How to Hyde from a Good Time...!

This week I went to a place called “Hyde.” Hyde is the bar of the decade of the week here in Los Angeles. All those videos and pictures you see, from the paparazzi, where Colin Farrell is out looking for some hoo-hoo, Paris Hilton is talking about Lindsay Lohan’s hoo-hoo, or Britney Spears accidentally flashing her hoo-hoo – they’re all taken when people are either coming or going - from Hyde.

You could say that the guest list at Hyde is a veritable “Who’s Hoo-hoo.”

My roommate Sam’s friend is a model. As a gift for letting her stay with us, The Model decided she would take us to Hyde, even though we don’t have hoo-hoo’s, which, according to her is difficult. I wouldn't think it'd be that tough at 10:3o on a Tuesday, but apparently I was wrong.

That was the first of many lessons I learned on this evening. The first of many, I hope to impart on you, the reader. Enjoy.

How To Get Into The Club:

Have a friend who is a model. Or an actress. Or a slut. Or all three. In this town that can sometimes be as good as being a celebrity. Then, get her to get some dude who’s wrapped around her finger to get you in.

(Before I lose more friends as a result of this blog, let me specify that The Model is only two out of the three.)

I can’t give away every secret about how we got in, but the girls went in on their own, and I will only say (this is COMPLETELY true) that our entry involved meeting a stranger at a Coffee Bean, purchasing three hot chocolates, and bribing the door men with them – at which point they let Sam, myself, and The Stranger in without even checking our ID’s.

How To Dress:

Once inside we met a couple of The Model’s friends. Guys. Now, after seeing these guys, I realized that The Model hadn’t made herself perfectly clear when she instructed me on how to dress: Apparently, to hang out at Hyde, you either need to dress nice, or dress like you’re circa 1890’s British street urchin.

I’m sure the guy’s black t-shirt, army surplus jacket, raggedy school cap, and fingerless gloves probably all went for upwards of a grand at some retro-tique, but all in all, it made him look like the vagabond kid from “Santa Claus: The Movie.”



Bathroom Ettiquette:

Fingerless Gloves and his friend were in the bathroom, jabberjawing about how bad the DJ was, when his friend started giving him shit for not washing his hands.

(To be perfectly honest, I’m pretty ambivalent to men’s room handwashing. Don’t get me wrong, I do it, but I don’t care whether or not other people do. If you think about it, they touch their penises, then the faucet – which has already been touched by several other penis-hands. So if a guy walks out without washing up, you’re getting one penis. If he washes, you’re getting God-knows how many. Either way you slice it, our hands are all fucking dirty all the time anyway. Get over it.)

But, back to Fingerless Gloves. His friend’s guilt trip eventually caused him to run his hands under the water for a bit. Fair enough. But, in what might have been the most amazing thing I’ve seen in a long time, he washed his hands without removing the fingerless gloves.

Maybe he only washed his fingers. Maybe his $700 fingerless gloves were waterproof. I don’t know. All I knew is that as cool as that guy thought he was, he had just washed his hands while wearing gloves. That had to put me a notch above him.

How To Interact With Women:

It’s amazing how well a man can do with women when they think he might be somebody - but especially when they want him to be somebody. I say this, because I was looked up and down more times tonight than I ever have been before in my life - except for my last trip to San Francisco (but I don’t think that counts considering I was in a “Bear Bar”).

There are of course the truly horrible girls who make eyes at you until they realize you aren’t someone “important” and then they take those eyes and roll them, but most of them aren’t really that bad at heart.

Your Average Hyde Girl:

She is a terribly sweet person. She’s super nice, but she’s been a hot chick for a long time now. Going out is her “work.” She’s got to say hi to the right people, flirt with the right people, and she always has to keep one eye on the door. Then, right when you’re about to hit the punchline of a really solid joke, somebody “important” will walk in, and you will become invisible just long enough for them to exchange a couple of air-cheek kisses, a few half hearted promises to hang out soon, and once the two have left earshot of one another they each will mutter, “God, I hate that person.”

I always said that I can’t blame the girls in this city. Should they turn down peoples’ offers to fly them around the world and drink and party all the time? No fucking way. Can I run with that crowd? No fucking way. When we’re all hanging out together, our two groups blend together seamlessly enough, but it always seems like the people from that side of the tracks are never actually having any fun.

They’re all pretty nice for the most part, but it takes something ridiculous to thrill these people. They’re not terribly whiney, but they’re always talking about how the club is always more fun on other nights, or that some other jumpoff is really blowing up that night, and saying things like “this place was really awesome on Sunday. Richard Hatch was here. It was totally off the chain.”

How To Interpret Signals:

As opposed to all the times I’ve lied about or hallucinated it, girls were genuinely checking me out. Alright, there was still once time that I must have been hallucinating it, because as I walked toward one girl I was sure was giving me the eye, she gave me the most forced, mouth-closed smile of all time. It could have been that I was wrong, or maybe she was just disappointed that when I got up close she could finally see that I wasn’t Jamie Kennedy.



How To Have A Good Time:

But in the end, when I’m not drinking, I’m only having as good a time as the people around me. And the people around me spent the hours between 11pm – 1am watching the door, trying to decide if we should go somewhere else, talking about “we should have gone to Teddy’s.” Everyone breathed a sigh of relief when Nicole Ritchie showed up, and it was finally cool enough for us to stick around.

Most of my night was spent being introduced to people who could get “on all the good lists,” and listening to stories of things that had happened there on nights gone by. And it was when I considered this that I realized the trick:

No one can have fun the first time. They’ve got no other nights to talk about and say how much better those nights were! See, next time I go there, I will have already been there once. That way, I’ll be able to talk about how much better it was that last time I was there.

How To Communicate With Females:

Girl: So I was just about to break up with that guy over there, and then he’s like “Let me fly you to Barbados for your birthday.”
Joe: Oh, that’s fantastic. We have so much in common – first both of our bodies are
composed of 70% water, both of our parents have children, and now we have Barbados!
Girl: --blank stare—
Joe: Nevermind.
Girl: OMG, did you see the Night at The Museum? The guy who played one of the Ronan
Soldier guys is here and he totally stalks me.

How To Leave ‘Em Wanting More:

On the way out, I had to walk past one particular girl who, to me, appeared to be one of the most attractive in the place, as I had noticed her far earlier in the evening - partially because, oddly enough, she appeared to be having fun. As I walked past her, she took her scarf and tickled me with it as I walked by. I stopped to say hello, and in response she said “I really loved you in Malibu’s Most Wanted!”

Alright. That didn’t happen. But I did completely let it go. I wanted to leave Hyde on a high note, and by “high” I don’t mean Nicole Ritchie.

How To Not Be A Hater In A Club Where You’re Not Having That Great Of A Time. But You Want To Make Sure It’s Actually The Club And The Other People That Suck And Not Just You:

Honestly, I’m not that big of a hater. I just see a lot of humor in the world. I guess what I’m saying is, “It’s not you, Hyde. It’s me.”

All in all, the place wasn’t that bad. No one was particularly mean, or pretentious, and the staff were all very, very nice. It just wasn’t very fun. Under different circumstances, I probably would have had a great time. Had I gone with different people, or had the people I was there with not left a conversation with me mid-sentence in order to say hi to Jack Osbourne, or if I had been completely hammered, I might have had a blast.

Either that or a pair of fingerless gloves.