may not have. Done that. 


Alex may or may not have called it the best night of his life. This is all hypothetical.


4.) As a former Hooters girl, one who never felt degraded by her job (except the scrunchy-socks part of the uniform--any adornment that gives even the leggiest women cankles should be illegal), I'd be a hypocrite to turn and bash anyone whose sex appeal has contributed to a paycheck.


Personal note on strippers over.


Red and I met up at an innocuous Irish pub for a low key evening--minimal primping, no expectations. Beer, girl-talk and bar banter. We were about two drinks deep when QB walked in.


Now. What to say about QB? QB is a very well-known and lusted after TV actor. We call him QB because he's a chiseled hunk of Quarterback-looking manflesh grown in the woods of Maine, topped with a Ken-doll style head manufactured at The Hot Professional Athlete Manufacturing Firm of America (affectionately known as HPAMFA, which is coincidentally the sound many women make when QB walks into a room). At some point this tall, square-jawed piece of magazine-worthy Americana decided life as an athletic all-star didn't offer nearly enough immediate fawning gratification--so he switched to acting. Successfully. He is very pretty, very loaded and very unfortunately has a tattoo of a jungle cat on his shoulder.


He is also very much not my type, which is why we hit if off on a non-fuck-me level after working together on a freelance gig, settling instead into the kind of random dude-banter that tends to be my base form of communication with any guy I am not trying to bed. He is very fun to get drunk with, if you happen to run into him--which you will not, knowingly, because I'm not stupid enough to tell you what TV show he's on.


I gave him an appropriately obnoxious "Whatssup, playa playa!!" from our corner of the bar (yes, I'm a real lady), signaling he should come sit with us. QB smiled, then tripped over the two bridge-and-tunnel-bimbos who were already trying to suck his dick.


Soon our quartet (he had a wingman too) were having many brews while he sucked down many vodka-sodas. Red kept giving me the well-concealed but still entirely hilarious "OMG WE'RE GETTING DRUNK WITH _________ FROM THAT SHOW ________!" look. And I was shooting her "Don't get too excited" looks back, because QB is married.


QB is wedded to one of those scorchingly hot antelope-women with three miles of leg and Sahara-flat torso, one that has no right being as legitimately talented as she is when she's already been given other assets for social leverage. (She's also a TV actress, because that's what you do when God makes you an antelope-woman with no visible pores.) To the best of my knowledge, they both have industry-standard marital vows, which means they occasionally cheat with their co-stars but genuinely love each other. And have really photogenic make-up sex.


NO, this is not the post where I check "sleeping with a married man off my list," so untwist your panties and keep reading.


Anyway, we're all drinking. QB's wingman ducks out to go home to his wife, but QB is a "bachelor for the weekend," all by his lonesome while honeypie is out of town filming. So we all keep drinking. The conversation goes the only place it could foreseeably go: Canada.


Canada is known for its waterfalls, that song from the South Park movie, syrup...and strippers. Why strippers? I dunno. Probably because the native tundra-like temperatures mean the stripper's nipples are always more alert and appealing than that of their southern, American-grown counterparts.


As a connoisseur of strip clubs, I get off on a stripper tangent with QB ("I once sliced my cornea on a rogue piece of body glitter." "Yeah? Well I hooked up with the stripper at my ex-boyfriend's birthday." pause. "And he didn't marry you?" "Well, see...."). Finally, Red looks at QB with subtle but palpable feminine wiles armed.


"I've never been to a strip club. Ever," she says, casually stirring the foam on the pint glass rim with one finger.


God I love this woman.


"Really?" QB replies, hooked. "What, you're some kind of feminist?"


"No, not at all. I'm a grad student. I can't afford a train ticket home, let alone a strip club," she laughs, Irish eyes smiling. Grinning even. I pick up the slack.


"Yeah, it's true. She's never been. God, isn't it so sad this pale, pink, porcelain skin has never been baptized by the cleavage sweat of a Ukrainian undergrad in a pink thong," I sigh, placing my head against her bosom for effect.


"Yeah. This is sad." QB's eyes are distant, thoughtful. And he is not pondering the economic implications of the proposed Obama health care plan.


"Well, c'est la vie! Another round?" I ask, waiting to see if he'll take the bait.


"We should go," QB says, eyes on us again.


"Go where?" Coy. Play coy.


"The strip club. We should go. Red, we should pop your cherry."


"QB, you are a married man," I say, resisting. "You'll get in trouble."


"I am a bachelor for the weekend, my wife is trashed in some bar in Houston with a bunch of production assistants trying to sleep with her and she loves strip clubs," he replies before swigging the last of his drink and placing the glass decisively on the bar. "We're going. Red, get your game face on."


We plan a totally pointless, semi-elaborate ruse where Red and I pay and exit first, meeting QB a few minutes later at the side door of a conveniently located strip joint so no random photogs snag shots of QB leaving a bar (or entering a strip joint) with two random girls who are not his wife. The VIP bouncer, clearly fresh off his win from the Ving Rhames Look-a-Like Contest, ushers us in covertly, whisking past the red velvet rope and into the thumping, subterranean lair of sin and glass surfaces below.


We're led around the carpeted manse, eventually escorted to a dimly lit banquet near one of the stages, where a smiley blonde with black-light reactive white panties is showing everyone how firemen get from Point A to Point B when the elevators are down. Only she's doing it with her back arched like a Slinky down stairs, both hands free to wave at two drooling Neanderthals at the base of the stage.


After a brief visual sweep of the floor, which is littered with black leather lilypad-like risers topped with gyrating lap-dance blossoms, we pick our preliminary favorites and proceed to kick it classy:

12 bottles of Coors Light and $300 worth of lap dances.

What? I said he was from Maine. He was paying, so it was his choice.


Two hours, many, many slurred words, and the lifestory of a girl named Zora later (she, of course, took a shine to Red, bonding over their shared love of Chekov no doubt), it was time to go. We were crossing into that drunken no-mans-land where hormones and alcohol bring parties invloved dangerously close to sleeping with people they shouldn't. Though I was far more interested in leaving with Anya, the pixie-brunette who kept putting her strawberry lipgloss all over my neck, than I was with QB, just to set the record straight.


We thanked QB profusely, sprung for his next lapdance, and left him there with what I am convinced is a totally average boner. (Sorry, but God just doesn't give that much pretty a massive wang too. Djimon Hounsou is the exception to this rule.)


"What just happened??" Red asked as we made it outside, sudden gust of wind blowing her mane of red hair around and making every guy, and even me, stop and stare. "I mean, like. WHAT. JUST. HAPPENED?" Her eyes were wide and incredulous and glazed with lust and cheap beer.


"You just had your virgin strip club experience, loved it, may marry Zora, and that guy from that show you love treated you to it." I lit her cigarette, and we started hand in hand down the Avenue, Brooklyn-bound.


"This stuff doesn't happen in real life," she said on the exhale.


"It does if you have the right wingman."

#20: The Wingman Chronicles Part II: Playing the Ivy Leagues

The second rule for wingmen to remember as we hit Part II of the chronicles: Karma.


Alright, karma's not really a rule, but this is hardly the blog for discussing religious doctrine and I'm really bad at writing intros, so screw off. Point is: Be an attentive, unselfish wingman and the pendulum will swing back in your favor.


Having successfully wingmanned my lady Red a chain-smoking, blues-singing rocker, I was feeling...good. I was back on the scene after years missing in action, had helped a dear friend score and had only stepped marginally closer to lung cancer (note to self: corner next prospect in Whole Foods, not on a smoking patio) in the process. But how hard it is to help a model, one who swigs Guinness in dive bars, get laid by a rock star? Wingmanning Red is like winning the Special Olympics when you have both...nevermind. What I mean is, I had to test my success and make sure it wasn't just luck.


It was time to draft Ariel.


Ariel is my original wingman. I learned the definition of the term from my exploits with this girl, a kinetic ball of energy blessed with the gift of gab, a contagious staccato laugh and a pair of perky C-cups which have not moved so much as a centimeter south in the last decade. (And I know "Ariel" is an asinine fake name, even for a blog. But for eight years it's been her bar alias...and dudes buy it. Not one man has ever called shenanigans on that ricockulously fake name, stolen from either an animated mermaid, a Shakespearian nymph or a bottle of non-alcoholic wine, depending on how highbrow you like your pop-culture references.)


If Red and I are a perfectly balanced yin-yang of feminine mystique, Ariel and I are the Boondock Saints of wingmanning--a rogue team of petite, busty, hustling vigilantes set loose on an unsuspecting world. We've infiltrated the West Point Military Ball, commandeered an entire winery and its reserve stock for a private tasting, talked our way into a closed party for a cosmetic surgery mogul we did not know to drink $300 worth of his champagne, used the infamous "one phone call" to dial up the other from jail...in short, she's that friend.


We picked a nuetral, unassuming bar to meet at for a night of tactical planning. Our only mission: celebrate both being single (at the same time!) and discuss battle plans for the following weekend's Wingman Reunion 2009. I even wore a scrubby hat to keep booty at bay.


Ariel and I had been sitting with our pints, planning animatedly, for about half-an-hour when a pretty, square-jawed, tall and wholesome type with a full head of thick, chestnutty hair and bright blue eyes sat down at one of two empty stools at our table.


"Hi," he said.
"Hi," Ariel said.
"Hi," I said.


We all stared at each other for a moment. "Good talk," I finished.


His mouth spread into the sort of sweet, Mentadent white smile that can only be grown (organically) in midwestern fields. I had been ready to fire a dismissive snark-barb at him as soon as he sat down, but the genuineness of that smile disarmed the table. Ariel pulled a thick cascade of hair over to one side of her face, using the movement to flash me the "he gets five minutes not to say anything stupid" look. 


He did not say anything stupid. His name was Tommy (-2 points for not dropping the "y" after college); he was a Yale (+5 points) graduate (+10 points), in the city for a long weekend (+5 points) before returning to his job as a landscape architect desiging parks for a community improvement firm (+50 points). He loved Aimee Mann (WTF?? -5 points), black and tans (+1 point) and the journalistic stylings of Matt Lauer (no points either way). His wingman for the night was a pixie-girl named Tracy, who bonded with Ariel in three minutes flat before buying them both a beer. At the bar. Leaving Tommy and I. Alone.


Three brews, one shot and two hours of conversation later, Tracy and Ariel still hadn't returned. I could see them at the bar over Tommy's shoulder, heads pressed together like sleeping marsupials. Plotting. They're plotting.  Tommy cupped his hands over mine and I didn't pull them back. (What? They felt nice.) Ariel appeared a few minutes later, collecting her purse while whispering into my ear.


"Full report: great guy with history of monogamy and chivalry. Has been talking to Tracy about needing to meet you since you walked in. Monday he goes back to his house, which he owns, upstate, so you won't have to see him again if you don't want to. He will not try to rape, murder, kill, or fuck you if you go with him to Tracy's apartment, which is two blocks away. My spare keys are in your bag and the phone is on loud case you need to eject at the last second," she spat sotto voce while pulling on her coat.


"Where are you going?" I hissed back, watching as Tracy also whispered something into Tommy's ear while pressing a set of keys into his hands.


"Downtown with Tracy to meet her boyfriend, who she is staying with for the night so Mikey can ask you back to her beautiful Hell's Kitchen apartment with a balcony," she replied. "Just say yes." And just like that, Tracy and Ariel were gone.


Which is how I found myself on a balcony with a pretty Ivy League grad who designs parks for underprivileged families kissing all over my face, whispering how beautiful I was in spite of my truly epic hat-hair. True to Ariel's report, there was no sex pressuring when the night officially ended with an exhausted collapse into Tracy's bed. No "just the tip," no casual boob-grazes--just my weary head on a pillow. Next to a full-blown, domestically-raised adult male sharing the bed who didn't try and cajole himself into any of my orifices. (Gay, or just good? The Aimee Mann thing threw me.)


Tommy woke me in the morning (remembering on his own that I had to be up for a heinous Saturday morning meeting at work) with a text message from his side of the bed: "You are breathtaking in this moment." I still cannot decide whether this was a ripe slice of cheddar or the sweetest thing ever.


Then he made me breakfast.


I walk-of-shamed it to the office, survived the meeting, went home, tried not to think about how kissing Tommy didn't feel like kissing Alex, and crashed. Sunday night, my phone lit up with another text from Tommy:


"You are my New York. Thank you."


I texted something, but not to Tommy: "Well played, Ariel. Well played."

#19: The Wingman Chronicles Part 1: Taking Home the Rock-Star

I start the Chronicles with a rule for wingmen to remember: If you force things, the condom breaks.


Wait, wait, that’s not right. Well, technically it is right, but it’s not the point I want to make.



Ah, I remember now...ahem: Always go with the flow. Chose good copilots, and go with the flow.



For night one of wingmanning, I chose my copilot carefully. Back on the singles scene after five years with an emo crybaby (one with bangs and a bizarre germ issue that meant he didn’t perform oral), Red is 5’9” of lithe, ginger-maned lioness. She’s got an encyclopedic knowledge of music, unfairly perfect porcelain skin and feminine ease with a pint glass. She is, in flirting style and visual “type,” pretty much my opposite, making her an excellent yin to my yang--and we’re different enough that we rarely aim for the same target. Except hot targets with full sleeves of well-drawn tattoos and/or accents, in which case it’s every goddamned woman for herself and Red’ll tell you that herself.



Red and I spent Night One in a downtown music hole with only one purpose: go with the flow. Hear music, have good time. We grabbed a drink and did some catching up. Then, fifteen minutes in, he took the stage.



Young, wild-haired and working angular, fox-like eyes, The Vagabond (the name of the song he was singing, of course) opened his mouth from behind the mic and let out a soulful riff, riding the back end of a blues growl until every vagina in the room was pissing cerulean. Red’s pheromones blew out the front of her dress and knocked my drink out of my hand en route to the stage.



“Dibs on--,” she started moaning.
“Yours. Got it,” I concurred.


I know, it’s an obnoxious cliche: Brooklynite she-bitches, gunning for the dirty-cute-hipster-rockstar. Whatever. I’m not ashamed.



Anyway, flash forward to midnight. Through a set of mutual friends, we ended up at the same Lower East Side (ugh, of course it was the LES. Maybe I am ashamed...) watering hole as The Vagabond and his band-mates. We weren’t there solely for the boy. The company was laid back and warm, the Guinness pints only $5 and the flowing spirit of the weekend Gods had delivered us there. 


But the boy didn’t hurt.



The ensuing mission was smooth and organic--no planning, just an on-the-fly series of non-verbal cues and tactical maneuvering.



At some point, The Vagabond separated from his pack of buddies and headed to the corner of a deserted smoking patio outside the bar’s open windows. Red saw, wordlessly pulling out her cigarettes and following outside to a position near, but not facing, her target. I stayed seated inside, watching for his reaction. He checked her out once from behind the cigarette, then again on the exhale. Roger, we have confirmation of interest. 



Behind me, three busty blondes noticed The Vagabond’s vulnerable position and furtively began plotting their own move. (He's the lead singer. Tough life.) Outside, Red was striking up conversation like a seasoned pro, and he was going for it...but she’d be out-gunned against three. Having confirmed mutual interest, I immediately commenced defensive activity.



I bolted (casually) to the patio, smiling and bumming a cigarette off Red before faking the death of her lighter. I turned to Vagabond for a light, introducing myself while cutting off his line of sight with the incoming trio of big-breasted bogies, now on the patio and closing in quick. Red, sensing the threat, turned her body perpendicular while I stepped toward her, effectively penning the Vagabond in his corner while still giving him ample personal space. Shut out, the bogies eventually finished their Newports and left.



With the patio cleared, Red eyed Vagabond’s almost empty pint glass, gave me the look and exited. Vagabond pulled out another cigarette (chain-smoking blues singers. It’s a veritable storm of cliches today, folks), and I bummed from him (and smoked the damned thing. Right after the one I’d just had. The things we do for friends....), playing the mutual acquaintance card to keep him in position for a few minutes longer. (“No way, you know Mike too?)



Red returned with two icy beers, one for her, one for him, and we all toasted his stellar performance. I then excused myself back to the bar, watching through the windows again while Red skillfully wrapped their chat, gave him a solid piece of body contact (the classic “I’m-laughing-and-touching-your-arm”) and rolled off to come “find” me. The seed has been planted.



An hour of random socializing later, I spotted one of the blonde bogies from earlier making her move. Houston, we have a problem. Vagabond look uncomfortable, eyes all over the bar, looking for something. With Red MIA I did a slow fly-by in, listening for the opportunity to cock block. (Is it still cock blocking if you do it to a girl?) Vagabond and Bogey were playfully arguing over which of two bands I don’t give a shit about were better. Bingo.



“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to eavesdrop.” Except of course I do. “But I couldn’t help hearing your argument and I totally have to take her side,” I told Vagabond.


“SEE, I TOLD you,” she crowed. Targeting Bogey...


“What is it with guys? They never appreciate the genius that is...um...that band,” I tried. Really lamely tried. That's right--come to Mama...



“Omigod, riyyyyght?” she said, shifting her body toward mine. “I saw them at the Bowery Ballroom last summer, and they were soooooo f-ing amazing, they came out and were....”


And then Red appeared. Vagabond grinned at her immediately, locked in. He'd clearly been looking around the bar for her. KABLOOEY, bitches. 


Vagabond ended up following us home to my place, where one roommate was conveniently out of town for the weekend. He stayed for a 3am night cap, a 4am discussion of music and a 5am anatomical study of Red.


My co-pilot had to scoot out to a modeling shoot the following morning. (Of course. I should rename this post “Of-Fucking-Course.”)


I cooked The Vagabond breakfast from scratch (because he was genuinely cool) and listened for half an hour while he told me how amazing Red is (duh, I know dude). Then, I tossed him out into the bright world and stripped the sex sheets off roomie’s bed before he got back, informing him (as was right to do) that his room had been used for wingmanning purposes upon his return. He was proud of us both. 


Red's not looking for anything serious, but she and the Vagabond have had several casual dates since that night.   


Mission accomplished.

#19: The Wingman Chronicles Begin

Just how important is a good wingman in social and urban dating culture?


Important enough that the word "wingman," as used outside the world of aeronautics, has its own Wikipedia page. 


Enough that socially awkward troglodytes now have their own Match.com to pair them with wingmen.  (PS: Dudes? Hate to the the bearer of bad news, but if you need this service just to find a guy to hang out with, the entire cast of Ocean's Eleven and a fresh bottle of roofies won't be able to get you laid.)


Enough that even these rejects from your high school prom can toss on some guyliner, recycled carpeting from The Moonlight Bunny Ranch crafted into an oversized asshat and some Chanel nailcolor in LookHowEdgyIAm and make bank with their own television series. 


And enough that, in using this Hitch List as a codependency cure/way to reprioritize my life, I had to come clean about being a shitty wingman and social participant in recent years. A recap from a post this past July :

Far worse is that I blow off friends as soon as the signing bonus on new relationship goes through. I’m nesting. I’m sexing. I’m entwined with my lover, happily absorbing their nuances like a sponge, purring and lolling about in togetherness like an overweight cat in a featherbed. I become defined by the relationship, which leads to monophobia outside of the relationship.

Think this all just a trite little blog subject from some former-fawning-girlfriend, something with no real social applications? Well, the Fulbe people of northern Cameroon don't (they appreciate me. So there.) To quote Marriage, a History again:

The Fulbe people do not see love as a legitimate emotion, especially within marriage. In many peasant and working-class communities, too much love between husband and wife is seen as disruptive, because it encourages the couple to withdraw from the wider web of dependence that makes the society work.

Now, I don't agree that love within marriage is an illegitimate emotion, but I do believe that living as broke twentysomethings in a recession world, plane flights away from most of our families and years away from reasonable salaries, our little social bubbles classify as "wide webs of dependence" where life is better when we're propping each other up as a group. (Go ahead. Call me a Socialist.)


And I don't know about the Fulbe, but one of the things that makes our little mini-societies work is getting laid. It keeps the women glowing, the men high-fiving, the gays fabulous and everyone from bitching about how horny, ugly and lonely they are.


With all that in mind, I've recently dedicated serious time to reconnecting with the social web and wingmanning, alternating the roles of Goose and Maverick with a select handful of seriously attractive, witty, formidable partners. I'll be spending the better part of the next few posts detailing the success of those missions, which include everything from an all expenses paid trip to the strip club to a doting Ivy Leaguer with a stable job(!) to a plate of midnight oysters.


As you go forth into this, the first wild weekend which feels and smells of Fall, I encourage you all to Goose and Maverick it up....and report back if any missions are accomplished.

Going off with a Hitch (intentionally)

Okay, finally jumping into "the list." A brief disclaimer:

*Life is not a well-edited television series. As such, adventures in the list will not be delivered a la slick montages with a "Billboard's Top 100 Songs for Humans With Vaginas" soundtrack. The list is subject to a learning curve, is revised whenever needed and does not assume to be the most profound itemization of shit since the ten commandments (really, it's just a list). The list caters to MY particular brand of crazy (your particular brand of crazy sold separately).*

Another thing: the list was created to minimize my brand of crazy while raising the value of my Life Experiences 401K, and thus almost every item has a specific reason applicable to my life for going down on paper; anyone else's list would/could/should look totally different.

And always remember: What is insipid, boring or slutty to some is cathartic to others.

Good. Glad we're all clear on that. Honestly, I feel so close to you right now...

Since no one wants to read a 100-item+ post I'll put the list, as it stands, up in sections. The checking off of items goes up in individual posts.

As of today, numbers 1 through 25, in no specific order:

Things To Do Before You Marry, or The Hitch List:

(last updated on September 18, 2009)

1. Learn to comfortably fly solo.

2. Conquer lingering, irrational childhood fears (dark, fucking scary spiders, etc.).

3. Go on week long "Help Me" Detox--no asking for help from anyone, for anything. (This pertains to help carrying laundry from the laundromat, reaching items at the grocery store, holding subway doors, killing fucking scary spiders, etc., as well as to the obvious areas of financial, emotional and social assistance.)

4. Get lost in a major city alone. Find your way home.

5. Do something that scares the shit out of you.

6. Do something that scares the shit out of someone else.

7. Sleep in the WHOLE bed.

8. Go on an epic road trip. Must visit minimum of three places you've never heard of before Google mapping.

9. Start selfish, indulgent lifelong habit.

10. Get involved in doing ongoing good deeds for others.

11. Have wild night at the strip club.

12. Break one personal beauty law (i.e. no short hair, no red lipstick, no Lindsay Lohan leggings, etc).

13. Break up with the television, phone, Facebook and g-chat and live like an urban Emerson...temporarily.

14. Do post-mortem on past relationships for evidence of YOUR insanity at work (no blaming the ex).

15. Go on a date with someone who is not your "type."

16. Tattoo.

17. Restock your entire underwear drawer with new inventory.

18. Revisit an old fling.

19. Wingman your BFF a piece of ass.  

20. Have your BFF wingman you a piece of ass.  

21. Go on a 100% lesbian date.

22. Skydive.

23. Get in a fight.

24. Learn a new language. Must be able to order food, ask for directions, give a compliment and give instructions on how to make you orgasm in chosen language within 6 weeks of starting.

25. Learn from the "other woman."

26. Relocate somewhere you've never lived and don't know anyone.

27. Create "Ethnic Sexcapades" Bingo Card (Italian, Irish, Puerto Rican, African American, Japanese, etc.). Compete with friends for first "Bingo." (Winner gets bragging rights and a free trip to the STD clinic.)

28. Take a midnight train going anywhere.

29. Someone older.

30. Someone younger.

31. Break a Guinness World Record.

32. Get wasted and party with someone famous.

33. Smash out with someone famous (see 32 for assistance).

34. Play a player.

35. Threesum?

36. Visit the birthplace of your personal hero.

37. Read/view/listen to at least three of the books/films/albums your obnoxious ex recommended but you never touched (who knows, they may have been right aboutsomething).

38. Spend a day in someone elses' shoes...literally, swap locations, jobs, friends and lifestyles for a day and see what you learn.

39. Build something from scratch utilizing three tools you have no idea how to use.

40. Try something you would "never" do in bed.

41. Be the star of your own nude photo shoot and learn to love your naked self. (Pictures are for your eyes only.)

42. Start mixed martial arts and/or self defense classes.

43. Go on a vision quest with an experienced guide.

44. Travel somewhere exclusively for a famous local food item (must cross state lines). Philly cheese steaks, media noches in Cuba, Pad Thai in Thailand, etc.

45. Get arrested.

46. Experience a torrid, infatuated, complete relationship in one weekend (meet, flirt, fall in lust, screw, spend too much time together and breakup all over the course of a single weekend. Hard to do in small towns; happens all the time in NYC).

47. Read at least two books on the world history of marriage (better the devil that you know).

48. Experience parenthood temporarily with the assistance of friends/siblings/relatives who have small children.

49. Have a raucous ladies'/guys' night in a famous non-native party city.

50. Write own eulogy.

That's all for now. I'm pretty sure people some reading this (all three of you) will bristle at a few. But then again, if you're really looking for a guide to morality, perhaps you should try spending time with the upstanding compasses at Protectmarriage.com instead of on my blog of sin. Oh, and while you're there, be sure to visit their "Have You Thought About It" section for some of the best filmmaking judgementalism has to offer. Big laughs.

For the rest of you: what would go on your Hitch List? Over time, I'll be posting interesting list items from friends, lovers, strangers and readers, as well as their accompanying stories, so send all adventures and/or epic fails my way. If you're not quite ready to share with the world, please feel free to email me personally. I solemnly swear your experiences won't become public blog-fodder.