I should have taken more pictures as we approached the place, but the whole thing came up really out of the blue...screw it, I'll just tell you about it.
My father in law is visiting for two weeks, and this weekend, he says to us, I'm not really up for watching the kids while they're awake and active or whatever, but if you guys want to go out after you get them to bed, I'd be fine staying here with them to give you some time. We haven't participated in the night scene in over a decade. We're usually shooting to be in bed around 9:30, about 1-2 hours after the kids go to bed...so at first we thought we might just express our gratitude and graciously decline, but in the end we decided we'd be fools not to take him up on his offer.
I usually handle the girls' bedtime routines, and this night was no exception. I got the kids to bed while my wife got ready, and then we headed out - and spent the first ten minutes sitting in the car in our driveway, trying to determine "what's something we could do right now, that we could never do if the kids were with us?" So, after a few minutes of deliberation, we headed off to some swanky rooftop bar down by the water.
My wife took a few pictures at that place, but personally I was focused on drinkin' drinks and checkin' out the scene. It was a really neat little spot, actually turned out to be a hotel bar, and to be honest it was mostly everything I would expect from as much (smaller drinks with higher prices, a bar that doesn't rely on being a bar to succeeed because it's really just a little side hustle put on by a business that's real interest lies in renting rooms, woo woo woo)...so when she asked me after our first round what I thought we should do, I said, "Let's blow this popsicle stand baby, and go walk the riverwalk and see what kind of adventures await!" and of course, because me and her are pretty much besties for life, she was down with this plan.
So we left, we walked the riverwalk, and after about 15-20 minutes of walking, I led us up the hillside, away from the water and towards the city lights, but we made it less than one block inward when we both spotted this wild looking little place. There was a little opening between buildings, with pergola at the entry and a beautiful urban garden filled with waterfalls and lights, just barely visible. Above the garden you could see a window, glowing with red light. Inside, people danced and rubbed up against one another, though we could only make out silhouettes. In the background up there you could see red stars glowing, maybe one every 2 meters or so.
Anyway, the lights and garden and groping and whatever must have visibly grabbed our interest, as a woman standing at the entrance called over to us - "You wanna see inside? It's really nice!" (I once followed a similar call and got robbed by a gang of beautiful and scary prostitutes, but for no particular reason I figured tonight would be different)
Simultaneously, our focus shifted back down from the window with the flashing lights and hot couples, to find a big beautiful black woman wearing a tiara over her forehead, a silky shawl sprawled over her shoulders and a corset that must have been at least one size too small. Her smile was captivating; it showed on her lips, but mostly radiated from her eyes. She must have seen us visibly overwhelmed because she reiterated, this time very gently, "Y'all can come on in if you want to," she said without breaking that smile. She complimented my wife's flowered dress, and my wife returned the compliment, stating with her innocent glowing smile that she loved the woman's style. She responded back "Thanks girl, but I can't stop these titties poppin' out" ...it's true, they were really trying to roll over the top of that thing, sort of like the way a slinky goes down the stairs I imagined.
As we walked past her, I saw a small sign with red letters along the entryway. It just said "KGB." I wondered if there was any relation to the Russian KGB as we continued inward. The bar area was densely crowded. It was a small basement bar with plenty of seating sprawled out around the outer perimeters, but everyone was packed in around the bar, waiting like a mob of weird horny zombies for their chance to pay $15 for a drink...I was no exception. The walls were adorned with old Russian type stuff, it felt like a communist speakeasy, although I'm pretty sure it's all just there for decoration, it still felt like travelling to another world.
It took maybe a while, I'm not sure how long, but we did get our drinks. I always feel like a loser taking pictures of things lol - like now everyone knows I think this is cool or photo-worthy and somehow that makes me a fuckin' dork, but for whatever reason, I'm wierd about it so I didn't get any pictures inside at this time...but the tender was my kinda dude, made the mojitos with pretty much straight liquor with a few mint leaves and a splash of lime juice. We took our drinks out to that patio garden area and sat by a waterfall to begin chasing the buzz.
A dude with his girlfriend at the table next to us passed us a few glances as we chatted about our kids and our lives and how strong these drinks were. Eventually he came by to tell us that our celebrity dopplegangers are Jason Momoa and Emma Roberts...I could see it more for my wife than I can for me, although this is the second time someone said that, I am way too out of shape now, so he must have been going off of my hair.
Of course, it didn't take long and my little glass of straight liquor was gone and I was ready for more. Fortunately, the bar emptied out kind of like it had been evacuated, and the liquor began to loosen me up, so I was able to take some photos when we went in for the second round. I don't like to use my platform here to discuss politics and today will not be any different, but I must say, I was liking this communist bar a lot more than the big money roof top fancy schmancy place.
We ordered a second round of mojitos and went back outside after wandering around in search of the stairs that would lead to that hot steamy dance party we'd been seeing on the second floor, but eventually we had checked every corner to no avail, so we took our drinks outside to the patio garden and resigned ourselves to accept that we are now a forty-something couple, and probably have no business in that sexy party anyway...but just as in the same way we had found our way into this bar, someone else spotted us looking up at that window.
"You trying to get up in there?" he asked us. I personally was a bit nervous and probably content to play it safe and stay in the garden, but I knew MaryAnn wanted to check it out and if there was going to be any reason we could not get up there, that reason was not going to be me. "Yeah, man, hell yeah! Thank you!" I said. He told us we'd have to finish our drinks before we could go there, so we knocked back our drinks and followed the kind stranger out into the street. He began leading us up the street, away from the water and further into the city, but stopped at a dark alley, apparently to bum a lighter off the guy sitting on a bucket there. He lit his half cigarette, gave the dude a fist bump, and gestured for us to continue following him...so we did.
He took us up one block. He turned right, stuck his fingers in his mouth and whistled, and the bouncer at the night club a few doors down looked over. He pointed at us with a circling finger and then gestured with two flicks of his wrist that we wanted to go inside. "This our night club. Same owner, different place. Have fun y'all." he turned and walked back down to the KGB bar as the bouncer waved us over.
The bouncer cut us a deal on the entry price. He said it was because we'd come from the KGB bar, and asked us not to tell anyone. I'm not sure if this is one of those things they do at the door for everyone so you feel special, or if we actually got a deal...not really a concern of mine though honestly, the price is the price and you either got it or you don't...and either way, we had it.
You didn't have to be in there long to see easily that the two places were connected.
The drinks weren't as strong or good upstairs, and we preferred the DJ down at the KGB bar, but the energy upstairs was palpable. Between the main bar and the special little vodka bar thing, was a dance floor packed with people. I hadn't been on one of these in over a decade, but it was funny, everything was still mostly the same. The music? No, not that, that's quite different now. But there were the girls who came in a group, just there to dance with eachother, have fun and cut loose. There were the boys who came in a group, but their dancing has a different feel. It's like, the girls came to dance with eachother, but the boys only dance in hopes of luring one of them away from their pack.
I spent the first 5-10 minutes there just watching the mating rituals, identifying who's who. This guy's *planning *on getting laid tonight, this guy's praying he'll just be seen by someone, this girl is waiting for someone to notice her, this girl wants to be seen and admired by all but pretty much known by none, this guy is just waiting for someone to step on his foot so he can puff his chest and attract girls with his violence, woo woo woo...they're all still there...but tonight, I found a new one...it was me! The couple who came to have fun with eachother! How did I not realize that was a thing when I was younger? It's like off-the -market couples are mostly just invisible to the rest of the mating ritual crowd.
...mostly....
So we started dancing, and honestly it really was fun. First I came in with all my best dance moves, but MaryAnn basically was like, no man, just kinda do "this" ...and she gave me a very simple dance pattern that she thinks is good for a male. Well this was way easier than all the stuff I was coming up with, so I was happy to oblige. Then this good looking lady, maybe a little older than us, came up and asked if we were married. We told her we were and she was very complimentary. She danced with my wife for a while and I kind of just swayed to the beat and watched them...it was cool and we had fun.
After two rounds in the night club, the nice lady introduced her husband and suggested that we all leave together for what I can only imagine would have been a pretty cool time, but we opted to gratefully decline. Instead, we went back down to the KGB bar and had one last round before walking back to the riverwalk and getting a ride home.
I didn't get nearly as many pictures as I would have if I thought I was going to tell this story here on Hive...to be honest this was going to be one of those nights where I just live quietly and keep it between me and those who were there, but after it had all unfolded I thought, this was a pretty fun story - maybe I will share it after all...so that's what I'm doing...unfortunately, no pictures of the riverwalk, the entry to the KGB bar, the nice lady who brought us in, etc, but, hopefully these ~2,000 words will make up for at least two of the missing pictures :)
Thanks for checking out some more of my work! As always, I hope you enjoyed witnessing as much as I enjoyed creating!
© Photos and words by @albuslucimus, except where otherwise indicated.
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Here you’ll find links to various post-groupings, so you can find all posts related to a specific topic quickly. Topics include lists of brewing recipes, flutes, crypto talks, rucking posts and an index of all acoustic covers. The lists are updated as new content is added, so they can always be used to quickly navigate my content.
@albuslucimus has officially hard-forked. @rorykl is now the home for pretty much all acoustic singer/songwriter work.
I created a second account (@rorykl) in May 2023 to be my professional side. It’s a totally separate thing, strictly acoustic playing and singing. Because I don’t want to post duplicate material from two accounts, this account is now the home for all my acoustic singer/songwriter type stuff.
I’ll be using this as my account to share with bars and venues etc., so it will be a home for acoustic covers, live performances and auditions…pretty much, if I’m playing a stringed instrument amd singing, this is where I’ll be doing it…unless I’m doing it while operating a motor vehicle ;)
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