On the Booty Prowl

Rolling, writhing lesbians aren't exactly a dime a dozen where I come from.

My mama raised me deep in the heart of Texas (that red, cattle-ropin', lethal-injection-givin' stretch of pancake-flat land where everything is fucking bigger). And in my holier-than-thou hometown, good luck finding a decent drink special, let alone a pack of partying lesbians.

Now, I hadn't exactly seen butch b-girls growing on trees around here either — but a few weeks ago, I'd heard whisperings of an event at lesbian hot spot Cloud 9 Lounge, on Stirling Road in Hollywood. A Saturday-night break-dancing contest promised me rolling, spinning, hand-standing lesbos aplenty. I also heard faint rumors of a two-for-one drink deal. Since it doesn't take a particularly special drink special to slide me through a club's doors, I decided to spend a Saturday night inside Cloud 9.

I paid my $5 cover, had my purse searched at the door, and headed across the unoccupied dance floor in search of alcohol. Under hanging blue Christmas lights, I struck up a conversation with Pam, a doe-eyed bartender who had just moved from Maryland. She told me two things: One, I was several hours too late to catch the two-for-one drink deal, and two, the break-dancing contest had been replaced with a booty-shaking contest. A what? I was bemused and skeptical. How's it even possible to fairly calculate whose tush has the most tremble?

Let's rank this evening as a jolt for out-of-towners but, for the rest of us, a shifty mess o' jam that doesn't quite deliver all that's advertised.

Bartenders: At least three lovely ladies occupied the space behind the bar at all times, all willing to pause from mixing drinks to shootin' the shit with patrons. Pam, all perky cleavage and messy red hair, claimed it was her first week on the job — which was maybe why she couldn't exactly define "booty-shaking contest" for me. Still, she proved pretty handy with the bottle opener she kept peeking out of her tight jeans. And between popping open bottles with delicate agility, she told me about her aspirations to one day work as a bartender at a beachfront club. You go, girl.

Worth mentioning: On my latest return trip to the club, I asked a mesh-shirt-wearing bartender hottie about Pam and was told it was her night off. I must have looked crestfallen, because the unfamiliar bartender quickly took my hand and introduced herself as Hazel. Like Pam, she said she was brand-spankin' new to the job. Where are they finding these girls? Cloud 9 picks up more beautiful babes to tend bar than the slickest Don Juan (or Juanita) could pick up to bed.

Drinks: The bartenders are indeed charming and sexy, but it's Cloud 9's array of weekly specials that packs in the crowds on any given night. Saturday's special is $3 Long Island iced teas from 9 p.m. to 4 a.m. In my experience, I'd only have to drink two dollars' worth of that shit to end up flat on my booty.

Also, the two-for-one drink deal I had so highly anticipated runs from noon to 8 p.m. This particular Saturday, I missed it by about three hours, but thankfully, it runs every day of the week — you never know when you'll have a pre- or post-lunch craving for pairs of vodka tonics.

Ambience: Besides the hot bartenders, the club ain't much to look at. The dark, dirty-green walls are graced with flat-screen TVs and generic beer ads. Loud hip-hop music blasts from the speakers, disco balls and CDs shine from the ceiling, and the bar area is divided from the pool tables by a modest-sized dance floor. The environment is not especially conducive to meeting people or finding out specific information (like what a booty-shaking contest is). Brooke, a surly faced girl who sat at the bar to my left and sent text messages all night, got an earful of my spit when I leaned in to introduce myself and to ask her about the contest.

"The DJ plays a song, they'll shake their booties, and there's a $100 prize," she said, like it was just so obvious.

"A hundred dollars? How do you judge who's been booty-shaking the most?" I asked.

She didn't have an answer. Or maybe she just didn't hear me over that throbbing bass.