You wanna prowl

I have to go out tonight, you wanna prowl, be my night owl?

I have to go out tonight
Friday night out in NOLA. It promised to be a big night out too as it was payday (for those people who still had jobs). Casey and I made our way over to a bar called Philip’s where Preston was already ensconced safely at the bar having gone there straight from work. It wasn’t a gay bar but a lot of gays frequented the place on a Friday evening, mainly for the $4 martinis. I started with something sweet knowing it would take me a while to drink it and needing to pace myself. I was introduced to some of Preston’s friends. They asked how long I had been in New Orleans and where else I was off to on my travels. I handed out a couple of my little cards. They had been a great investment.

Whilst we were drinking at the bar I spotted a very tall, good-looking guy sat at the other side of the bar. He caught me looking at him so I smiled politely. Over the course of my first martini we ended up catching each other’s eyes a few times. A little while later he made his way to the bathroom, a trip that took him past where I was standing. As he passed behind me he placed one hand on my waist and leant in to say something. He opened his mouth and a purse fell out. Looks like Tarzan, speaks like Jane – very disappointing. The camp accent completely shattered the illusion. As he continued to the bathroom I turned my attention to the martini menu. I ordered a dirty martini to take the edge off the disappointment of hearing the tall guy speak.

After Philip’s Preston, Casey & I headed to Venezia, a busy little Italian restaurant. Casey was on the phone so he stayed outside to finish his call, leaving Preston & me to go inside. Preston told the waitress of our reservation. I spotted a couple at the bar waving at Preston and calling his name. He didn’t hear them. I tapped him on the arm and nodded towards the couple.

Me:      Preston, there is a couple at the bar calling you & waving at you.

P:         Really?

Me:      Yes. Do you know them?

P:         Oh good god, that is my parents

Me:      Great. Are you going to go over to say hello?

P:         They don’t know you're staying at ours or that Casey and I are sharing.

Me:      I can sleep on the sofa.

P:         If they ask you are in a hotel. 

Me:      Ah ok, got you.

We made our way over and I was introduced to Preston’s parents. I kissed his mum on both cheeks, saying it was a pleasure to meet her. She seemed a little bit taken aback by the greeting. They declined to join us for dinner – they were having date night. They did however send over a bottle of wine for us, which was really sweet of them. Aaron joined the three of us for dinner and I set about lining my stomach in anticipation of things (things being gin) to come.

After dinner the four of us went to the French Quarter, hitting The Pub first. Despite it only being my second time there the barman remembered that I drank gin & tonic and he remembered my name. I was very impressed. I was introduced to another group of Preston & Casey’s friends. I was really struggling to keep names with faces. I decided it was probably easiest just to call everyone “mister”, making it sound like a normal British thing to do to save the embarrassment of me getting any names wrong. I was also introduced to an ex of Preston’s who was also visiting NOLA for the weekend. He seemed quite full of himself, which immediately made me bristle. We didn’t really chat, he spoke at me for a while during which time he put his hand on my arse. I told him to remove his hand.

You wanna prowl

Casey came to my rescue and said that I should probably go and experience the other gay venues nearby rather than just stay in The Pub, that way I could see if there was anywhere else I would prefer to spend the rest of the night. We commenced on a tour of gay NOLA. Across the street from The Pub was a club called Oz. It was more of a dance club, the music not having any words to sing along to & a lot of the men dancing with their shirts off. We stayed for a while, watching the people dancing from the balcony upstairs, shouting to each other over the music. We went to the outside balcony to do a bit of people watching from there too. As we were stood out there watching the people walking up and down Bourbon Street a group of people came out onto the balcony. It was the tall guy from Philip’s and his friends.

He came over to talk to me again. He asked why I was out in his city. I told him I was travelling the world and currently visiting NOLA for a few days. We chatted briefly before he tried to do a British accent. He had clearly had a couple of drinks and didn’t sound very British. He then went off on a small rant saying that at least he hadn’t had to change money to be able to come out that night. I told him that I still had some foreign currency ready for when his country defaulted on its national debt in a few days time. That didn’t seem to go down too well. Casey extricated me from another conversation I didn’t want to be in and we headed on to the next venue – The Corner Pocket. As we walked over to it Casey asked if I had got plenty of one-dollar bills.

Be my night owl?

The Corner Pocket was an interesting venue. The clientele were somewhat older than the places we had been so far, probably attracted by the go-go boys dancing on the bar in their underwear. Most of the dancers looked quite young, most of them also looked quite bored. The men sat along the bar would occasionally tip the dancer a dollar, generally tucking the bill into the front of the dancers underwear, often taking a seemingly long time over it. As I stood watching a thought popped into my head. I wondered if we didn’t really have the same sort of bars back in London because our smallest note was £5, so it would get expensive for the people watching. I couldn’t imagine the dancers wanting to gyrate with underwear filled with one-pound coins.

Between dances some of the strippers would head over to the pool table where there was a half eaten birthday cake, cut themselves a piece and then stand there chatting, in their pants, eating cake. It was a very bizarre scene to stand and watch. Preston’s ex turned up and tried to engage me in conversation, his hand once more returning to my arse. I once again told him to remove it. I told Casey that there were no strippers that had caught my eye so I wouldn’t be parting with any cash. He said the same. We made a brief visit to Rawhide, an establishment as seedy as the name implies. I stayed for the one free drink that the cover charge gave me and nothing else. Casey assured me that it was part of the tour so I could experience the whole spectrum of gay nightlife in NOLA, all in the name of research of course. We headed back to The Pub to finish off our evening there. The barman had a gin and tonic waiting for me by the time I had got my wallet out at the bar. It was definitely the right venue for me.

“I have to go out tonight, you wanna prowl, be my night owl?” 
Lyrics from Out Tonight from the musical Rent