If you weren’t pounding the crowded Abbot Kinney pavement this June 5th in the gorgeous dusk of a Venice First Friday, you certainly missed a wildly growing phenomenon in the Westside’s art hub.

Forth staff members, on the other hand, were out in full force, navigating between our stations at The G2 Gallery and Equator Books with blue plastic cups clutched firmly in hand, legs drunkenly warbling through swarms of happy party people.

Editors Marco Mannone and Jason Hall manned the Forth booth at  Equator, a rowdy and fun scene, with Brad Elterman’s iconic photographs providing the perfect backdrop to the party – what’s cooler than a black-and-white photo of Steve Jones doing the backstroke naked while grabbing his shaft and sticking out his tongue? Now I don’t know what I enjoyed most about the photo, the fact that in it, Jonesy is the spitting image of a young Sean Penn, that he whipped his cock out to shock an unsuspecting prudish visitor, or how funny it was watching guy after guy try to hit on girls while they were completely mesmerized by the photo. My socks were officially rocked off during the awesome Hi As a Kite set, when I may have fallen in love with their keyboardist, and then seductively rocked back on by the sexy cello and vocals of Oak and Gorski.

Publishing Assistant Christine Gergori held down the fort at G2, which was a mellower scene, the crowd checking out the gallery’s On the Wing: Picturing the Plumed exhibit, which showcased images of aerial and flightless birds in their natural habitat by talented nature photographers Daniel Gottlieb, Susan Gottlieb, Larry Wan, Ron LeValley and Thomas Mangelsen. Conversation flowed like the free wine, and the tiny cheese cubes were a deliciously zesty accompaniment to the smooth vocal stylings of Susan Crebs and her aviary-influenced jazz band.

Although nothing can replace the heady nighttime Venice aroma of Nag Champa, sage, medical marijuana, and beer in your nostrils, or the dramatic look of the sky as the sun sinks through gorgeous layers of pollution into the ocean, I will do my best to transport you to the orgy of the senses that is First Friday.

Favorite Terrible Pick-up Line of the Night:

“Show me your Tweets, I’ll show you mine.”

Favorite Outfit of the Night:

The cumulatively confusing effect of this curious assemblage cannot be accurately captured on paper, but I will say that lame gold pants paired with a faded sage polo shirt underneath a faded black sweater, coupled with black orthopedic shoes, will never fail to make an impression on me. It’s like his legs were at a party, his torso was at his IT job, and his feet were…well, flat, which is a serious condition affecting 25% of the population and not funny at all.

Favorite Conversation of the Night:

Fratty drunk white guy in beanie: I wanna beer.
Bartender: All right, man. We got a local microbrew, it’s a lager called Che, and we got Budweiser. Which one would you like?
FDWGIB: What?
Bartender: One’s a real good local lager, named Che, like the revolutionary. And the other is Budweiser.
FDWGIB: What?
Bartender (patiently): One’s brewed at Angel City Brewing, who LA Magazine named “Best Microbrew” in its “Best of LA” issue. And the other is Budweiser. Which one do you…
FDWGIB: Budweiser.

Favorite Lesson Learned:

Next time, bring a clear bowl for subscriptions. Sure, at the beginning of the night the concept of an empty cardboard Tsingtao box with a subscription-urging flyer on it being used as a receptacle for said subscriptions is easy to grasp, but after 4 cups of Che, I can’t even be sure I wasn’t the one throwing trash in it.

Favorite Tramp of the Night

I had help deciding on this one, namely from the bouncer/bartender dudes who were happy to share their sexy-lady ogling with me. After watching throngs upon throngs of the beautiful, the trashy, the crunchy, and the urban-outfittery, our ogling was beginning to feel tiresome, until I gorgeous, petite, black woman with almond-shaped eyes and an incredible afro walked in, her perfect skin luminous even in semi-dark. I looked over at the guys, and I could see they agreed, their arms crossed, lips pursed in satisfaction, nodding slowly.

“Oooooh-weee…” The main bartender exhaled softly through his teeth.
“I know! Isn’t her hair fucking fierce?” I asked.
“Huh? I’m talkin’ about the white girl in the shorts, I don’t know what kind hair she got,” he clarified.

I hadn’t even noticed Wonder Bread, even though she was with the hot black girl. But as she walked away working her 5-inch cork platform sandals with black ties that snaked around her ankles, culminating in a bow in the back, the jiggly bottom parts or her ass (the bottom bottoms, if you will) had me mesmerized; and in light of this I could definitely see how her hair was irrelevant. It turns out that, after she finished rounding the corner, I also didn’t know what kind of hair she had. When I think of her now, I picture a Bratz doll.

“You mean the girl in the coochie cutters?” I just wanted to be sure.
“I like you,” the biggest security guy guffawed and put his arm around me.
“I like you too, but I need to help y’all out with the ladies,” I decided. “Listen, we’ll go out, and I’ll totally be your wingman. It’ll make you look less sleazy, and maybe we’ll find you someone whose vagina hasn’t had more visitors than the Smithsonian.”

I don’t think their laughter was indicative of them taking my matchmaking seriously. A girl can try though, can’t she?

Favorite Cop Story of the Night:

What’s the best barbeque you’ve ever had?  Was it so good that it warranted you breaking the law you were, ironically enough, sworn to enforce? That was the case for certain gastronomically inclined police officers who, parking their squad car unashamedly in the middle lane, bravely decided to risk the inevitable “pigging out” jokes as they patiently waited for their ribs from the Glencrest Bar-B-Que.

And on that delicious law-breaking note I will bid you adieu. See you on the next First Friday of the month!