2/2/04 7:30 PM: I lost my new gloves. I'm not really sure where, or when, as I remember having them on early Saturday evening. Still, that's pretty much the only really bad thing that happened to me all weekend.

Because of how busy I am, I don't really look at weekends as "time off." I often work as hard on a Sunday as I do on a Tuesday. Sometimes I look at the weekend as a grind, but I just keep forging ahead.

This weekend I didn't know what to expect. I had a very nice date with a very beautiful, wonderful Black woman (and that's all the details you'll get, you wanker, I don't kiss and tell ... well, I don't kiss and tell you). That's a good thing.

After months of hesitation, I finally made it to Venice Beach, to get incense and relight my shrine for the first time in almost a year. Alas, I was stymied by being unable to find lotus and egyptian sandalwood, which means I'll have to lower myself to dealing with the surly oil merchants at Dawah on Crenshaw. Not bad, but not great.

On Super Bowl Sunday, in lieu of going to cousin TJ's house for another day of food and watching cousin Kevon win the pool (the kid is uncanny), I was signed up to work with the event staff at the inaugural Lingerie Bowl, a soft-porn confection created by some overly tanned guy named Mitch Morteza. One of the karaoke regulars at the Prince of Whales named Bobette is also an event producer, and she hollered at my dawg Jon Lawson, who hollered at me. I was told that if I agreed to "break down" afterwards, I would be allowed on the sidelines. Visions of toweling off half-naked supermodels leapt into my mind. I called all my boys, got a few to agree (some of whom backed out), broke out my bought-new-in-November-and-never-opened digital camera, and we were on our way.

I should have known things were gonna go wrong when I found out I had to be at the LA Coliseum at 9AM. The Coliseum is just south of my alma mater USC, which can be reached from my house in six minutes, given no traffic. Alas, I haf to pick up Jon and my homeboy Mike Datcher, so I ended up showing up on site at about 9:15. Nobody cared.

The gig involved babysitting three tented pavillions, which would be visited by half-rate celebrities and fat cat sponsors checking in on their investment. Whatever. I was outfitted with a dark blue Family Entertainment polo shirt, and given ground rules. I'd be paid about $110. I wasn't supposed to "fraternize" with the lovely, scantily clad ladies. I wasn't security, so I wasn't supposed to whack anybody. I had to babysit a group of assets (couches, seat cushions). I had to stick around. I shrugged. I'd done more for less money, I had no doubt that the Super Bowl would be fixed by either Tom Brady's luck or federal intervention, and it was broad daylight, meaning I had nothing else to do.

So we "policed" (read: cleaned up litter) the location, stuck sticks in souvenir pennants to make flags of 'em, and generally performed busy work. The biggest sign I shouldn't have been there was that most of the other people doing work with me were either really old or teenagers. We ate free "continental breakfast" style food and lingered, ogling women and being bored.

I should note here that Jon and I stood out remarkably, regardless of the fact everybody who worked for Family Entertainment was wearing jeans and a polo shirt. First of all, we were (sans the suited security guards) the tallest Black guys around. Add to that Jon was wearing his black cowboy hat (kind of his trademark) and I had on my black fedora (definitely mine), we were instantly recognizable and several people came looking for us, as we were smart enough to remember how anything worked. We were instantly "go to" guys for no reason more than a lack of hesitation or confusion when anyone asked us a question.

The biggest problem was one of Vogon poetry: it's not that the left hand didn't know what the right hand was doing, it was that the right hand had a pretty foggy notion as well. For instance, at your right you should see a photo of Karmel, aspiring writer and part time bartendress. Karmel was hired directly by Mitch's people, who contracted a bartending temp agency of sorts, I suppose. These people were in no way connected to the people I was hired by. In addition to that, the poker dealer was hired seperately, the caterers were a different animal altogether, and so on. Somewhere between seven and ten different vendors were hired with no on-site coordinator for everybody, and all of us were supposed to work under the same tents. For our dear friend Karmel here, that meant that she shows up with mixing gear and garnishes to find no glasses, no ice, a flat table and warm beer. Two other bartendresses (I noticed that the three of them were, in order, Black, Latina and Asian, which was an odd note of diversity) soon showed up to find even less support for their "secondary" bars. Karmel was furious. "If they're just paying me to be pretty, they're not paying me enough," she protested. "I bought all these garnishes, how am I gonna make tips if I can't mix drinks? I'm not 'beer girl!'" Valid points all.

After an hour or so, she began to see the cosmic comedy in it, and decided to stick around. We talked writing a bit, discussing short fiction and poetry. Very early on she mentioned a boyfriend, so there was no real romantic tension (I didn't notice any), but we did end up exchanging cards for ... come to think of it, I'm not really sure why we did that. She suggested it before the real rush of people came in, and I saw no harm in it. Mmm.

Anyhoo, I wasn't too excited thus far at anything I'd seen, it being around 1PM by then. Tracy Bingham, decked out in lingerie as a "sideline reporter," wandered through and had some verboten tequila (she wasn't supposed to drink, heh) out of one of Karmel's garnish bowls. She was busty, but that's not really my bag, so I wasn't too interested. They, by then, had positioned me to guard the "trophy," a two-foot tall collection of metal and imagery to be awarded to the "winner" of the "game." With one of the head coaches being legendary football bad boy Lawrence Taylor, I wondered if he'd followed suit from his playing days, sending half-dressed gigilos to the hotel rooms of the opposition.

Here's where the poor planning started to play in. Whoever set up the tents -- large white things with flowing gauzy curtains as walls -- didn't work with the people who hired me. The curtains could not be weighted from the bottom, as they were barely stapled to the tent. This mean they blew around wildly in the wind, which was kind of considerable. American Idol alumni Justin Guarini (an example of the lower tier glitterati on hand, which isn't really fair as he was fairly personable, and surprised be by being my height) complained that it kept blocking the plasma TV as he watched the Super Bowl (and yes, I'll address that embarrassment as well). The aforementioned Karmel set ice buckets (which had no ice at the time, just beer) on her section of curtain to keep it out of her way. One of our staff (mostly Jon) was assigned to stand by a huge promotional poster, which the wind and curtains had toppled earlier, shattering its glass facade.

This became my problem when a big gust of wind grabbed some curtain and sent the trophy flying. At two feet tall and probably thirty pounds, this was no small feat. Luckily, I just happen to have dangerously fast reflexes, and made a one-handed grab for it in mid air, catching it just as it became parallel to the ground and saving it from a spill. I was surprised that several people applauded this feat (I didn't know, at that time, how boring the big game was). Now, this is all before the model/actresses took to the field.

About them ... without any exception, the actual players were on the skinny side. Some had some surgically enhanced breast goodness, but there wasn't a decent ass among them. The entire team was shown up by fishnetted girl referrees and the cheerleaders (who play into our story ... oh, why not now).

One of the cheerleaders caught my attention, a Meagan Good lookalike with a body that could stop traffic on Neptune. I considered her, trying to determine her age (which I figured to be maybe 19, way too young for me to even hold a conversation with, let alone sleep with). She was, by my estimation, the most attractive girl on the entire field. She and another cheerleader were rummaging around behind the "main" tent (the celebrity tent, two smaller ones were for "sponsors," although people wandered between the three freely) where our staff had left a large pile of supplies (nobody was sitting on the south side of the Coliseum, so nobody could see the crap), including a large pile of pennants (remember those?).

I poked my head out, taking charge as I had at numerous points of the day, and asked, "Can I help you ladies with something?"

Cheerleader looks at me with nothing I'd consider recognition and asks, "do you know where we can get more sticks for these flags?"

I chuckle. One box of sticks -- about 250 in all -- had been delivered along with six boxes of pennants (probably a hundred in each box). More of the failure to coordinate.

"I'm sorry to tell you that we used up all the sticks they brought with them," I told her, smiling a bit and gesturing.

She pondered a half second and asked me, "Is it all right if we give away the flags by themselves, just like they are?" Suddenly I was in a place to approve something, which again made me wonder how much younger she was.

"I can't see any harm in that," I replied, knowing that somebody was getting yelled at for the mix-up already, and the pennants were only behind the tent to save them from the trash.

She said a quick "thanks" without looking my way and dove to fill her arms with them, her cheer-mate (is that a word?) doing the same. That frustrated me a little -- every time she came into my field of vision, I could look at nothing else, but I barely attracted her attention at all. I know she was working, and I know I sound horribly self-absorbed, but this is my blog and my site and that's kinda just the way it goes.

Off they bounced with the flags, to give to the thin crowd massed on the Coliseum's north side (which is a bad idea in my mind, as they catch sunlight in their face without any benefit of warmth, then suffer the same cold everybody else was getting with worse lighting). Her hot pink mini skirt jiggled as she went, the amazing curves of her form peeking out. I found myself somehow wanting the team she cheered for ("Team Euphoria") to win, and worked on breathing regularly. She was that fine.

Hours passed. Several complaints about the "bar" got the attention of the event's uber-staff, who finally brought ice as Karmel scavenged concession stands for cups (she ended up with 30 for the day, which she split evenly with the other two bartenders and lasted maybe a half hour). People were concerned about getting close to the statue with me standing next to it, asking permission to take photos of it. Other than my feet starting to hurt, I was fine just watching people and listening to their inane conversations, fueling dialogue in my fiction.

The Super Bowl itself didn't get many people's attention, for good reason. My best friend Inpu noted that whenever George W. Bush's presidency is on the rocks or the US is fighting in the Gulf, the Patriots win the Super Bowl. Given that the Pats have only been to the big game four times and SF and NY were the winners during Desert Storm, this logic may be spurious. Still, I knew Tom Brady may be the luckiest man in the world (don't even let him in a casino, sheesh) and Carolina has been playing like they don't remember they're an expansion team (like I kept expecting the Seahawks to remember they play in Seattle and fall over). The smart money, with both their "Americanism," experience and the luck of Tom Brady on their side, led me to think they could not be beaten. I predicted Schwartzenegger as governor on similar terms. I was right both times.

Strangely enough, with all the madness at the Coliseum, I totally didn't even find out about Janet Jackson's breast making a live appearance on CBS until today. Thank god for endless news recaps (my question: what was supposed to happen, Timberlake?) and the glory of the web brought me all the data. Aaaaah ...

Anyway, before the girls hit the grass, I got "rotated" away from the big tent to the smaller ones. More boredom. The biggest drama was when an earlier member of our staff had ignored fans grabbing seat cushions to watch the "game" and I had to be the jackass and go get 'em all back.

Which brings me to the game itself. I had only one real ambition for the game, knowing that these women would not be doing amazing passing or running. All I really asked was that somebody launch themselves at full speed from one side of the field and plow into somebody else. A real, mean-spirited, 1970s-Steelers brand hit. Just one. Out of the fourteen girls on the field, I hoped at least one had it in her.

I was both disappointed and surprised. The players were considerably better than I would have thought, executing simple plays and routes and showing they'd really done some work. Which, truthfully, was the problem.

The Lingerie Bowl was a real football game, with real plays. What it wasn't was interesting. The skin factor was low, as the "uniforms" only made show of arms and legs (and with these girls, hair and boobs are 65% of their draw). The hits were realistic if not very energetic -- I suppose you don't develop any real running speed, working runways. There was a surprisingly solid defensive effort on both sides. The teams took it very seriously, which was a tragic error (Page 2's Patrick Hruby agrees). Only a brief scuffle early on and the lone touchdown made the game at all interesting. It was more of a show watching the cheerleaders and the people milling about (an astonishing number of attractive women showed up, on the field and in the stands, to watch the spectacle). I would have thought women would avoid this, as I've heard supermodels make women get all insecure about themselves, but even the chronically insecure (and tragically stupid) karaoke singer and professional audience member Diane showed up with her fundamentalist Christian roommate. I swear this city makes no sense sometimes.

Funny side story -- I'm throwing away something behind the small tent, and Diane is shouting from the rails at me. I wave, and she gestures for me to come over where she is. I can't think of any good reason to do that. Diane doesn't like Black guys, reportedly performs like a slug in the sack, and has the relative brain power of a half-depleted watch battery. I shout "I'm working!" She hollers back, "Just for a minute." I shout, "No!" and go back to my post. In retrospect, I could have been nicer and seen what she wanted ... but where's the profit in that? I don't even think I like her at all, anymore.

So boredom ruled Super Sunday. After it all ended, the arduous physical labor began. Stripping tape, rolling carpet, lifting couches and what not. Near the end of that debacle, the phone rang and Bobette wanted us (asking for Jon and me specifically, as she was saddled with a buncha underage types who couldn't be around the booze) down at the after party we couldn't attend as normal people. Mike wanted to go, but had been away from his wife all day. We dropped him at home, stopped long enough to get camera supplies and snacks, and headed to Beverly Hills.

The party wasn't all that amazing either. Three almost pubescent Indian go-go dancers wiggled unconvincingly along the wall, illuminated by a "gobo" (which is an illuminated logo shone on a wall or flat surface) proclaiming "Team Dream" the "2004 LFL Champions," which sounds like being the smartest kid in the dumbass class to me. The room was littered with older white men, with a male-female ratio of close to 4-to-1. The sparse supermodels and cheerleaders who wandered in ran in thick packs and avoided socializing or making eye contact with anyone outside their own groups. A 23-year-old aspiring actress with a utility belt full of promotional soy vodka flirted with me, but made sure I knew she had a boyfriend as well. Oh, yes, that is Tracy Bingham and another busty model type forming a sandwich with a guy who looks like Artie Johnson. It was that kind of night.

A rap group I vaguely know, called Styles of Beyond, performed after midnight. I vaguely remember they had a song I liked several years ago, but I can't remember the title of it. They'd done a "theme song" for the day, which surprisingly managed to make this ludicrous debacle fit into a decent hip hop song. None of their songs were bad, just non-descript, which I recall believing would keep them from being big, back when I first encountered them in 1997. Which brings us, through a long winded story, back to the cheerleader and my real reasons for writing a lot of this down.

The cheerleader showed up in a light blue mini dress (seen below) with two friends, both as staggeringly well-built as her, if only a shade less pretty -- and the one in the black dress (who didn't come out in the photo, she's on the left of the shot) could have argued that. She got to the party around 11:30, by which point I'd been on my feet since almost 9 AM and was still decked out in a "Family Entertainment" polo shirt (a fresh one, at least), watching over jackets and purses or walking around and keeping an eye on unlocked doors, watching for party-crashers. The "work" was not strenuous but lengthy, sapping my strength over time.

I watched the cheerleader dance with her friends (and one very showy gay man), mouthing the lyrics to Biggie songs. She may have looked my way a time or two, I can't tell. My best friend Inpu once told me that he suspected I come up with excuses not to talk to women, and I felt that way last night. She seemed so young. I was working, so "fraternizing" was supposedly out of the question if I wanted to get paid (and I did). I was tired. I was less than fresh, both physically and visually.

As the night wore on, I realized I was intimidated. A toxic cocktail of my own insecurities about my looks (I'm skinny, I wear glasses, I can point at chiseled faces more glorious than mine) mixed with the sheer power of her physical presence. I could have "taken a break," taken off the polo shirt and gone over to her. Maybe even danced -- other people who were "working" had done so. Fear was at the heart of my bloom of excuses. That really, really bothered me. After going through therapy following my divorce, and having beautiful women shower attention on me over the intervening almost-year, I thought I was okay, that I was confident.

But watching her "shake her tailfeather" took me back to schoolboy terror, memories of cheerleaders like Lisa Logan and Lisa Farris and Lisa Steele (why are so many cheerleaders named "Lisa?") ... smirking at me with mockery in their eyes. I remember the girls at cheer camp who laughed at me when I even tried to talk to them, one of only eight guys on the whole campus at the time. I was disgusted with myself.

Thirty-one years old and shaken like a teenager, scared to talk to a pretty girl. The combination of all the doubts about my judgement (I chose my ex-wife and willed that into creation), my concerns about the judgement of others (women attracted to me because I am the right age and right economic status and I don't hit and I'm not gay and I don't have kids and I am affectionate and I can act right, not because I physically attracted them that much) and still looking in the mirror and wondering if I'm good enough, all brought to light by a breathtaking ass and a perilous smile. All of my "no day but today" talk gone in a shiver of her skirt.

The trio of goddesses wandered out of the party a song before it ended, heading back to whatever mythical Valhalla women like that come from. Counting up the hours, I found I'd made almost $200 over the course of the day. I drove Jon home and returned to my ghetto view one bedroom.

A very different weekend.