Blame it on the Arabians...

[To those of the birthday party regarding the events of September 17 at 2 a.m.]

So the six of us -- Ramona, Jeff, Susan, Andreas, Kris and me -- hustle the rest of you good folks out the door so we can get over to the Berghain. Caroline, who was rendezvousing with us at the club later, and I had already been there, so I wasn't creeped out by the back-of-the-yards industrial wasteland that surrounds the Berghain. Kris and I joked that it was like that opening scene of that movie Blade, where the party-boy at the wild dance club all of a sudden finds himself in a vampire blood bath.

Er, I digress...

Anyway, after a lengthy wait in line, I am at the front door with the gang behind me. I am waived in, my bag is searched, my body is given the gentle pat down (by a nicely tattooed babe, I might add). I am pointed over to the cashier, but I turn to wait for the others at the door.

Um, and this is where Jörn's curse on all places with bouncers comes into effect.

One of the guys at the door waves me back and says, "You can stay, but your friends aren't coming in."

At first, I thought it was a joke: a little prank played on the giggly birthday girl or some teasing just to explain the hold up. But he's just waiting for me to say something. I finally give it to him.

"Are you serious?"

He is, he gives no explanation and the gang is simply looking in through the door with their own shocked faces. Chime in here guys with what was said to you directly, because I missed whatever was said while I was getting the pat-down from the nicely tattooed babe.

Anyway, of course I don't stay, but go out instead with them to sort out the confusion.

Eventually, the head bouncer starts to talk with us. He is an African-American guy from New York and he's been working with "these guys" for a while. From his comments, I guess the bouncers at the door are gay, he's not, and we (with the exception of Tammi is-my-bi-showing? Coles), they assume, are not friendly enough to that atmosphere. Ramona drops to him that it's my birthday. It turns out that it is his son's too and he laments that he we didn't point that out to the guys at the door.

Because they would have made an exception to our "not friendly" group in that case???

"Oh, my, why didn't you SAY that!" says the pierced vampire bouncer. With maybe a little giggle thrown in for solidarity....

Anyway, our New York dude didn't have time to explain, as he was having to deal with some "Arabians."

Huh?

He said that a couple of times: that some "Arabians" had been causing trouble and he needed to handle the "Arabians."

(If they look gay enough, maybe they will just slip in... Those damn Arabians!!!)

Anyway, he *was* trying to be nice about the bouncers, even as he was saying that, as their boss, he didn't want to overrule them by taking our group back to the door. His final advice:

Get back in line and break up your group.

I later try to convince Jeff and Kris to go back with their hands in each other's back pockets but, alas, the straight boys decline. Ramona and I definitely could have pulled it off.

Definitely.