Truesday: We Are All Blackened From Pot Behind Kettle

That being said, this past Saturday night I found myself on the roof deck of Six, off 4th Street. It’s the place with the roof-top terrace above Spaghetti Warehouse, where Martini Lounge used to be. It is reputed to be part-owned by some cyclist guy, and is rumored to be expanding into what was one of my most favorite Austin haunts: the lifeless, prior-home of B-Side. I really wanted to hate Six for possibly consuming the basement-ish bathrooms and haunted loft, I really did. But time heals all wounds, and an endless stream of vodka can help abbreviate that time frame considerably.

My friends did a splendid job of keeping the steady march of inebriants to our table in quickstep. Before I knew it, I was no longer looking at all the clean-shaven, seventy-dollar cigar puffing, yam-tanned, tucked-in golf-shirt, happy to toss-back white wine or twelve-year scotch-on-the-rocks-people with any disdain. Sure, they represent a certain “I sell to consume” culture that I sometimes like to pretend I am not a part of (by “not a part of” I mean “above”, which is mad-undergrad and sniveling, yet: whatever) but once I get properly loaded, I’m everyone’s friend. My love of my fellow man, regardless of how much we deny having in common, becomes endless.

I’m shallow on shallow, so what of it?

And I had to have been properly soaked to go from a place as presumably pretentious as Six, directly over to a newish club named Vicci. It occupies the same space where Poly Esther’s used to violate tasteful color schemes, across from Alamo Draft House. Vicci. Vicci-Vicci-Vicci… If memory serves me correct, the outside of the place is shiny. Like gold. Like, bling’d out. Like a pimp fortress with oonce-oonce theme music. But in a DFW sort of way. And the obnoxious ten-dollar cover at the door matched that comparison rather nicely. But, I could have easily abandoned the situation and didn’t. Something kept me along that path. Probably the spins.

Once inside, half our group hit the dance floor. I went to the bar with the other half to take care of my parched pipes. The place has the exact same layout as all the bars from before. The furthest back that my memory is capable of going is when that building was known as Area 52, which was a dirty-dirty sort of place where I had my first (and only, as far as I can recall) face-to-face encounter with a foot-long strap on. No, it was not used on me, but it was wagged in my face while I was on stage during a particularly classy drag-show. Like, art, or something. To this day, the irony of a drag queen choosing to buckle up in a pressed-mold foot-shlong continues to entertain me. I would bother to point out for the record that I was thrown up there by friends/enemies, but it really doesn’t matter. I might have done it on my own if they hadn’t hurled me up there first. That shit was hill-air-e-us!

Hilarious for serious.

Goldschlager is not a toy, kids.

Older and more scandalous reputations aside, Vicci does not appear to be that kind of establishment. They’re more interested in stocking quality bourbons, red wines in a highly entertaining paddle-wheel-type display case, and gallon after gun-ready-gallon of luminescent high-energy drink (enough to guarantee the next fifteen popes a heart attack each from all the sloppy out-of-wedlock post-clubbin’ sex it will fuel – not that any of the popes would be participating, but just from the human shock of it all).

Beyond all the pomp and circumstance of the physical environment are the same 4th Streeters, and their seemingly pretentious ways. Packs of swollen dudes in long sleeve button-downs, striped, un-tucked, no under shirts. Clutches of bubble-butted girls-night-outers, dancing with each other, pretending to ignore the striped-shirt dudes along the wall. Plastic hair. Plastic chests. Orange tans. The kind of crowd one expects would be able to swing that ridiculous cover charge and lofty drink prices. The kind of crowd WILLING to swing that cash in order to guarantee a quality sample set. A set of the financially worthy, so to speak.

Or so to misspeak, rather.

The later half of the night was spent out on the back patio, with all the other second-class citizens, trying to give our cancerous tumors a fighting chance. It was there, amongst all those buffed-up blow-hards and busty tricky-tricks that some random dude unknowingly helped clear up all my worthless, hypocritical notions about the nonexistent relationship between that crowd and my normal crowd. Between that crowd and myself.

He bummed a smoke, which is far from uncommon in any drinking scenario, no matter where you go. But he just kinda hung around the vicinity after that. Just in the periphery. Normally, those who bum smokes aren’t interested in idle chit-chat. Unless they want something from you. Like, say, to punch your mouth, have anonymous sex with you, or steal your wallet. This guy had no malice toward me, wasn’t throwing any come-hither stares, and based upon his appearance he was in no dire need of money (his striped shirt was well pressed). What he did want was to talk to someone. Get some advice. Life-type advice. The kind of advice that a big brother hands down. Like, guidance counselor advice.

He just hit me with a barrage of fears and insecurities, which were in total discord with the opulent Vicci décor.

He asked me if it was okay to be nervous about graduating with a degree in International Finance this summer. With no job prospects. Not sure if he even chose the right degree. Unsure if his parents will kill him for wasting their money. Scared that he’d already wasted too much of his own time with it. Scared that previous opportunities were now moot, and that the last five years of his life had been an embarrassing mistake. Where did his carefree youth go? What should he do come summer? Should he have taken Graphic Design instead? What the fuck is the point of all this ladder climbing if it only leads to more ladders? How come everyone else has the answers, but he’s so goddamn lost about this shit?

Dude was seriously frazzled. Consumed, I would say. And not in a poetic sort of way. More like slow poison.

I was taken aback. The prior few hours had me convinced that everyone there was a pretentious, taking-shit-for-granted, self-centered hedonist. But he flipped that mirror right back on me. He was blabbering the same line of confused, whoa-is-me, hanky-time fear that one hears in any bar, in any town, USA. He was sweating the same shit that I sweated when I was twenty three. That all twenty three year-olds sweat, regardless of whether they admit it or not. Hell, that all thirty year-olds sweat, whether they admit it or not. We’re all in the same boat, just manning different fucking oars. This guy was paddling away right next to me the entire time, and I just assumed him off as one of any number amongst the random asshole parade that strutted around the place.

Well, if it was a parade, then I was in it too. And so are all the kids on Red River. The vomit covered bars on 6th. And the ones staying home to play Trivial Pursuit, watching Tivo’d [adult swim], or getting blazed-up behind the dumpster by the 7-11 on Lamar near 10th. All together, all the same.

No one has a clue what they’re doing, regardless of what they say or believe. That’s the beauty in being human. Limitless potential to either improve, or fuck things up in new and creative ways. Paths are just guidelines, and at some point, we all come to confusing crossroads or hit territory that no one else has ever bothered to enter. This guy needed to get beyond the fact that the path he had been leisurely following was about to come to an abrupt end, and that as scary as it may sound, he was going to have to operate on instinct for the remainder of his life. Perhaps he’d pick up someone else’s path by accident later, perhaps not. Perhaps the path he’d forge would be useful to those who come after him, perhaps not. But that shouldn’t bother anyone. Shouldn’t.

Besides, you can’t rightly sing Sinatra’s “My Way” unless you actually fucking do it at some point, now can you? No, you can't.

In reality, we’re all lost, and there’s nothing wrong with that. 4th street, Red River, 6th, whatever. Same shit - different piles. Perhaps the best we should hope for is to know ourselves (even a little) better than we did at birth, by the time we die. And if we have the opportunity to get to know the others rowing along with us, then that would be nice too. Not that I enjoy seeing others struggle, but it was rather nice to see that the credit-class lives with the same questions and complexes as the tallboy-class. That’s all.

I sure hope that guy got drunk and laid. You know, to get his mind off of things, like the rest of us do.

STROKE!