Brokedown Palace

Before I get into Friday night's adventure, let me just say that this has to be the blog gem of the day:

"I have to admit, I have never seen her look so beautiful. I was so happy to see her and all I wanted to do was stay in her arms. She was so comfortable and I was happy to just be around her. I can't wait to marry that woman." ~ Joe re: returning home to his fiancee

If that is not the sweetest thing you have ever read then something is seriously wrong with you.

Ok, so Friday, as you all know, I ended up going to the Palace with a bunch of co-workers for a birthday of one of their friends. Daisy came along with me, thank goodness. As soon as I left the house, though, I had the feeling that it was going to be one of those "blech" nights.

I wasn't even 100 feet away from my house (or that's how I figure the distance, you know us Canadians are all about the metric system, but I would suck even estimating the distance in meters so let's just say 100 feet) when the first stupid event of the evening occurred. I was sitting on the bench kitty-corner from my house waiting for the bus. A car slows down and pulls over in front of me. Keep in mind that this street is generally busy and pulling over should only be done with utmost care. Anyway, so car pulls over and in the dark I assume it's the father of one of my brother's friends. Said father has picked me up at this bus stop numerous mornings and offered me a lift to work (back when I worked downtown.)

Just as I was about to get off the bench and graciously accept yet another lift, I came to the realization that I was seriously SERIOUSLY mistaken about the identity of the driver.

Creepy, and I assume dirty, old man in car: "Wanna ride? Enh? Ennnnh?"

I'll bet he was wiggling his eyebrows as he asked me that, too.

"Uh, no, that's alright. Thanks." As I think to myself: "WTF was that all about?"

So I'm sitting there trying to figure out why some creepy old man would have pulled over and tried to "pick me up" as I the second stupid event of the evening went down.

A truck full of guys wolf-whistled at me as they drove past me. Slowly, just like the dirty old man.

At that point I went into penises-are-crap mode and was ready to scream in frustration. My house was right there. Being slightly shaken up I just wanted to head back into the comfort and safety of my home. Luckily, the bus came at that moment. As I hopped on the bus fell silent and I noticed that the only other passengers on the bus was a large group of teenage guys and they were all watching as I got on. Penises-are-crap mode was definitely in full effect with that, and they didn't even really do anything wrong.

Thankfully the train ride was uneventful, which is a huge shock for a Saturday night. Guess I had fulfilled my quota of bs ordeals for the night. We arrived about 6 minutes late, and yet somehow we were the first to arrive. Go figure.

As we waited for everyone else to show up I scanned the line going into the Palace. It was full of young whippersnappers (aka the newly-legal or maybe even those with fake IDs). Worse yet, it was full of young whippersnapper thug-wannabes and little hoochies. Hoochiesnappers. To top it all off, the cultural mix/ethnic ratio was not conducive to my level of comfort. (Yes, yes, racist, I know. Leah's an age-ist racist bizzitch.) And just to clarify, the lineup was teeming with young Vietnamese, East Indian, Chinese, Lebanese, and thanks to Peru-girl and her friends, a Latino contingent. I'm cool with all these groups, except I don't really know a whole lot of Vietnamese, but just the fact that they were the majority of the clientele in line was quite overwhelming.

I said something akin to the following to Daisy: "Man, I know this is going to sound bad but...I'm not even a white girl and I'm feeling uneasy being here." She laughed, but her actually being a quote-unquote white girl I can only imagine how she felt with the scenario. Moreover, she's a white girl who doesn't really care much for hiphop. Yes, Ladies Nite at the Palace hosted by Vibe 98.5 was probably not one of her top 100 ideas of how to enjoy the evening. Fortunately. Palace serves Red Bull so her evening was not in vain.

Ok, so look at my title again. Brokedown Palace. You have no idea how perfectly that describes The Palace now. The whippersnappers were wearing jeans, tshirts, one guy even wore a sweatshirt. A brand name sweatshirt, but a sweatshirt nonetheless. The old Palace would not have even let these people stand in line but now they all get in. Clue no. 1 that The Palace had lost it's "place to see and be seen" status. Enh, more explanation to defend myself 'cuz I'm sure I must be sounding like a snob right about now. I have nothing against wearing jeans to the clubs 'cuz some of my favorites are casual like that. However, The Palace used to be a snazzy dress-code-in-effect type of establishment. Seems like those kind of places are becoming rare. *sigh* SkyBar, please don't fail me now.

Brokedown Palace. You would not believe how sticky the carpets were on the first and second balconies. I was beyond disgusted. I can't stand sticky floors, and sticky carpets are infinitely worse. Besides, carpets in a nightclub are a very bad idea. They were wearing thin or even ragged at some points on the staircases. It truly was a shame. I have since regretted their decision to turn this old cinema/landmark into a nightclub. It's all gone to pot.

The hoochiesnappers who vied for attention in the cages did not know how to dance. "Get out of there sweetheart, and let me show you how it's done." But first let me lose like a thousand pounds so you can compare apples to apples. Anyway, those girls were a waste of prime cage time and space.

Apparently one of my coworkers' friends must have been thinking the exact same thing as me 'cuz she started convulsing on the balcony. It was mortifying, actually, at first. It took me a while to realize that it looked like she was doing some form of belly dancing (the instructional video I have is taught by two Egyptian ladies and nothing this girl was doing was very familiar to me so I assumed she learned from a different region or something). Very lively, energetic, wild movements, feet stomping, crazy overexaggerated hip-circles. Took me a while to get used to but she would have definitely been a better candidate for the cages. Which reminds me; what happened to the girls who were actually hired to dance there?

And the DJ sucked. Why did he have to up the tempo of every single song? To play more songs during the evening? Jay-Z sounded like he was 12, Missy as if she hadn't hit puberty yet, Eminem like his balls had not yet dropped, and Destiny's Child sounded like the young girlfriends of Alvin and the Chipmunks. And oh my god, too much treble! It was loud and tinny. Oi vay, vat a headache had I!

Needless to say it didn't take long for me to get sick of the sticky-carpeted tin can full of hoochiesnappers and thugs-in-training. Combine that with my penises-are-crap mood and I could not get out of there fast enough. Kind of wish that just one guy would have tried to piss me off further as I would have loved to just rage out. It would have done wonders for the evening. Peru-Girl found me as I was getting my stuff out of coatcheck. Turns out they had been looking for me. Oops. But even she admitted that it was annoying how they sped up the music.

And I didn't even get a post-bar dog or pizza slice! Dang it!

Walked by SkyBar, but the doorway was occupied by a drunk fool and his friend. Yeah, no sense trying to salvage the rest of the clubbing evening.

After my brother came home I mentioned I went to The Palace. He gave me this sympathetic and understanding look. The little punk knew it had turned to crap and failed to tell me! Turns out him and his friends haven't gone there in a long while now. As a result, they were at the Cherry Lounge that night.

I could definitely do with a night in Banff right about now.