Chillin’ with Raekwon

On Friday night I invited a few friends over for drinks and apps before we all headed down to Blush to see Raekwon perform.  Mine and Meghan’s goal of getting our photo taken with every member of Wu Tang is slowly on its way to fruition.

After a few drinks (or, you know, a bottle of vodka, however you want to say it) and stuffing our faces with appetizers care of Brianne and my last minute trip to the grocery store, we headed out on foot.  There was a bit of a line up when we got there, so we missed a bit of the opening acts, although I’m not sure it really made a difference because I couldn’t even tell you who they were.  The bar was packed, so we found a spot next to the stage and waited for them to bring out the man of the hour.  It may have been because of the crowd (pushing and shoving their arms through the crowd to try and get a photo), or because of all the booze, but after about 20 minutes Meghan and I left for the patio and ended up wandering around there and behind the crowd that had formed around the stage.  It was a good show – I had fun listening – but I couldn’t even list one of Raekwon’s songs, so it wasn’t like I was singing along to all of the lyrics.  Immediately after he finished, Meghan’s sister and brother-in-law left, and only myself, Meg, and Brianne were left.  We hung around downstairs as the crowd slowly dispursed, and at some point Meghan managed to get a wrist band to go upstairs to the VIP to meet the man.  Standing at the bottom of the stairs, Meghan was about to go up and I said something to the effect of “well I need to go up there too” and the security guard blocking the stairs said, as if he could care less who went up there, “ya go ahead.”

We got upstairs and someone ushered us over to Raekwon so we could awkwardly gather around him while someone took our photo.

As you can tell, the man was sweaty.  We just sort of stood around and he asked us some questions (of which I have little to no memory) and then asked me how old I was.  Before I could respond, he said “What are you, 31?”.  Jesus Christ.  Fucking Raekwon.  I did not hide my disappointment: “What the fuck, Raekwon?! I’m 27!”  Friggin’ guy.  Anyway, so after that we went back downstairs and after scanning the remaining crowd to determine that they were all, in fact, douchebags and groupies, I made my plea to the ladies for us to leave.  Meghan wanted to dance, Brianne was content in laughing at her, but I felt the overwhelming desire to get the fuck out of there.  As we were standing there, one of Raekwon’s ‘handlers’ came up to me and said “(Muffled) wants to meet you.”  I rudely responded “What?” and he repeated himself – Raekwon wants to meet me.  I said “Oh ya, I’ve already met him” and he looked at me like I had recently had a lobotomy, and then asked if I didn’t want to go back to the hotel and party with them.  Hell no.  I pointed at Meg and Brianne and he responded “ya, bring your girls.”  I relayed this to Meghan and Bri, apparently mocking the guy while he was standing right behind me.  Meghan was all for it, so we went back upstairs.  When we got up there, Raekwon waved me over and said something to the effect of “so my friend got you to come back up here” and then proceeded to ask me questions like “do you listen to this kind of music?” and others along the theme of ‘you-are-so-white’.  I scoffed and said that we had seen GZA a few months ago and that the show was pretty good.  More photos were taken at this point, just cause we could.  Brianne told Raekwon how tiny we thought his feet looked (it’s a wonder he can hold himself upright, he has tiny ass feet!), and got a photo comparing his to her size-three feet.

At this point they were all leaving for the hotel, and I was wholly uninterested in going.  I had no intention of fucking anyone, and didn’t want to end up in a situation where that was assumed of me.  You know – getting girls to go back to your hotel with you?  That’s not an environment for an old white lady with a man at home.  Anyway, Meghan made a fairly strong argument “when are we ever going to get the chance to party with Raekwon again?!” so I turned to Brianne, the Voice of Reason (being sober and level-headed), for her thoughts.  “We should probably go with them.”  So it was settled.  While Meghan and Brianne were getting their jackets, I was waiting in the VIP doorway, chatting away with the Wu Tang alum, while the rest of the entourage and the chicks they had convinced to have sex with them were all piling into the limo that was waiting out front.  In a moment of complete embarrassment (only in retrospect, though), I yelled down the hall to Meghan and Brianne as they came with their jackets “yah, just talking to Raekwon, no big deal, whatever, just hanging out with Raekwon.”  I thought I was being funny at the time, but thinking back I must have looked like a fucking jackass.  Whatever.

So we got into a shiny black limo and made our way to the Fairmont (one of Winnipeg’s few fancy hotels).  The first room we went into was just two beds and a tv (what you would expect of a hotel room), so we left there and went with the DJ and promoter to another room that had a couch, desk, and murphy bed (which we immediately pulled out and laughed at).  The next few hours were spent smoking the DJ’s weed, laughing about pretty much everything, and essentially just hanging out on the couch.  It was awesome.  Plus that DJ’s weed was really good.  Brianne had mentioned early in the night that she used to live in England, so the running joke was to call eachother “bloody wankas” and “cunts” – the best moment being when Brianne was explaining the British use of the word “cunt” and one of the guys in the entourage walked in asking for a condom (“I’mma bust in her face” – real classy, you fucking jackass).  He was a huge douche, so Bri didn’t miss a beat, pointed to him and said “this guy right here, he’s a classic cunt.”  Awesome.

We left when the guy whose room we were in wanted to go to bed, and instead of going to another room, we went downstairs so Meghan could have a smoke.  We decided at that point just to leave (I was convinced they’d hardly notice we had left).  While we were standing outside trying to figure out what to do (or trying to convince Meghan it was time to go, being that it was 4:00 am), a dude in a suit came up and asked for a smoke and started talking to us.  He was a weird guy, and kind of a dick, first lying about his father being dead to garner sympathy, I guess, and then writing down what we were saying on a little notepad he had.  He was a tool.

We left in a cab and headed back to my place.  I fell asleep around 5:00 am, only to be woken up four hours later by my brother who was to drive us to the lake Saturday morning.  Needless to say, I had a rough Saturday.

All in all, though, an amazing night.  I haven’t laughed that much or mocked that mercilessly in ages.  The next show that’s coming to Winnipeg is Busta Rhymes, and you better believe I’m going to groupie it up for that shit and add another celebrity photo to my collection.