After a long day of pitching commercial ideas to eggheads at a "new age" marketing firm in SoHo with Omni (I'm not supposed to say the client's name but it rhymes with Spalvin Splein), I was soaking in the tub back at my friend Matt's loft when the phone shook me out of a trance with the brrrzzzz noise. The screen said "Bl1ndassassin" but my mind read trouble because oh crap he can't find out I'm in NY because I blew off a road trip with him and told him I had the swine flu. I put it on speaker and tried to sound under the weather while I beat off under water so as not to be obvious.
"Swine flu, huh? But I'll have to kill you another time, FAPface", he crackled from the tinny speaker. "Omni had me call in a favor, and you bitches best get to the fuckin' Rain Forest Cafe stat if you wanna hang with the Shatner." I nearly flooded the bathroom in the ensuing flappy panic and the phone squirted away as I tried to save it from a watery grave. *Ploosh* it went into the toilet, and fuck it, I needed a new iPhone anyway. That one had SOMEBODY's boogers stuck in the edges of the touch screen and it was very irritating to think of touching that stuff and knowing that little particles were probably flying into my eyes every time the phone vibrated was starting to gross me out. I digress. Omni.
Thanks to this freak cabbie with dreadlocks and methmouth, we made it to the spot in less than half an hour. I started to open my mouth at the door but the hostess stopped me and said "Your party is in the VIP, gentlemen", pointing to a staircase with a blacklight and a reclaimed cocobolo banister.
I blinked as I stepped in the room and I was totally caught off guard when, from out of nowhere, Bl1nd's backhand made me see stars INSIDE MY NOSE. "How the hell did you get here??" I whined as he glared at me. The lights were dim up there, and there were little critters scrambling around and twitching in the trees surrounding this massive wooden table. I kicked a snake out of the way as I stumbled away from Bl1nd. He was still grumbling about swine flu and New York girls and expensive cigarettes when all of a sudden a beam of light switched on from the heavens and illuminated WILLIAM FUCKING SHATNER at the giant table, with Omni already nestled in beside him with a Helena Bonham Carter lookalike (who later turned out to actually be Helena Bonham Carter). I clapped a hand on Bl1ndassassin's shoulder and told him he was crazy for doing this. Truth is, I don't know how I can ever repay the guy for hooking us up with Shatner and the Bottomless Champagne Bucket by surprise like that. Birds were fucking singing in there. I ordered the Popcorn Monitor Lizard platter, with honey graham-coated grasshoppers as an appetizer.
Bill Shatner is pretty easy to talk to, as it turns out, and before very long he was telling us about the (still secret) T.J. Hooker musical he's working on with Trey Parker and Matt Stone, and how it's gonna redefine musical comedy. You thought The Producers was hot shit? Think again. This will level everything that came before it, a real paradigm shift. All the time Bill's talking, Helena is rubbing Omni's leg and whispering in his ear. I've gotta hand it to him, he played it cool the whole evening and had her eating out of his hand. Literally. He was feeding her pistachios out of his FAP hand like it was nothing.
I wish I had pictures of that shit*.
Eventually me and Bl1nd start talking shit about how we've got a mean 2 on 2 game and Shatner comes back with how Leonard Nimoy dunked on him in a game of Horse back in '69 and how they used to gobble shrooms and see who could do the most pushups between takes on Star Trek. WTF. I swear old guys are the best storytellers. I mean, you just have to give the man some room and let him go. Before I knew it we'd been there three hours and it was time to think about sleep before catching the red-eye out of town in the morning. We said our goodbyes to the Shatness and stumbled outside to try and catch a cab. Omni was still sweet-talking Helena a few steps away when Bill strolled outside and started pouring on the charm to both of them.
"You two sure you don't wanna come back to the hotel and play strip poker?", he leered. He wanted Helena, pretty bad by the sound of it.
Those must've been the magic words because I didn't see Omni again until two days later when I finally caught up with him at the Baskin Robbins in Falls Church (that's Virginia, bitches). I asked him where the hell he'd been and all he would tell me is that his butt was sore and he was still rubbing Anbesol on his nipples every couple hours. Shatner truly is a god.
We didn't get the client, but we did have the night of our lives talking shit with Bill in a room full of geckos and Helena Bonham Carter. I'll never forget this, Bl1nd. I'm sorry about that swine flu bullshit, man. Also, thanks to Oxycolton for somehow having the phone number to everyone that was ever famous. Dude, you rock!
*To atone for the lack of pics of that shit, here is an actual photo of me taking a picture of a shit:
