In a not-so-distant past (Read: the present.), I was known for going out every weekend and “clubbing.” This is not the same type of clubbing your quasi-attractive, but nonetheless sleazy guy friend does. I’m not out to pick up chicks. Or dicks, even. (Crass, I know, but I couldn’t resist! Chicks, dicks – They rhyme!) I can also not be aligned with the socialite or wannabe socialite behaviors of “Hollywood party girls.” For one thing, I’m not blonde. Secondly, I’m not as vapid as I seem. (I hope.) And I don’t snort coke, off of public toilet seats or otherwise.

Honestly, I just love going out and dancing, and whether that is the Dane Cook epitome of circling around a pile of checkbooks and stilettos or doing more solo moves to house, it is my favorite way to spend consecutive Friday and Saturday nights. (Sometimes Thursdays… Wednesdays were also “party nights” at my undergrad… And yes, even Monday nights, too. Really, it was no-holds-barred on clubbing every chance I got.)

So I’ve gone dancing a lot. I have an ample number of amusing clubbing stories under my shiny rainbow Miss Sixty belt, and I actually miss chronicling them for others to read. Or, let’s be honest, I miss chronicling them for myself when I’m feeling particularly ugly and want to remember that at one point, I was considered fun and interesting. For a brief stint in college, I wrote catty reviews on Bay Area nightclubs. Though the writing quality varied, one thing was for sure, I liked writing them. It is for that reason I have decided to add another (ir)regular feature to theMaykazine. Yes, not only will you get The Best of Bai Ling whenever I feel like it, but you’ll also get Tales from the Club whenever I feel like it. These may be recycled stories, stories of late, or things that happen to my friends that are too fabulous not to share.

Inordinately long introductions are pointless. Just keep in mind that I ain’t no ho. So. Without further adieu,

I punched a girl and I liked it.

Admittedly, this one’s pretty mild on the clubbing story spiciness scale, but it’s recent and I couldn’t let it go unnoticed. I promise better stories later. Like how I am an asshole to guys who are both hearing and speech impaired. Stay tuned!

This past weekend, friends and I drove down to San Diego for Comic Con. (SUCH the clubbing story opener! “One time, at Comic Con…”) I’d never partied in San Diego because it makes me think of old retired people (not young retired people) and beaches. Not so much shiny disco balls and top-notch DJs. This was soon about to change, for after Day 1 of meandering through 165,000 people, we ended up at Basic.

The name “Basic” sounds like your typical urban club title, but it’s actually short for “Basic Urban Kitchen and Bar.” There was no cover charge, which is always nice, and it even applied to both men and women! We had reached the bewitching hour of when girls change into stilettos and line their eyes with kohl, though Basic was still serving pizza to some of its late night diners.

As a “nightclub” or “bar,” Basic’s nothing special in the face of restaurants that moonlight as evening hot spots. The pizza looked good, but that just made me wish we had visited earlier instead of during the primarily alcoholic (not dinner) hours.

Very quickly, here’s the scene: A fairly packed house. Waitresses/cocktail girls in drapey, low-cut teal tops with black bras exposed. Lots of White people. (I point this out because I used to also go to a lot of AZN and Black club nights.) An interesting mix of what must have been UCSD/SDSU students in town for summer session, San Diego locals, and people who obviously schlepped over from Comic Con. Hoochie shirts and nerd shirts abound.

Bongo, Brit Sketch, Davipalooza, “Batman,” and I were hanging out by the covered pool table. It’s very natural for mixed groups of males and females to gravitate toward the outside of a dancefloor. I really wanted to dance, but not everyone in our group at the moment was as into fighting for dance space as I was. It ended up being more of me and Brit bopping around as the boys hovered on the farther outskirts.

I tend to “Be creative,” as a gay go-go dancer friend once told me. Really, this just means I take up a lot of room. I flail my arms around a lot and I like having at least a three-foot radius in case I want to do a legitimate jazz box around myself. I like shuffling from side to side when old school hip-hop comes on, and overall, I don’t want to share room. With anyone.

I developed this spatial possessiveness early in my clubbing career. (14 years and still goin’ strong!) I always pointedly jab girls’ purses back into their armpits, because honey, that’s what coat checks, wallflower friends who sit in booths, and boys’ pockets are for. I don’t like people who take up more space than they need to. I don’t like sloppy dancers who couple up and fall into my circle. Girls do it thinking they look hot. Really, they look desperate. Mixed couples do it thinking of nothing but themselves. Really, they’re just super drunk and about to make a huge paperbagger mistake. As far as “straight” clubs go, guys don’t typically do it with each other because they’re often homophobic.

Anyway, Basic was full of all kinds of what I call “Clubbing Amateurs.” These are the kids who get shitfaced and look horrible, talk loud, and dance fugly. I often want to slap them.

On this night, I punched one.

Bongo was looking out for me, because it was pretty obvious that I was perturbed by one particular couple of somewhat tall, bumbling, drunk-as-fuck Amateurs. The girl was wearing heels but obviously didn’t realize that her balance was shot. I noticed some blondeness wobbling toward me, saw her, and then saw this rather uninteresting looking fellow lash his tongue out at her. Into her throat. She welcomed it with great enthusiasm.

As the two skeetered toward the outskirt of the dancefloor, nearly sandwiching us against the pool table, I bubbled in tepid rage. Rage because their disgustingness pissed me off. Tepid because I knew I could handle this situation.

Cue Defensive Dancing.

I started dancing big, throwing my elbows out, lifting a knee, all the while gently resisting the girl’s back in the hopes that she’d realize I’m not a wall and walk off. Or that she and Uninteresting Man would fall into the center of the dancefloor and swiftly be escorted out for being drunk and ugly.

Bongo kept pulling me back because he saw what I was doing and is a good person. He hasn’t seen me and my Cool Clubbing Action often, so I decided to back off a little and just poke fun at the situation.

I stuck out a fist, raised an eyebrow to ask, “Can I do this?”

Bongo laughed, but him shaking his head meant, “No, you should not do that. That is mean.”

I jutted out a flexed foot, “This?”

Laugh, no.

Both at once! I raised my fist and foot like I was trying to make a diagram of parallel limbs being intersected by my torso.

No, you shouldn’t do that. Davipalooza and Batman also seemed to agree that I should not ask for a flogging.

“Okay, fine,” I conceded. I jutted out my limbs just one more time for shits and giggles, when:

That bitch fell into my fist. It wasn’t like she walked into me. The inertia of her body threw her in my direction with the perfect timing for me to actually punch her. Like, I recoiled my forearm and snapped her in the back just as she fell. Hell, I probably saved her from falling on her ass. (Thoughts of “What, she slipped, fell, landed on his dick?” are running through my head, though this is totally not the same thing.)

HAH! I had just inadvertently punched Stupid Girl in the back. This was kind of funny.

Smashing face with Uninteresting Man had apparently taken her to a Whole New World, because the macking continued. Yet, behold. She and Uninteresting Man teetered away from us just enough to make me think my back-punch had some sort of effect on her. They rolled away into one of Basic’s dark corners, where some really sluttish hoes were dancing up on some really drunkish guys. Good for Stupid Girl and Uninteresting Man. They were probably cavorting with their own sloppy kind.

I may punch bitches, but at least I got class.