Tony hit up the Dude and I to head down to The Longboard, a little bar in downtown Huntington Beach where he knows the bouncers. When we got there the Dude went inside to get the first round while Tony and I stopped at the door to do some meet and greet. Of course I decide to take advantage of our friend privileges and start checking the IDs of two hotties trying to get in. I pretend to run their licenses which I say are coming up as fakes. I let them know that they can probably get in if they just use the Jedi mind trick, you know a little wave of the hand and the phrase “You don’t need to see our IDs.” Imagine my surprise when neither of the ladies have a clue what I am talking about. Needless to say I immediately wrote them off as NFWS, no fun while sober.

Tiring of hassling the clientelle, I go inside where I see the Dude flagging me over to a table where he is sitting with a trio of forty-somethings who, using my keen detective skills (I heard their accents), I know aren't from these parts. Earlier that day I had ripped my last pair of contacts, so I had to wear my glasses. Naturally a situation like that called for a killer fictitious back story. I had already let the Dude and Tony know that for the rest of the evening I was eco-friendly Professor Billy Freeman from UCLA. When I got to the table the Dude immediately jumped in to let me know that he had been talking to our new friends who A) were from England and B) didn’t believe in global warming. Being the good friend that he is, he then asked me to tell them about the ground-breaking work I was doing on climate change while we all took shots of Patron.

This led to a 15 minute lecture on the nature of global warming, with tons of statistics I pulled from thin air and what I could recall from a Discovery Channel special I watched. I end up in a heated debate with the two guys while the Dude goes outside to smoke with one of the chaps wives to keep from laughing at my woeful warnings of dire consequences and impending doom.

Everything ends up roses- I convince the gents to recycle and quit using cheap aerosol colognes, and the Dude got to sit back and watch me spin a web of bullshit the likes of which this city has never seen. As we were leaving the Dude told me that whether or not people realize that I'm full of shit, they'll probably keep listening to see just how long I can keep dishing it out.

All in all Longboard is a pretty cool place to go for a relaxed drink or a night of lies and deceit. The drinks are strong and there's never a cover - which deserves an 8 out of 10.