Though my actual birthday was Tuesday the 8th, and though I did do a bit of celebrating that night as well (I do not want to smell tequila until at least late August) the real night of partying was last night.  In an effort to go some place other than the regular bars I frequent in West LA, I considered going out in the South Bay (Manhattan/Hermosa Beach).  I hadn’t come up with a solid plan until Thursday when a friend of mine from college informed me that it was her birthday on Friday and that she was planning on going out in Manhattan Beach.  ”Hurrah, let’s party together” I said, and that was indeed the plan.  She told me she had already made plans for her and her friends to go to this place called 12th and Highland which, creatively enough, rests on the corner of 12th and Highland in Manhattan.  So I sent out a mass text to inform my friends where we would be and that they should come and if they did not I would throw things in their general direction.

Yesterday, I slept in, lounged around for a bit, made my traditional trip to Fatburger before a big night of drinking and picked up some Sailor Jerry’s – the most delicious and strong alcohol I drink with any regularity.  I told the boys to meet at my place around 6:30 to play some dominoes, drink and hang out before we headed down to Manhattan.  I spoke to Larry and Kieran at 6:15 and Larry refused to communicate in any way other than to sing “we on our way, we on our way, we on our way” over and over.  7:00 rolled around and still no signs of anyone.  7:10 I texted Larry to ask if he was making his trek from Tibet or some other Southeast Asian country, as opposed to his house down the street.  7:15 I got in the shower to get ready.  7:16 Larry and Kieran arrived.

We drank half the handle of Sailor, all felt comfortably numb (with the exception of Kieran, who drove) and piled into the car to head to the bar around 9:00.  We managed to find parking all of 100 feet from the bar (an anomaly in any part of LA if you don’t count valet – even the fucking FedEx Kinko’s in West LA has valet parking) and walked up to the bar feeling good.  We were buzzed, we were in good spirits, we had friends on the way, the other half of our joint birthday extravaganza was supposed to bring several women as well, the evening looked prosperous.  However, we overlooked the fact that 1. we were in Manhattan Beach, CA, Population: Whitey McWhite and 2. our party of 5 was 80% black.

I walked up to the doorman first as I was a good 20 feet ahead of my friends who were busy checking out some new Aston Martin parked nearby.  I was met with a brief glance, a smile, a “come right in, sir” and I moved past the ropes and waited on the other side, informing PerfectlyNiceDoorGuy that my friends were walking up right now.  As soon as they turned the corner, the rope that he was holding open for me to walk through was re-latched to its post, closing off the entrance to new customers.  He froze.  My friends – 4 well dressed black gentlemen in their mid-20s – approached the rope and waited to be let in.  It was at this juncture that PerfectlyNiceDoorGuy turned into RagingAssholeRacistDoucheBag and spent 2-3 minutes stammering over his words and searching my friends over for a valid reason to deny them entry.  We allowed him this fun exercise in racism before I interrupted with:

Me: “What’s the problem?  This place is still empty, we have a joint birthday party here tonight and these are my friends.  What’s the holdup?”  He started to try to come up with some way that we weren’t supposed to be there.

RARDB: “Well do you have bottle service?  Do you have a table reserved?”  At this point he clicked the screen on his iPhone back and forth without opening any applications or looking at anything and then said, “Nope, you guys definitely don’t have a reservation here.”

Me: “Does that mean we can’t come in and party here?  Does everyone that comes in need to have a reservation?”

RARDB: “Well no, but…but…we he clearly doesn’t meet dress code, he needs to pull up his pants and tuck his shirt in.”  He was gesturing towards my friend Yohance, who was dressed in a neatly ironed blue button up shirt and slacks, that hung a little low.  ”We don’t allow baggy clothing in here.”

Me: “Woooow”

Yohance obliged and pulled his pants up, tucked his shirt in and RARDB realized he had no more non-blatantly racist objections to make, so he said, “ok, let me see your IDs.”  Though he did not check mine, he scoured over every detail of my four friends’.  I was extremely tempted to walk off and had we not planned a joint birthday party here and had I not told all my friends to meet us here, we would have.  We walked in to find the place damn near empty, save for 5-6 couples finishing up dinner.  We wandered towards the back and took a seat in the booth that was not near anyone except two 50+ lovebirds who barely took notice to our presence.

Larry decided to order a round of shots and drinks to take the edge off.  As soon as the Patron was coursing through our veins and we were back to laughing and having a good time, RARDB pulled me aside again.

RARDB: “You can’t stand up over here, all of you need to sit down in the booth.”  It appeared that the fact that Kieran and I were standing while Clarence, Larry and Yohance crowded in the booth was unacceptable because it would disrupt the other customers finishing up dinner.

Me: “What are you talking about?  We can’t all fit in there.”

RARDB: “And tell your friend to sit up and take his feet off the furniture…”  This time he was gesturing toward Larry who was slumped a little in his seat, with his leg lying on the booth, though his feet were not touching anything other than air or the floor.

I went back over and told Kieran to pull up a chair and sit down so we didn’t make the white folk nervous, set my drink down and went in search of the manager.  I found a waiter and asked him where I could find someone in charge, explaining that the doorman had been nothing but a racist dick to me and my friends since the moment we walked up.  He apologized profusely and told me he would try to locate the manager for me.  Several minutes later the manager came up to me, and I pulled him to the side and basically told him what I had told the waiter – that the doorman had been an insufferable ass from the moment of our arrival and that he had treated my friends differently than me and everyone else in the establishment because they were black.  Instead of taking the “the customer is always right, let me make this better for you approach” that the waiter employed, he defended his doorman’s actions.

Manager: “It’s our policy to hold the door any time a large group of guys comes up at any point of the evening, I can assure you race and ethnicity had nothing to do with it.  And he was right to inform you that you couldn’t be loud and disruptive to our dinner guests…later on you can do whatever you want, stand on the booths for all I care, but it’s tough to make the transition from a dining establishment to a club and we have to handle it very delicately.  And the doorman you referred to is the owner.”

Just.  Fucking.  Awesome.

A couple friends showed up and had a drink with us, which we weren’t even able to finish before we were hurried off our table because someone had reserved that table for bottle service – even though the dinner couple (who was about to leave) was not asked to give up their table and there were two other unoccupied booths right next to us.  At this point I really wanted to leave because I knew we were not going to be able to enjoy ourselves in a place that has fond memories of Jim Crow.  As we got up, Yohance went in search of the Coloreds Only restroom.

It was at this point that I got the first in a string of highly upsetting text messages, especially given what we’d had to deal with up to that point, from the joint-birthday haver/party organizer.  ”Hey, are you guys there yet?…We’re still at my house doing karoake”  Lovely.  I informed her that she should head over now as it was 10:15 and a line was starting to form.  10:45 rolled around and I got the next winner.  ”What are you guys doing?  You should come do karoake….I want to come there but I don’t know if I can motivate everyone.”  Awesome.  11:30 – “Yeah we’re not coming but you guys should definitely come here.”  I hate everyone.

At this point another friend of mine showed up and asked if I could get her and her friends in (2 guys, 2 girls) so I tried to see if a friend of mine who lives in the South Bay could help them out.  I thought she did, but as soon as my friend got in she said “Well, that cost me $80, hope it was worth it, happy birthday.”  I saw her one other time that night for all of 7 seconds and then she disappeared without saying goodbye and simply texted me later saying she would have rather given me the $80.  The two girls who showed up initially to have a drink with us disappeared without saying goodbye and texted me this morning to say that one of them had mixed Benadryl and alcohol and her stomach was unhappy with her and her friend had to go with her.  Larry and Yohance disappeared without saying goodbye and walked to the birthday girl’s house that was about a mile away.  Around 12:30 I was completely over the night and ready to go home so I gathered Kieran and Clarence up and we headed out to pick up Yohance and Larry.

We arrived at the birthday girl’s place in time to hear a horrific rendition of Whip It and Yohance and Larry felt compelled to perform Jump by Kriss Kross before we left.  We ended the evening by devouring some delicious Johnnie’s Pastrami and debating if accepting gifts from someone you’re dating makes you a prostitute – a conversation that lasted about 45 minutes, which was roughly 43 minutes too long.  According to Clarence and Larry, I am a prostitute, while Kieran and Yohance ardently defended my whore-ish honor.  Well, prostitute or no, at least I’m not a bigoted club owner praying for the return of Plessy v. Ferguson….what an asshole.