Year of the Cock

We don’t know about you, but over at Night Ranger Headquarters, 2004 has been the year of the random penis encounter.

For example, just a few months ago, we were out reviewing a bar on a fairly quiet night. We were worried that we wouldn’t have enough material to fill our column. Then, long story short, we met a guy, started chatting … and he showed us how he can hang a chair from his Prince Albert.

Example numero dos: Earlier this year, the NR was making out with a friend of a friend of a friend in the back seat of a car — which was so high school it was high school (except we never got that kind of action in high school) — when, somehow, It came out.

“Can I ask you something off the cuff?” asked the hookup.

“Uh. OK,” the NR answered.

“Is this the biggest dick you’ve ever seen?” The NR couldn’t answer because she started giggling madly. (“Well, was it?” ask our friends whenever we relay this story. Despite our penchant for oversharing, we’re going to stay mum on this.)

So it seemed appropriate that to celebrate this year’s end, we headed out to someplace with the word dick in its name — Dick Clark’s American Bandstand Grill in the OP. (Well, the Rockin’ New Year’s Eve, Dick’s stroke tie-in made it appropriate, too.) We had heard that its Studio B nightclub — who knew that it existed? — drew a rather salacious, middle-aged crowd, and of course, the potential weirdness of it all got us excited to make the trek out to Interstate 435 and Metcalf. We called Research Assistants David Wayne, Kevin and Damon and trucked over after 10 p.m. on a Saturday.

After walking by Dick’s cheesy personal memorabilia on our way in, we paid the $3 cover and went into the packed club, which was dimly lighted and refreshingly nonsmoky.

We were a bit surprised to see that Dick Clark’s attracted such a diverse crowd, agewise and racewise. We met two tiny Asian women — a mother-daughter team — with dyed blond hair. Pete, 40 (the mom), was quite short, so much so that even the NR, who also is petite, felt like a giantess hovering over her. We also chatted a bit with Reggie, 40, a fellow Scorpio who was wearing a scorpion pendant on a gold chain. He told us the Bandstand was his neighborhood bar.

Then we found out that Dick Clark’s held a special place in the hearts of Michael, 46, and Tammy, 37, who met there five years ago. Both were clad in black-leather pants. (Michael had given Tammy her pair.) When we first spotted them, Michael, clad in a shirt that exposed quite a bit of his chest, was swiveling and thrusting his hips with great enthusiasm toward Tammy, who was standing off to the side of the dance floor. When we later caught up with them, they were all snuggly.

We questioned them about how exactly they met. “Did your eyes meet across the dance floor?” we asked excitedly. “Who approached whom?”

“My girlfriend saw him walk in and told me, ‘If you don’t like him, you are never going to find a man,'” Tammy said. “I went up and tapped him on the shoulder and asked him to dance.” Unfortunately, they didn’t remember what song it was, but they did recall that it was slow. (We’re hoping it was our future first-dance wedding song, “Open Arms” by Journey.)

Fortunately, there was a lack of slow songs to dance to, seventh-grade style, because the best part of the night was watching a lone guy trying to dance his way into the various chick circles on the floor during the faster numbers. He’d approach a ladycluster and, with the least bit of encouragement (such as, say, fleeting eye contact), grind on one of the unfortunates in the periphery of the circle. We approached one victim, who was standing off to the side with her girl group, snickering with disbelief at him.

“Excuse me,” the NR asked, putting on her Serious Investigative Reporter voice. “Is there a serial grinder here tonight?”

Serina, 21, who was in town from Omaha to visit her sister, gave a shriek of recognition. “Yes! You feel sorry for him because he has no beat, but ain’t nobody gonna dance with him. He’s ready to hump someone … it’s so sad, because my sister is so nice and won’t be rude to anyone, so he’s able to dance with her.”

Then we took a closer look at the grinder and thought we recognized him from a foray to the Blue Moose, where he had been hovering and lurking around our group — our friend Cat thought he rubbed his unit on her when he asked if he could buy her a drink. When we rebuffed his lame pickup attempts, he sullenly came back with one of our favorite rejoinders ever: “I’m gay. I don’t like fucking girls.” Which was followed by this diatribe: “Hey, if you meet any guys, tell me. I want to have sex with a guy. I want to get breast implants, pussy implant. I want to take off my dick and put pussy in and have sex like you.”

The NR approached him to try to verify if it was the same guy, saying, “Hi. I write for the Pitch. Can I interview you?” He curtly said no, gave us the hand and walked off. Which, of course, confirmed in our minds that it was the same guy. Maybe he might have been more receptive had we danced up to him and rubbed against him, but hey, we’re not Serious Journalist enough to do so. Especially when our digital camera suddenly dies and we have to fall back on RA Damon’s fuzzy cell-phone photos. Yeah, we’re so professional.

The cheezoid novelty of Dick’s wore off quickly.

“I think I’ve been rendered impotent,” Kevin said.

“I now have E.D. and inverted nipples,” David added.

So we made the drive back, just thankful that no penises were unsheathed at us that night.