Issue date: 4/13/09 Section: Opinion

Media Credit: James Cavin [Click to enlarge]

In the past eight hours, I've been publicly and inappropriately touched against my will by members of both sexes, witnessed a street fight broken up by bicycle cops, missed my car ride and had a bird poop on me. Yeah - it's been an awesome night. Now, if you'll excuse me for a moment, I'm going to go shower off some of the shame. And by "shame," I mean, "pigeon excrement and drunk girl vomit and something that I'm going to tell myself is oatmeal because the alternatives are too frightening."

Northgate. A teeming mass of fetid corruption, if ever there was one. I've never really felt the desire to go to Northgate before, mostly because I've never felt the desire to be publicly violated by a man-rapist in a Bubba baseball cap and a Led Zeppelin T-shirt. That, and I can never bring myself to order anything because there's some unstated rule that all mixed shots must be named after some combination of a disgusting biological function and a felony carrying no less than a 30-year sentence: "Yeah, I'll take the milky discharge, ***** ****ing bikini, ***** serial strangler ******* on a beach and two bloody ****ulations." For the record, that last one is equal parts Bailey's and Tabasco.

OK, I'll admit that "man-rapist" might be exaggerating things a little. All he really did was try to undress me, and I didn't stick around to find out what the rest of his plans were, even though he was probably just making them up on the fly.

"Thanks," I said, making a mental note to purchase a combination Taser/emasculator device at the next possible chance.

"GHDGHSSK," he said, a vacant look on his face and a single shimmering line of drool running down his Three Musketeers-style goatee and onto Led Zeppelin's drummer.

Unfortunately, I didn't have time to start a street fight. I was on the job, (maybe he was, too.) I was undercover, reporting on the secret seedy world of Northgate. There were only two rules for my assignment: 1) Don't drink anything; 2) Write down everything that happens. I needed a clear head and an unbiased observer's perspective. I also needed this freak to stop unzipping my clothes.

I had been pacing up and down the strip for a quarter of an hour. I couldn't decide which establishment to patronize, mostly because they all looked identical: inebriated individuals wearing far less clothing than their frame required grinding on each other. I almost broke my no-drinking rule so I could wash the vomit taste out of my mouth. The only place that looked even somewhat original was the sushi restaurant that apparently turns into a bar, Transformers-style, at night. All I know is I walked by and there was a huge line outside of it, alongside a "21 & Up" sign. That's some serious sushi.

Continued...

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