Bumpin’ beats at Booty Bassment

It’s finally starting to feel like Southern California again, rather than the soggy Pacific Northwest. The weather tax is finally paying its dividends. Everyone’s spirits are elevated. The sun is chirping and the birds are shining. Saturday afternoon finds me at Coronado’s Tideland Park with some friends — and some of their friends — doing park things: playing cornhole, eating somebody’s homemade hot sauce on hot dog buns, and watching regattas on the bay. Some guy is talking about his chickens named Whitey and Blacky, and how they’re starting to physically attack him. I don’t know what to tell him. I’m slightly amused, but also looking for a way out of the conversation. When the night finally tightens its grip, I look to the east and see the Booty Signal shining in the sky over the San Diego skyline: a Batman-style projection, glowing white cartoon butt cheeks, mooning me from among the stars. It’s streaming from the Whistle Stop in South Park, as Booty Bassment commences the second of three BB parties this month.

I tell the group I need to go. It’s urgent. I hop into the BootyMobile, aka my black Subaru Crosstrek, fire it up, and hit the gas. America! Wait, the car is Japanese engineered. Whatever. Cue the Batman theme (TV show, movie, cartoon — comic dealer’s choice) as I rip over the Coronado Bridge, up some steep hills, and through the pleasant Tipu tree-draped South Park streets, finally cozying up to a side street off Fern.

Before making my capeless entrance into the Whistle Stop, I slide into Vinyl Junkies across the street to look around while I wait to meet up with Whittney Blue. By instinct, I look for Tom Waits’ Rain Dogs, just in case it’s ever pressed again, and then I check to see if Greta Van Fleet’s new album is out. Nope, not yet. In the corner of the shop, a DJ named Mike is spinning colorful, groovy records from John Dwyer of the garage rock band Osees. Instead of the usual DJ headphones, this guy holds a pink rotary phone to monitor the sounds he’s putting out. “It’s Record Store Day,” he tells me, pressing the pink receiver to his ear. “This morning, people were lined up down the sidewalk and through the alley to get in here for newly released vinyls.”

As the Vinyl Junkies DJ is still doing his thing, I get a text from Whittney Blue saying that she won’t be able to make it. BootyMan is left without his beloved sidekick, forced to brave the Booty Bassment in a solo spinoff. Shit, man. I leave the record store and beetle over to Station Tavern to guzzle a quick $9 beer. As I leave, I find I’m walking behind a stable of scantily dressed gals who are also on their way to the Whistle Stop. “I hope it’s not too crowded,” one says. I decide that, if I just walk in behind them, the bouncers will think I’m part of their group, rather than some severely underdressed secret identity in a green and damp-pitted Chadwick Stokes & the Pintos T-shirt.

Inside, the bar is a completely different vibe from the Vinyl Junkies party. It’s “Rap 4 that ass” — at least that’s what Booty Bassment advertises — and it’s delivered in a package of hip-hop beats and well-dressed, perspiring bodies, bumping and grinding beneath a disco ball near the infamous pool table that always gets in everyone’s way as they try to reach the pissers.

After a bit, I step outside to take a breather from the steam inside. I’m chumming it up with a couple of beanstalk bouncers when we hear a stool crash. A woman in the patio area has fainted and fallen down. One of the bouncers and I rush over; the dude she’s with is in a state of shock as she lies on her back, her blank eyes staring up at the night sky. After around 15 seconds, she comes to. I run inside and grab a glass of water for her from the bar. When I get back, she seems okay. That’s my cue to leave; my work here is done. I hand the water to her guy and walk away from the Booty Bassment. Before heading back to the BootyMobile, I stop by the hotdog vendor stationed outside the bar and haggle them down from seven dollars to four. Having saved the day, BootyMan disappears into the darkness, chewing on a discounted frank.