Magazine: ENKI WEEKLY
Title: REVIEW: Playboy's 50th Anniversary Club Tour
Words: Pete Babb
Issue Date: 06.04
Before I get into this quick recap of Enki's Wacky Adventures and Observations at the Playboy Tour, I first have to give big ups to my homie/hero/DJ tutor Shortee for getting me into this shindig for free, first of all, and second of all, for doing a hell of a job getting people on the floor and keeping them there even under less-than-optimal crowd circumstances. Rocking a crowd that's dying to have you play isn't too tough...winning over an indifferent crowd is the mark of a professional, and Shortee showed some serious professional chops last week. And of course, anytime I get to kick it with her and Faust (Citizenz form like Voltron!) is a good time.
But enough of the mutual admiration society (sorry for biting the name of your email list right there, Ross Hogg!). Let's get to the event:
6:42--I wait outside the door until Shortee brings me a VIP pass(!) so I can enter with her. The girl working the front desk has big ol' fake titties. If even the ticket-taking girl has foobs, I figure my "hilarious" idea of doing a foob count will be a waste of time.
6:45--Shortee pushes "play" on the CDJ. The easiest part of her night is done.
6:47--Holy crap, lady, when you got those foobs, did you have to register them as a weapon? I suspect any short person who goes in for a hug will suffer blunt object trauma.
6:51--The
security guys here are on some Secret Service shit. At every turn, there's
a big dude with a black suit and an earpiece frowning at you. I feel
like I should have a laminate that says, "I'm not a potential threat
like the average guy who's coming to this event. I'm here to support
my friend.
And for the jokes."
7:03--I get my first picture with some of the Playmates. One of them even had real tits, which makes me wonder how she even got this Playboy gig. I mean, besides the fact that she's totally hot (and as you well know, I don't really think Playboy chicks are that hot, so that's really saying something).
7:15--I
meet Ashley, who Shortee tells me is essentially the Bunny babysitter
for the tour. She's a super-cool girl--a self-described "dive-bar
chick." I make a mental note to grill her for good tour stories
later.
(Sadly, I never saw her again.)
7:17--The Playmates are starting to get swarmed by photo-seekers. The girls have to be all smiley and open and "Hi, what's your name? Thanks for coming out!" and their reward is to get followed around by would-be Rico Suaves. I imagine it's only going to get worse.
7:22--Faust passes along Shortee's suggestion that I take more photos with the Playmates before the doors open for general admission. I take three more photos, handing my camera to a different lunkheaded lothario every time.
7:25--I
just figured something out: The Playmates all love Shortee to death.
So if I drop her name on some, "Yeah, I'm here with Shortee, she's
my homie!" type steez, the Playmates will let me past the artifice
of niceness they understandably put up as a barrier between them and
the guys in the club and be nice to me for real. Once you get past that
shell, some of the Bunnies are in fact very cool people.
7:30--The room is full of bouncy, flaunty women, but I'm way more into the James Brown megamix Shortee is scorchin'-n-scratchin' with. Sadly, this is not abnormal behavior for me.
7:45--The girl doing the burlesque show is Marilyn Manson's fiancee. There must be a joke in there somewhere. Oh, wait, here it is: Her tits are scarier than he is. Seriously.
7:52--How can you wear a thong under a thong?
8:05--Girlies on the dancefloor! Man, that one chick in red is threatening to outshine the Bunnies in all things bouncy and bubbly. Casting couch!
8:17--Time for me to eat crow. The girl whose tits I made fun of at 6:47 turns out to be a really cool person. Beyond that, she knows everybody there is to know in LA, and is even opening a restaurant with her friends and business partners Madonna and Denzel "Sexual Chocolate" Washington. Yo Ava, if you ever need a doofy guy to come play records at your restaurant, holla!
8:19--Shortee plays "Superfreak." I get the urge to run around calling everybody "Darkness" and punching them in the head.
8:28--The first group "woooooo!" of the night for Shortee. It's because she threw on "Billie Jean." Anything off the "Thriller" album is pretty much a guaranteed "wooooo!" That's a tip for all you newbie DJs out there. Write it down.
8:41--This place has officially become a "tattoo of a butterfly on the small of your back" convention.
8:46--I meet Larry, who works for the tour as a set-up/break-down guy. He is, I swear to god, a dead ringer for Peter's neighbor Larry in "Office Space." He's got the same mustache, the same voice...Faust says he even used to rock the same mullet and that his answer to the question, "What would you do if you had a million dollars?" is "Two chicks at the same time." I find this to be unbelievably funny--particularly since my name is Peter. If I were drunk and not somewhat intimidated by him, I'd corral him into re-enacting some of those classic "Office Space" scenes with me.
9:03--If you have male pattern baldness, you shouldn't be trying to rock gelled-and-spiked hair.
9:17--Two girls try to make out on the dancefloor. I realize that this is essentially a frat party with a higher cover charge and shinier shirts.
9:45--I
spy a girl I might actually want to talk to, i.e. she looks like a normal
cute girl, not a wannabe-Bunny like almost every other girl in here.
How the hell do you start that conversation, though. "So...Are
you trying to pose nude, or do you just enjoy tits and ass as much as
I do?" No, no.
Maybe, "Hey baby, I know the DJ" would work? Actually, I think
the best option is for me to stay planted next to the DJ booth and keep
my mouth shut. Nobody ever got dissed and/or scorned for keeping their
stupid thoughts to themself.
10:03--I
feel my first pangs of sympathy for the Bunnies. They're basically here
as eye candy. They're supposed to smile and be nice and let all these
guys feel them up with their eyes. But some of these guys are totally
creepy--the guys who have been subscribers for 25 years and really don't
know how to act and think that slavish devotion to Playboy is a surefire
ticket to actually scoring a date with a Bunny. You know those tragic
guys who, upon getting a lap dance at a strip club, are completely convinced
that the stripper really, really likes them? This club is full of those
guys.
They follow the Bunnies around. I'm somewhat relieved that each Bunny
has a security guy with them at all times in case one of these drunken
schmucks tries to get too familiar.
10:22--The second burlesque show was OK until one of the girls stuck her foot in some guy's mouth and poured champagne down her leg. There is absolutely no excuse for that.
10:39--Damn, homegirl over there looks just like Shakira did in that first video of hers. The hair, the outfit, the ass, everything. Too bad she's all hugged up on a total fucking herb.
10:44--The guy to girl ratio here must be at least 4 to 1, and yet the girls prefer dancing with other girls. Not that I blame them--the guys here are the biggest bunch of trendy zeroes in expensive clothes I have ever seen. I start to feel pretty good about myself in comparison.
10:50--My
man Christopher manages to pull one of the few (as in three or
four) good girls in the place. Get yours, fool!
10:53--A
drunk and sparkly girl walks up to Faust and proclaims her love for
Shortee, including, I think, a somewhat veiled allusion to wanting to
bring her (Shortee) home. Yes, she just told Shortee's husband she wanted
to bring Shortee home with her and this dude I can only assume is her
boyfriend.
Spouse-swapping? What's next, a fucking key party?
11:07--The Playmates are officially over having to be "on." Smiles become as superficial as humanly possible.
12:00--OK, folks! Show's over! You don't have to go home, but you need to get the hell out of here! As for me, it's time to help break down the DJ setup, haul things to the tour bus, then go grab a milkshake with my homies Faust and Shortee. Good lookin' out for the hookup, y'all!
Basically, this event was just as fun/funny as I hoped it would be. Quite a spectacle, and too many zingers out there for me to write them all down.
Anyway,
I know it can't compete with a Playboy tour, but we've got a pretty
hot Money$hot lined up for this week. Check it:
---------------------------------------------------
THURSDAY, JUNE 17
THE MONEY$HOT
Milk (1840 Haight at Stanyan, across from Amoeba) 10pm-2am
$5
Derrick
D
Doc Fu
DJ Enki
Hip-hop,
funk, breaks, dancehall, yodeling
---------------------------------------------------
Also, while
I've got your eyes/ears, I should engage in another bit of shameless
shilling. These happy little emails I've been sending you fine folks
gained enough of a following over at the XLR8R offices that they gaveme
a monthly column, DJ Enki's Blast Zone, based off these emails. The
first installment is out right now--it's a rerun of the email in which
I call Southwest Airlines "Babymama Airlines." I am going
to try to use as much original content for the column as possible so
that even you way-ahead-of-the-curve people who get these emails will
have a reason to want to go grab the mag and read the column (I mean,
aside from the reasons you should already be reading XLR8R, which are
too numerous to mention).
C'mon...you know you need more funny in your lives. I'm here to help,
people.
(PDBabb)
