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| 4/28/2005 |
| The Shame and The Glory: Purple Rain part II |
A Feature
by Wes Bennett
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This is the second installment of the two part series where I look back on the night where I tried to drive my car down a narrow sidewalk and ended up getting a lap dance from a stripper at my friend’s apartment while she blasted “Purple Rain,” along the way, making observations about driving under the influence, the preferred music of exotic dancers and where the line between being a colorful character, taking life by the horns -crosses into stupidity, debauchery and mindless intoxication.
To offer some context for this night of excess, there have been hundreds of others trapped in boring conversations with the same small group of friends, slowly dying of boredom as I get older and the fleeting era of my youth is squandered.
“Sundown in the City” is Knoxville’s free concert series in the downtown Market Square every Thursday night. The event features such midlevel acts as Gillian Welch Robert, The Wailers and Steve Winwood.
Behavior at an event like this involves standing in a circle with your group of friends looking around for someone else you know, occasionally making a call on the cell phone to find out where other people are. As beers are consumed, people become more comfortable, and begin talking more and more. Inevitably thing begin to seem more fun.
But to understand the night in question, we have to start with the day before back at the nightclub...
I am working the door, surrounded on all sides by Sorority girls and their surly dates, who thrust their IDs an inch and a half from my face.
Nearly all of the IDs are ridiculous: people are 28 years old and in the military: no one looks ANYTHING like who they are supposed to be. Out of 400 students, probably only 5 were underage.
Am I confident enough to point to one person and deny them entrance? No. I just let them in. At the very least I will look up and give them a look like, “C’mon, you’re better than that.” or “I know this ID is fake, I’m not a complete idiot, but go ahead anyway.” After all, when there’s a screaming mob of over 300, its tough to take a stand.
Psychologically, what kind of an effect does watching hundreds of gorgeous women and their dates trash the place and party like David Lee Roth circa 1982, while I have to work?
At the time, it had been a pretty rapid turnaround from being a hard-partying student at age 22, to becoming, at least in the eyes of the club, an authority figure at age 24.
Apart from making me wish that I was still in the fantasy world that we refer to as College, experiences that night really made me want to drink. When someone is doing something that you can’t, and you’re forced to sit their and watch it, it can be pretty frustrating. After suffering through five hours of the party, cleaning up various bodily fluids and confiscating 16 tiny bottles of Rum and Jack, there was a lot of pent up aggression and frustration.
Back at Sundown many beers are consumed as well as numerous bottles of confiscated liquor. I keep several more in my pockets, just in case.
Looking back on what happened that night and on another wild night in Daytona Beach Florida, it caused me wonder if I have some sort of a problem.
Now most people who have drinking problems diagnose themselves when they get the shakes, when they are drinking Vodka at 10 am or when they wake up in a gutter covered in other people’s vomit.
The repercussions of my experiences are nothing that severe, they mainly just involve high levels of personal shame. In the period of almost a year, I have two notable stories of excess. But that’s the thing, although my behavior crosses the line, I never lose control. On both nights, there was no vomiting, no falling down or loss of consciousness, but there was beer mixed with liquor, driving under the influence, the failed seduction of women and a high level of belligerence. Certainly its nothing that would have impressed Bon Scott or Nikki Sixx.
I met my friends at one of their apartments near campus and the beer bong was brought out. In situations like this, I always let someone challenge my manhood, and it usually ends badly.
We decide to journey to a bar which is all the way across town. I don’t want to leave my car, which is illegally parked and decide to drive. Of course this is a really, really bad idea.
Now I realize that it would be completely ridiculous for me to argue that I am a better driver when I have been drinking and I’m not-
I’m just saying, this never involves driving on the interstate or towns I don’t know like the back of my hand. This only applies to Knoxville, and a stretch of the main street which I will travel extremely slow, driving with both hands on the wheel, knowing that if I get pulled over, that there will be serious repercussions, therefore the entire time is spent doing everything I can to be a topnotch driver.
I have never been at the point where I am speeding and honking and attracting attention to myself in those situations. I would say I am the worst driver, right after I get off work and I am talking on the phone, looking in the mirror and changing cds all at the same time while I am extremely pissed off and in a massive hurry. That’s when I’m a bad driver, not when I’m “drunk driving” one and a half miles on Saturday Night. I realize this argument is absurd and would certainly never hold up in court, but I feel that it is still worth mentioning.
But, I will say that out of all the times I should not have been driving, this was BY FAR the worst. It took me almost an hour to find my car. After the attempt to drive down the sidewalk, I finally arrived at the bar. It turns out it took me an hour and 45 minutes.
During the long period it took me to locate my vehicle, my comrade had managed to make friends with a stripper at the bar. I’m not exactly sure how the conversation went, but he invited her back to his apartment. I know that she had one of those stripper names like Star, Jade or Cassandra, but I am unable to remember specifically what it was.
Back at the apartment, money was soon laid on the table. She was not bothered at the least and casually asked, “What is this?” We explained that we were hoping for a private lap dance. She was actually really excited. I can only assume it was because we asked for something as innocent as a lap-dance as opposed to taking turns giving her “The Cleveland Steamer” or something worse.
Now at the time, this interaction seemed perfectly normal. In retrospect it occurs to me how unsafe the entire situation was for her. Three guys, one girl, strange apartment, she didn’t know who we were. But none of that seemed to matter.
I’ve always been curious what music is best to strip to. I just assumed it was something heavy like Motley Crue’s “Girls, Girls, Girls,” Rob Zombie or Poison, some kind of dirty glam metal. But maybe that’s just what the biker, working class clientele enjoys.
She settled on Prince. She danced in the nude, on the table, on our laps for what seemed like hours. When things were at their most intense, “Purple Rain” was blasting.
Can a song take on a special meaning? A slow dance, a great party, a cd bought on a vacation that conjures up amazing memories and quickly brings to mind very specific sights, smells and emotions?
Obviously yes and “Purple Rain” will always bring to mind that night. There was one move in particular, I know I won’t be able to ever forget.
At certain times during the dance, when her back was towards us, would turn her head around, look at us and slap her ass as hard as she could, all the while looking very intimidating (like a dragon).
I’m not sure whether it was supposed to be hot, ok it was kind of hot, but each time she did it (a stripper only has so many moves) it was absolutely hilarious. There was no way to keep a straight face during that one.
As my friend unsuccessfully attempted to seduce her, I fell into a deep sleep on the couch. She left because she was being paged to come to another apartment. (It was one of her off nights from working at “The Katch” apparently). Is this what strippers do? Are there enough creepy guys to fill up her nights making private visits?
I woke up the next day, very disoriented and looked in shame at my car. What could I do besides shake my head?
Depending on how you looked at it, the night was either epic and memorable or just highly shameful. To a certain extent, maybe life itself is a lot like that-
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| "We use words like honor, code, loyalty. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom I provide, then question the manner in which I provide it." |
- Jack Nicholson
A Few Good Men
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Distributed Beers
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| 5 |
Sierra Nevada Bigfoot |
| 4 |
Guinness Draught |
| 3 |
Newcastle Brown Ale |
| 2 |
Bass Pale Ale |
| 1 |
Samuel Adams Boston Lager |
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