Peacocking Disaster Recovery - Case Study
From Ladder Wiki
I told this story to BillyDee in person, but now that "peacocking" is being bashed on the threads here, I thought it might be an appropriate time to recount this story.
Cliff's Notes for Fucking Tanz: I dressed up like a weirdo, almost blew it and looked like a retard (which I'm a retard anyway, but that's beside the point) but managed to save the situation by making it congruent with my personality, and made a whole lot of new friends at the karaoke bar I frequent thanks to it. I did not take anyone home, but was not aiming to, so no loss.
I'd like to start off the story by reiterating, I have a retarded sense of humor. I identify with the movie "Napoleon Dynamite" because that sense of humor and nonsensical stuff is right up my alley. Also "Dude, Where's My Car?" Stuff like that is my sense of humor. Also overblown, overdramatic stuff like "Pete & Pete" on Nickelodeon. Furthermore, you should know (and probly do by now) that I do not like getting dressed up. I wear a t-shirt and cargos pretty much every day, and I don't dress any different when I'm "going out", most of the time. Occasionally if I feel like "getting dressed", what that means is wearing nice clothes the wrong way, such as using a necktie for a belt and wearing a brown belt with gawdy black shoes, because I think that fashion rules are for fags. :D I don't do it for the attention so much as I hate dressing up, and it's my political statement to the world to dress poorly and be in people's faces, yet keep my perky funny attitude so it's not so obnoxious. You could say I've been peacocking before I knew the term.
On with the story.
My karaoke life is a drama in itself, but I'll begin at episode 4: A New Hope. I used to do karaoke at a certain bar that I fit in at well and I totally owned the place, then the bar quit doing karaoke all together. I had to get my weekly DIVA FIX, so I started looking for new venues. I found a pool hall/biker bar that did karaoke, and it was a much tougher crowd, but they had a better Prince selection than the bar I recently "pwned", so I decided to pick it up there. And as should be obvious by now, I hardly get embarrassed by anything, so if the bikers didn't like Prince, fuck them. This was my chance to SET MY SOUL ON FIRE and no one was going to stop me.
When I got there I ran into a guy who had been around my old bar a few times, and made the mistake of singing some of my classic tunes, which is a karaoke kardinal sin. But he knew that, and after talking with him some I learned that he was as elitist as I was about karaoke and we had a lot in common. Including that I think he's kindof IW material right now... he's kinda shy, he's slow/awkward around girls, and it's sad to see, he's like me from 3 years ago or so. So I took him under my wing (actually he was taking me under his, as the biker bar was his home court, as it were).
Well after a few weeks of ROCKING EVERYONE'S ASS with "Let's Go Crazy", I was gaining some popularity among the tough crowd there. Started gaming up some tables right after a song, social proof was building, it wasn't bad.
One night, maybe my 3rd or 4th week there, Karaoke King Adam (ma boi there) says "Dude, see this chick up there now?" She was singing "Wanted (Dead or Alive)" by Bon Jovi. I expected him to drop some more elitist bitching about how that song is overdone at karaoke, which is true, but I don't like to bash people all the time like he does... Instead he says "She's a regular around here. I've been trying to talk to her lately. I've talked to her a few times actually, but she's really flighty." She was indeed hot, easily a 10. I wasn't terribly interested in her myself though, although she was fun to look at.
He continues, "I see her hanging on all these guys here, kissing a bunch of them. And the karaoke DJ. I don't think she's really cool."
"Meh," I say. "Some chicks are like that. Whatev."
"Don't think about her," he tells me, "she's a waste of your time."
"Well I can tell that by looking at her," I say, "I wasn't interested anyway. But thanks for the warning, I suppose..."
As she goes on singing her song, Adam drops lines occasionally such as,
"But damn she's got hot legs."
"Mm hmm."
"Her eyes are beautiful."
"Yeah."
I humor him, as well as admit that I do find her attractive, "She's got beautiful hair too. That Jennifer Aniston thing, kinda dirty, but really sexy."
"Hell yeah," he affirms. "She usually wears glasses too."
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah, like, these nerdy little box frame glasses, thick square frames..."
"So you're saying, like mine?" I ask.
"Uh... well yeah, that's what I meant. Exactly like yours."
"I see...." I say, scratching my beard and hatching a plan.
When she's finished with her song, she comes through the aisle of tables and passes ours on the way to hers. I simply reach out and grab her wrist, since she'd never hear me calling her anyway...
"Hey! Good job with Bon Jovi there, excellent choice."
"Oh thanks, I--" and I didn't want to hear her ingenuine woman-babble, I cut her off,
"Listen, me and my friend here," point to Adam, "were wondering how cute you might look wearing my glasses!" and I pull them off my head being a little snazzy, as though I made the fashion discovery of the century.
"Oh my God, I have glasses JUST LIKE these!!" she seems all excited.
"Oh REALLY?" I ask, "Then it looks like you have taste as good as mine." The irony made me cry inside. "Aw look, you do look cute in those!"
"I KNOW, right? Man, your vision's horrible..."
"Yeah I'm sure I'd say the same to you..." and snatch my glasses from her hand as though she aggravated me, "Challenge me with your pair later." Put my glasses on my head and said "But good job singing anyway," and turned away from her and back to Adam disinterested.
"Thanks!" much more enthusiastically this time, and walked away.
"Good job, dude," Adam says sheepishly, with an awkward "I GOT TOLD" sense of amazement in his face.
"There's really nothing to it, guy. Don't be scurred of her."
"Are you gonna try and pick her up?" he asks.
"Nah, I don't care about her, just having fun with her." I say.
Later in the night, I go up to the bar for another beer, and she's standing at the bar. I poked her in the back to get her attention, negged her somehow (I think I said she was in my way, I had to get to the bar) and I don't remember our exchange right there, but it was short, and sure enough she ran to go hang on some other guy like right after that. Meh. She's flighty, I knew that. And again, I'm just messing with her anyway. Go back and sit down with Adam. I think I had one more exchange with her somewhere, just a one-liner and got lost.
After about 2 hours from our first encounter, she comes to our table and says "Dude, you guys are really cool, and I love the way you sing. My birthday is tomorrow, why don't you come to my party?" and hands us two sheets of paper with maps drawn on them. Adam is dumbstruck, I am laughing hysterically on the inside, and deviously smiling on the outside.
"Oh awesome, we'd LOVE to be there! Thanks a lot!"
She says "Can't wait to see ya'll there!" and skips off.
Adam says "Should we go to this party?"
I say, "Why SHOULDN'T we go? Damn guy, come on, social situation! Not in a bar! House parties are where it's at."
He looks unenthusiastic, and I add, "Dude, FREE BEER, you can't say no to that."
"I don't drink, at all. I try to keep my body clean, it's a religious thing."
"....? Really?" I say, once again, choking on the irony that someone pulls the morals card on ME for a change... "What religion?"
"Bahai" (I dunno about the spelling, but, "buh-HIGH" I guess. He says it's Palestinian in origin, anyway, little convo about that, and I move on)
"Ok, so you don't drink, so free booze doesn't entice you. Fine. Still, social situations here. This is a good time to talk to her some more, if you're still interested in her!"
"I dunno man, I don't really do parties."
"Oh what, people drinking around you makes you soooo nervous, huh?" I mock him, "Look around here. Look at ME for God's sakes."
"You're drunk? Geez, I couldn't tell."
"Yes. I'm wacky anyway, what can I say..." and I suddenly get serious, "Look, I'm taking you to this party. You gotta get out more. It'll be fun, I promise."
"What kinda party do you think it will be?"
I stopped for a minute to think. "Well, considering she's a super hot chick (hold out one finger), hanging on lots of random guys (hold out another finger), and inviting STRANGER guys (hold out a third) from a BAR (fourth finger), I'm thinking this is going to be a massive party, with a lot of strange people. She's hot, possibly so-ho material, and birds of a feather dictates that a lot of sorority girls will be there. Not my type, but eye-candy nonetheless. And probably frat guys. Since she's so willing to invite just anyone there, there's probably going to be TONS of people there. So I expect a few kegs, so-ho's and frat guys, and a total of like 100-200 people."
Adam looks intimidated.
I reassure him, "Look man, I know people in this town. I know everyone and their mom, and I GUARANTEE that I will know at least 2 or 3 people who will be cool there, and if nothing else, we've got Lindsay (this hot singer chick) to talk to. Given she's flighty as hell, but all we gotta do is talk to her, see who she talks to, then talk to that person, and hell, we can talk about how retarded she is that we just can't keep a conversation with her longer than 30 seconds. If you say it condescendingly like you look down on her for that, then it shows you aren't succumbing to her whims, thus making you a real man and getting some respect there. Just do what I do, I'll host you."
He says "Eh. Maybe. Maybe it'll be fun."
"It WILL be fun, trust me."
We make plans to meet up ahead of time, since he isn't driving he agrees to DD for me, and I told him that's great, but he's gotta stay as long as I tell him to, no chickening out early and having a bad time.
The next day we meet up, and I get dressed for the party. I figure, a bajillion people comprised of the sorts of folks I hate, HMMM.... I don't really give a shit what they think about me. They'll all be in their precious pink polo shirts with their gelled hair and wussy-man facial hair. I gotta stand out. I mean, my personality will anyway, but fuck it, I wanna be in these people's faces. I'm not thinking about women here, there will probably not be anyone there I'd be into anyway, so I'm gonna have fun. The RedSeraph paper doll that night comprised of:
- A white Weezer t-shirt, the one with the Chinese take-out box playing guitar
- A navy blue mechanics shirt over that, with the Nintendo logo on the pocket and the "Mario + Mushroom = Big Mario" equation on the back
- My silver ring with dragons on it on my left hand middle finger
- Khaki cargos (nothing special)
- Blue Airwalks (my usual)
- A top hat with a giant styrofoam gold dollar sign on it that I made as part of ... *shrug* fucking cosplay at AWA two years ago. I went as Joker from Viewtiful Joe, google him or play that game, it was fucking hot. Anyway, it's exactly as described and looks hilarious, I've found many occasions to wear it out.
- A walking cane that I got from an old man, a professor who was teaching a class at the summer camp where I was a counselor for like 8 years. He gave it to me when I showed up to the camp dance wearing the very top hat I mentioned, and the old man wandered over to me and said, "Your ensemble is not complete without this," and gave me his spare cane. It's a straight cane, not a curved handle on top, just a knob, it's pretty classy.
Adam, of course, was mortified, but letting me run with it. He was used to my personality by now and this wasn't anything all that out of the ordinary for me. I smiled, made a pose, told him "Dude, you gotta lighten up. Relax. These people don't matter, this night doesn't matter. We're gonna have fun." His mounting anxiety was only fueling my enthusiasm, I couldn't wait to get there.
We start driving out to the place, and while I'm reading the map in the co-pilot seat, it occurs to me that the place is kinda in the boonies. I know this boonie part of town though, it's a ritzy neighborhood hidden away in the woods. It's too nice and too expensive for a college student to rent any place out there, and I don't think there are apartments there. Which leads me to believe she's a townie, and this is her parents' house. It's probably huge and nice, so it'll be a great pad for a party, and furthermore, it's great news for me, since I'm a townie too. There ought to be other townies there, and I can play the "Did You Know?" game, which I rule at. Social networking is my #1 tactic for getting in with crowds. I'm assuming of course, that her parents will not be there.
We pull into the yard, there's a bunch of cars there. It's not very loud though. I put on my hat, work on my strut, and march up the driveway, Karaoke King Adam in tow, in his very normal and uninteresting band t-shirt and jeans. We can hear voices in the backyard, must be where the "party" is, although it's pretty quiet. I fiddle with the latch and shove the door wide open using my cane and looking very pretentious with an eyebrow lifted as I enter the yard.
The very, desolate yard. :( With a bonfire and maybe 10 people around it. And an older gentleman coming my way on the tile walkway through the backyard. Lindsay starts rushing over my way and she's got some friend with her. She races past the old man, and I say kinda loudly "Whoo! Looks like the party can start now!" and she says "Yer dAmn RiGht!!" she's obviously already wasted at 10pm. She throws her arms around me and says "Haha, this outfit is AWESOME, I am sO glad yOu caMe likE tHis, you're HILARIOUS Red!" she's seen my "singing" before.
"This is my dAd!" she says, turning my attention toward the older man. Uh-oh.
At this point it occurs to me that I am peacocked to the TEETH at a small party, and I'm meeting her FUCKING FATHER. But you know what? Can't stop now! Gotta be congruent with it, right? Carrying on the same enthusiasm I had when I kicked open the door,
"HEY there, Mr. Lindsay!" and thrust out my empty hand for him to shake. I always refer to someone's parents as Mr. or Mrs. that-person's-name, to be cute.
"Howdy son," he says with a small smile, a redneck gentleman. "That's a nice hat, there."
"Made it ma'self!" I say with a wink and leaning toward him.
"Oh yeah?" he asks.
"Yeah, threw it together for a Halloween costume once a few years ago. I thought it turned out pretty nice and I like to wear it around whenever I get the chance." I take it off and marvel at my craftwork. "It gets pretty good reviews," I add enthusiastically.
"Well I like it." He says.
Lindsay butts in, "Red is HILARIOUS, daD, you sHould seE hiM sinG PriNce at kaRaoke!!" and then runs off not even waiting for him to respond.
"That so?" he says.
"Yeah, it's funny, actually, I just met Lindsay yesterday at the bar, haha... But I've been singing there a while, so I must have made an impression."
"Well that's good, good. We got a lotta karaoke folks here, you should talk to Christi. Help yourself to a beer, sir! They're on the back porch."
"Well thanks a lot, sir!" and I hoisted my cane and made my way to the porch. The dad seemed pretty impressed with how personable and friendly I was, and appreciated my extravertedness and ready to be goofy without care attitude. I definitely won him over.
Walking up to the porch I had to meet lots of people, and obviously they were intimidated by me at first, which was more than what I wanted, it was too much. Again, if this was like 100 people, I wouldn't care, I'd want that. But this was close-quarters social combat and I was using a fucking bazooka. So, I still calmly and coolly approached each person, male and female, and just got them to laugh and relax around me, and I did pretty well. It turned out there were more people inside the house, the party was about 30 people. There were like 5 coolers of beer and a few handles of liquor, so plenty enough for a free ride on my part.
So I meet this chick Kailyn, she looks vaguely familiar but I can't place her. She tells me she's Lindsay's sister. Aha! I've seen her at the biker bar before, of course. Nice to meet you. Move on.
I met Kelly, she also tells me she's Lindsay's sister. How quaint! Nice to meet you, move on. (Of course, full, short conversations take place each time, but... you know)
I meet John, Lindsay introduces him to me as her brother. He looks familiar too, I guess he was one of the guys at the bar too. She was probly hanging out with him. He's ok. I AMOG him a bit just to make sure he doesn't get over-protective of her around me, particularly since I don't even want her. He ends up thinking I'm not a bad guy.
I meet Nicole, who I'd already met and gamed up a little at the biker bar a few weeks earlier. And Nicole's friend Brittany. Turns out Nicole and Brittany are sisters (Brittany was adopted though) and they are Lindsay's cousins. .... WTF? Nice to see you guys again too.
Eventually I talk to this red-headed chick smoking a cigarette who is pretty attractive. Her name's Christi. She says she's Lindsay's older sister. At this point I flip out,
"Holy crap, who here is NOT related to Lindsay!?!"
Christi says, "Hahaha, pretty much all of us are. There's 6 kids in our immediate family, I'm the oldest daughter, Mike is the oldest sibling. Lindsay's the 5th, so almost the baby."
Lindsay stumbles over almost falling into the bonfire, "YEAhh HEY! I'm nO BaBY! I'm 24 tOdayy!!1"
"Happy birthday, sweetie" I yell to her almost condescendingly.
Christi goes on, "and yeah, the rest of us are cousins. That lady there's our Aunt Maddie..."
I burst out again, "Man, CRAZY! It's like the whole Lindsay Clan is here!" Once again, I always refer to someone's family as the (their first name) clan, just 'cuz I think it's funny. That's when her dad walks up and says,
"Well you do know why we named her Lindsay, right?"
And I say, "Ooh! Ooh! Let me guess.... Like... that... GUY, from Fleetwood Mac!!"
He says, "Naw", very anti-climacticly. "It's because my wife's maiden name is Lindsay."
"Aw that's nice," I say.
"Yeah, they're Scottish and Irish, ya see. So it really is," and Christi joins in,
"The Lindsay CLAN."
It suddenly all makes sense to me now. And it's very, very, odd. It was one of those "I see the Matrix moments", and suddenly it makes sense. All the guys she's been hanging on in the bar, and even kissing on the cheek... they're her brothers and cousins! It doesn't count! It's just familial affection! I recognized like everyone there from the bar now, I started putting faces together with memories, and it was all very strange. Christi went on to tell me that Aunt Maddie there has a karaoke machine in her living room, and sometimes the whole clan gets together and they get wasted and sing karaoke by themselves in the house! They're all addicts!
Christi then recounts, over three cigarettes and two drinks, her entire karaoke career to me and Adam. We sit by the fire exchanging stories, and Christi ended up being a fucking awesome chick. She was actually 30, and didn't look a day over 24 to me. And she was married (boo hoo), but she had a lot of badass stories. She told me about the history of karaoke in Tallahassee, huffing her cigarette hard like a battle-hardened veteran, "Back in the day, the only place you could do karaoke in town was a place called 'The Speakeasy.' And it really was one, there was no sign outside, you had to just know where it was...." She shared the same elitist attitudes that me and Adam did, "You know, I hate it when people sing Black Velvet. Nothing wrong with the song itself, just that fucking EVERYONE sings it at karaoke, and it's overdone." Me and Adam totally agreed. I completely forgot about girls and meeting people and we just talked karaoke for like an hour, completely enthralled. She also gave me some of Lindsay's history, "I set her up with the karaoke DJ at that biker bar." It made sense to Adam now why she was always all over the DJ... "They broke up a few months ago, I don't think she's over him yet though." Perfect. Still, we had plenty of stories for her too and we all got along great. By the end of it she said, "Listen, as the oldest daughter in the Lindsay Clan, I get to say who is and isn't honorary family. And you are seriously fucking cool, Red. Today, you are my cousin." Fuck yes.
With that we went inside to get more drinks, and I started mingling some more. One girl there was a hot, hot girl I had physics with in high school, I recognized her immediately. She was super shy back then, and so was I, so we never talked. But I opened her up and we played catch up, and she was pretty damn cool. I asked for her number, she gave it to me, but then flaked out the next week. Whatevs.
Another girl there was an old best friend of my sister's in high school. She also looked familiar and I couldn't peg her, but she eventually figured out who I was and mentioned my sister, then I remembered her. She was very attractive at that age, but since then she got in a bad car accident last year, and was wheelchair-bound for 6 months. In that time thanks to inactivity, she gained 50 pounds... She was cool to talk to though, we also exchanged numbers and I've been hanging out with her here and there, but nothing's happening there, and I'm not sure I want it to. She's a little too crazy-party-girl for me anyway. To demonstrate the point, let me mention that I actually had to break her up in a bar fight with some other chick at the biker bar two weeks later.
Also met a big black dude who had my mother for his substitute teacher in elementary school, and apparently he was in the shop class that I was the teacher's aid for in high school. We're now buddies.
Over the following weeks, every time I went back to the biker bar for karaoke - which I was planning on doing every week anyway - it's now like I'm going to catch up with family. It isn't just me and Adam rocking the joint anymore. Now I'm sitting at this table of 20 people, most of the women pretty hot, and they all call me "cousin" now, it's hilarious. And they all seem to love my company.
So while the story's lost its... point? about peacocking... Ok yeah, the story has no point. That's just something awesome that happened to me in the last couple months. But yeah, the going crazy looking stupid thing didn't really set me back very far, and I made a lot of friends that night. It's still all about your personality behind it and being congruent with your look. If you look weird but you give people the fun attitude through it, they'll learn to appreciate it the way you do within a minute or two. It isn't hurting me, anyway.
--RedSeraph 13:39, 14 July 2006 (PDT)
