FR: Back in the Saddle Again (A Stuff Afterparty Report)

**Reposted from the first Lair, original date: 1/19/04
**Image removed

               Quote of the Day:
                Thundercat:  What is it about sluts that makes them so attractive?
                      Swinggcat:  It’s called honesty, dude.

So it’s a Thursday night, and I’m sitting around my apartment in my underwear working on the computer, ready to fritter away yet another weeknight so that I may be able to get to work on time the next morning when suddenly, I get a phone call.

It’s from my friend Alleycat.  Apparently, he’s got a hot tip about some goings on that night he wanted to throw my way because he was going to have to pass due to a date with a girl.  Apparently, every year Stuff Magazine has some type of fashion show where they get together the trashiest girls they can find, put them in as little clothes as possible, and parade them in front of photographers trying to convince everybody that they are really TWO steps above porn as opposed to one.  Anyway, Alleycat has the line on where the after party for this little shindig is going down and he gives me the location, time, and info on how to get in.

Now I’m faced with an interesting dilemma.  I do have to work the next morning, and I know that if I go to the party, there is no doubt I will show up late to work (and there’s even the possibility I could miss work all together).  Yet, it’s an exclusive afterparty for a major men’s magazine – which means that there is going to be tons of high quality pussy there.  After about 3 seconds of debate, my cock overrules my brain and I decide to fuck work for Friday.

After showering and shaving, I give Mystery a call because I figure a situation like this afterparty where social proof and Higher Value Demonstrations would be the most effective (and no one is better at these two things than Mystery), he would probably be able to pull some exceptionally beautiful women.  Not to mention I haven’t hung out with the guy for a while, and I wanted to see him again.  So Mystery answers:

Mystery:  Gragaha.  (Typical greeting from a player awakened from is mid-evening “I gotta go out and sarge until 5 am” nap)
Thundercat:  Mystery, what’s up its Thundercat.
Mystery:  Oh, hey man.
Thundercat:  Listen, I got a line on the afterparty for Stuff Magazine’s annual fashion show tonight and I wanted to give you the invite to come along.
Mystery:  Thanks man, but I can’t.  You’re too good with women and would put me to shame.  I don’t know if my self-esteem could handle being blown out of every set by you and your mad player skills.  You also have a huge cock.

Okay, so maybe Mystery didn’t really say that.  But I bet he was thinking it!  =)  Mystery actually had to pass because he had a business dinner to attend with Style (the most powerful of the Jedi).  But he wishes me luck and promptly falls back to sleep, so I give Swinggcat a call and see if he’s up for a night of slumming in Hollywood.

Thundercat:  Yo Swingg, its Thundercat.
Swinggcat:  Hey bro, what’s up?
Thundercat:  You feel like going to an afterparty for Stuff Magazine’s annual fashion show?
Swinggcat:  Yeah, I’m down.  Just as long as you keep your shirt buttoned up.  Only my nipples and the masculine pectoral muscles to which they’re attached are allowed to hypnotize the women.

Sorry, somehow jlaix managed to get on my computer and write that.  Anyway, with backup in place, I head out to The Forbidden City, a Chinese restaurant/club on the corner of Hollywood and Vine where the party is being held.  As I approach, I notice the red carpet is already rolled out and no less than 4 big bouncers dressed in black are all guarding the door.  So as I approach I don’t even bother looking at them.  I just walk in like I’m supposed to be there and they don’t try to stop me.  This goes back to Rick H.’s little maxim “If you do anything with enough authority, people will follow your lead.”

So I’m inside by 9 pm.  I told Swinggcat to meet me there at 9:30, therefore I knew I had about a good hour to kill before he showed up (Yes, I wrote that correctly).  I make good by getting a booth and ordering some food since I didn’t have time to get dinner.  While I wait, I get a sense of the place.  They’re playing a lot of hip-hop music, mostly Outkast, but a few golden oldies as well.  Everyone is dressed very hip, so I feel good that I’m fitting in with my new SQwear shirt and GAP jeans as opposed to looking like a complete moe.  I notice a few other guys in the joint who were crashing the party like I was, and we all nodded to each other in the silent acknowledgement that we all shared in the cheap hope of scoring some model pussy.

So time goes by and the place starts getting crowded.  The Forbidden City is divided up into 4 parts:  The restaurant/bar area (which is where I was), the dance floor (which had its own bar, stage for the DJ, and a few booths), a large outdoor patio (with bar and VIP seating), and an upstairs (strictly for VIPs, so I didn’t see what it was like).  Swinggcat finally shows up and almost had trouble getting in.  He brazenly told the bouncers that he was here meeting me for dinner (basically acting like I was someone important).  The bouncers ended up letting him right in.

We meet up and Swingg gets a few drinks while I finish my dinner.  More and more hotties begin to arrive, and we start discussing tactics.  My game at this point is still pretty rusty, as I’ve been having trouble approaching lately.  Swingg has a few new theories on pick-up he’s developing and wants to test them out, but he agrees to help bootcamp me back into approach mode.

So I go to use the bathroom and try to psych myself up for approaching women.  It’s a little hard to do because the men’s bathroom has a TRANSPARENT WALL which is joined to the women’s bathroom, so all these girls are staring at me as I’m waiting to go into a urinal, which is a little unnerving, but by the same token I realize I can see what they’re doing too, so I reframe it as I’m spying on them as opposed to the opposite.  Either way, I still feel like a creep.  =)

The first step after the rather public bathroom experience is to move to the outdoor patio, since it is the quietest place to approach.  It’s always nice when you can actually HEAR other people talk, so you want to try and frequent the places in a bar or club where this is possible.  It’s usually outdoors or in some corner away from the speakers.  Anyway, Swinggcat tries to push me into some sets, but I’m not ready.  I ask him to break-off and let me go solo for a bit to try and get comfortable with the scene, and he agrees.

Side note:  When you’re out with friends or even wingmen who know how to do this “pick-up” stuff, it is often best to split up.  Groups of men are intimidating to women, even if it is only two, and it is actually easier for just one person to approach a girl or a group of girls rather than with a buddy.  Not only that, but two men constantly hanging out together can give off the vibe that you’re out on the prowl, a duo of losers, or just scared.  When you split up, you are actually able to cover more ground and give off a more confident vibe.  The solo seducer has a much more powerful position when it comes to approaching sets.  You also eject yourself out of your comfort zone when you split up.  If you are with a wing, it is best to wait until one has opened the set before introducing him.

So the patio is filled with people.  There are some incredibly hot models before a placard mounted on a wall getting their pictures taken by a group of photographers.  Beautiful women in high fashion dresses, Movie Studio Executives, publishers, television execs, journalists, actors, agents, managers, publicists, and party girls round out the scene.  It’s a fairly intimidating atmosphere, but I’m gradually getting used to it.  My first set is actually two guys.  I approach them and start talking about all the hot chicks around here (a good way to let guys know you aren’t gay, and also a universal tactic to connect with any heterosexual man).  Swinggcat comes up and bums a cigarette from one of the guys (who’s an out of work actor, go figure) and starts giving them advice on women.  These two moes are pretty amazed by some of what he’s telling them, but they eat it up none the less.  I get bored with the conversation and go off, approaching a few other guys and striking up conversations.

Some may think it’s weird to talk to men when you’re going out to pick up women, but it’s actually a very good way of getting warmed up.  Part of picking up women is being social, being fun, having something to say, etc.  Simply talking to lots of other people will help get you in the mindset of being social and outgoing.  Talking to other guys is good because there’s no sexual tension, it’s just good conversation and it helps you to loosen up.  Not only that, you can meet some really cool guys and befriend them.  I did this last time I was in Vegas where it turns out the guy I was talking to owned the Spearment Rhino strip club there.  I didn’t know this until the end of our conversation where he told me and gave me his card, saying “When you come back to town, give me a call.  I’ll hook you up at my club.”  So you never know what’s going to happen when you talk to the guys.  =)

After about three or four sets of talking to men, I’m ready to get in with the ladies.  My first set is with two rather pretty blondes.  I open them with:

“You guys look like you’re having an interesting conversation.  What are you talking about?”

I get a pretty cold reception, and one asks me if I know anything about women’s fitness.  I read this as a test, not only because it was directed at me as a fairly out of shape man, but because of the tone of the girl’s voice.  I surprised them by reframing the situation with:  “I don’t suppose either of you know about the concept of adaptation.”  Both women looked a bit surprised and asked me what that was.  I went on to explain the concept in terms of fitness (thanks to Roadking and his article on Fashion For Fat Guys for this one).  After my explanation, the girls opened up, and it turns out one of them was the main editor for a men’s fitness magazine.  The set lasted for a good 20 minutes until a friend of theirs came by and dragged them away, but I was getting a good response from both women (even a couple Indicators Of Interest).

When women try testing you like these did, what they are doing is setting the frame where you have to prove yourself to them to make you worth their attention.  So even if you PASS the test, you’re still in a position where they are judging you.  If you can reframe the situation so they have to qualify to you, it puts you in a much better position because you’re undermining their frame as the ones who have to approve of you.  In this situation, I reframed by not answering their question, rather, I tested their knowledge of a similar subject and then demonstrated value by talking about it.  This instantly opened them up after a rather cool reception.

Swinggcat sees me do the set and asks if I’m up for another.  I’m beginning to feel the groove, so I say “YES!”  We start approaching all sorts of women, and I’m having shitloads of fun.  I begin to remember how fun pick-up can be and my old skills start shaking the rust off.  We notice that the girls we’re approaching are rather difficult because the nature of the party is such that the women have extremely high value.  They are all beautiful and they know it!  This is a crowd Mystery would have excelled in with his magic tricks and peacocking.  If Mystery had joined me, I have no doubt that he would have pulled at LEAST three HB11s that night, but alas, he’d rather spend the night with Style (the most powerful of the Jedi).  See what you miss out on when you shuck tha thunder Mystery!!!! =)

So it was at this point that the naked women arrived.  Well, not COMPLETELY naked.  There were about 12 Stuff models who suddenly came out in nothing but body paint.  From a distance it looked like they were wearing lingerie, but up close it was obvious they were quite naked.  All of them were incredibly skinny women with massive fake boobies.  The only thing I could compare it to was two oranges taped to a tooth pick.  Anyway, this got a lot of attention from the men, and in a way shifted the dynamic of the party because a lot of the other women were intimidated because of it.  In the long run this played into our favor because we could use it as a way to make the women we talked to insecure and play them off the massively social proofed models.  I ended up having to distance myself from the body paint chicks because I just couldn’t focus around them, they were so hot.  When one was in proximity, I had a hard time saying much other than “Me… like… girl!  She give me… BONAR!”

I ended up approaching a shitload of women that night, so I won’t go into every single interaction I had, but I will touch on the ones worth talking about.

The first was a six set – two guys and four girls.  All of them Latino.  We approached because Swinggcat thought he recognized one of the guys, and it turns out they both went to the same high school briefly.  The guy ends up being a porno director who specializes in lesbian latino porn.  He introduces me to the four women he’s with (all incredibly sexy and slutty latinas) and they instantly begin kinoing me.  At this point I fall back on Mystery’s “stripper rules” and begin to ignore them while undermining their advances.  This only makes them try harder.  Swinggcat starts fuckin’ with the guys and before long he has them offering to let us direct a few of their movies.  We get the guy’s card and are probably going to keep in touch for no other reason than the dude can hook us up with some incredibly hot latina sluts (a vice of both Swinggcat and I).

The second great interaction is with a two-set of hair stylists.  These girls weren’t the hottest around, but they were decent enough.  I open the set and Swinggcat comes in after I get the girls going.  He takes the blonde, and I take the bisexual one (telegraphed by her massive amount of tattoos).  I’m doing good enough, but my bisexual hairdresser eventually leaves to hit on another girl.  At this point I take the opportunity to observe Swingg in action.  I whip out my new Clie and start video taping him sarging this blonde.  He’s doing quite a lot of masterful stuff with her (if any of you have read his book, you’ll know what I’m talking about).  The girl gets really into him, but then tries a takeaway by saying she wants to get a drink.  Swinggcat takes his opportunity so say “okay” and then turns away from her.  She hesitates before going, looking back to see if Swingg’s following, but he fucks with her by ignoring her and talking to me instead. We laugh about how easy it is to fuck with girls.  I think he re-established contact with her later in the night and took it further, but I can’t remember.

The next set was a two-set of HB11s sitting by themselves.  One of them was wearing a rather loud orange jacket (we’re talking “caution cone” orange here) that looked like it was a hold over from the 80’s.  I approached asking her where she got it.

HB11:  “Forever 21.”
Thundercat:  “I don’t know where that is.”
HB11:  “It’s in the mall.”
Thundercat:  “Let me guess… the valley, right?”
HB11:  (looking quite ashamed) “Yes.”

For those of you not in LA, the valley refers to the “San Fernando Valley,” which I guess is Hollywood’s equivalent of a double-wide trailer park.  It’s actually not a bad place, but it’s looked down upon because it’s not considered “hip,” simply “normal.”  Girls from the valley (Valley Girls!) are typically thought to be sluts as well, so this was a subtle neg on my part.

I start gaming these girls pretty well, doing a lot of cocky/funny.  Swingg comes in and backs me up.  At some point, one of the girls goes to get a drink and I take the opportunity to sit next to the one with the orange jacket.  She seems to be enjoying our conversation, but her friend signals to her to join her at the bar, so she leaves.  Upon reflection, either Swingg or I should have gone with the friend to the bar when she first left to run interference while the other one was in isolation.  This might have worked pretty well.

So we were now sitting where our targets had been previously, when one of the Stuff Models comes up and actually opens us.  She sits next to me and I neg her about her black fedora hat by asking if she got it when the Michael Jackson’s ranch got raided.  She laughs and Swingg and I work on her for a bit.  She’s quite bisexual and one of the bigger stimulus junkies I’d seen at the party (looking for the next “shiny” thing, as Tyler would put it).

So the set’s going good until she sees her girlfriend walking towards her.  At this point she turns to me and says “Do you mind if I do a line?”

I was a bit caught off guard by this, but I shrugged it off and said it doesn’t bother me.  Her friend promptly walks up, straddles her, and whips out the cocaine.  The two of them start snorting that shit like it’s going out of style, and me and Swingg just smile at each other.  In less than two minutes, this beautiful model had degenerated into a coke whore.  God, I love Hollywood…

One thing a lot of guys don’t realize, and a fact that some PUA’s refuse to accept, is that drugs are a big part of the party scene, and are a factor in scoring with many of the more beautiful women – particularly if they are party girls.  I felt that since this girl was getting high, sarging her would be easier and she’d be a good prospect to pull.  I was right, but eventually got cock-blocked by a few other coke whores/models who wanted to make out with her.  I don’t know about you guys, but I’m not at a level where I can compete with an oversexed HB11 with drugs.  After this experience I was more aware that many girls at the party had rather dilated pupils.

Next up was a pretty sexy brunette.  I approached her in a two set with a bit of an older guy by commenting on her belly button tattoo which was peeking out from her shirt.  She laughed and said something about it being a signal light for the “landing strip.”  I laughed at this, but the older guy got a bit uncomfortable and took his leave.  Suddenly the girl got really insecure.  Turns out that guy was her boss (He was a music agent, and she’s a wannabe agent).  She joked that she’d probably be fired because of that comment.  “Either that, or you’re getting a promotion,” I replied.  She laughed and I went into set.  Obviously she was quite bisexual, so I asked if she had other tattoos.  She said she had six, at which point I accused her of being an attention whore.  She started qualifying herself, then I told her to stop being so insecure.  She then began qualifying the fact that she wasn’t insecure.  This went on and on – me making fun of her insecurities, her qualifying herself (Push-Pull, for you not in the know.  Buy Real World Seduction and learn it!).  Swingg eventually comes by and watches as I start calling her shallow.  At this point she’s so fucking insecure that she’s really trying to get me to validate her.  Instead I just turn my back.  She stands there for a minute, looking at me as I ignore her, and then leaves crest-fallen.  Swinggcat’s laughing at my incredible abuse of social niceties, and tells me how evil I am that I left that poor girl hanging instead of validating her.  I tell him I’ve been studying Style (the most powerful of the Jedi) a bit too much.  =)

I was hoping to run into the girl a little later and validate her then, because she was definitely telegraphing some interest, but she seemed to disappear after that.  Maybe I blew her self-esteem out so badly she left the party, but I honestly don’t know.

The last really interesting interaction of the night happened with some of the naked body-paint models.  I had run into K-ROQ DJ Striker at the party.  I seem to run into him a lot, the last time being at Drais after-hours club out in Las Vegas.  I walked up to him and talked for a bit.  He’s pretty good at using his quazi-celebrity status to pull girls.  The body-paint chicks had the highest value of any girl at the party because men were falling all over them.  Striker was able to use his celebrity to pull one of them, who was quite into it (you go, boy!).

At this point, one of the topless chicks comes up to me and tries starting a conversation.  She asks what I do, which is a sure sign she’s fishing to see if I’m someone worth talking to.  I give Swinggcat an evil grin and turn back to the girl, blatantly staring at her breasts.  I point at her tits and say:

“You have an incredible pair of… personalities.”

The girl’s eyes grow wide, and she gets all offended and leaves.  I laugh at her as she goes.  I think it’s funny how this girl is literally one step above a stripper, getting paid to walk around all night with nothing on, and then she gets offended when someone calls attention to the fact her breasts are exposed.  Every other guy in the party is trying to ignore her nakedness and look her in the eyes, and she tries to pretend like she’s a legitimate model because of it.  The reason she got offended is because I reminded her that she is, in fact, pretty much taking her clothes off for money, and this strikes that chord of guilt and self-loathing deep down that causes her to take offence, because she so desperately doesn’t want it to be true — but she can’t ignore the facts.  I might not have been so harsh, if it wasn’t for the fact that she was a gold digging slut.  If there was any doubt, the next guy she talked to was a Studio Exec from FOX about her acting career.  My bet is she’ll never get past “Girls Gone Wild,” but what do I care?

The night winds down, and Swinggcat’s driving me to my car around 3:15 am.  The night had been a lot of fun.  I’d met some great people, tried out some new material, and felt like I was back in the game.  As we’re driving, I’m looking out the window at all the late-night stragglers.  I make a comment to Swingg about the girls I see on the street, all dressed up in their hippest, trendiest, sluttiest clothing.

“What is it about sluts that’s so attractive?” I ask.

Swinggcat smiles, looks at me with a gleam in his eye, and says…

“It’s called honesty, dude.”

Truer words were never spoken.

Thundercat