Talk About the Outsider: Bouncer Can't Get a Drink at This Tenderloin Dive

By Katy St. Clair Wed., Sep. 29 2010 at 3:40 PM

Categories: Bouncer

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I joined the men at the bar and waited for the bartender to notice me. She was quite pretty, and obviously held her cleavage in great esteem. I waited for her to take my order. And waited. Her eyes never found purchase on my fertile countenance. I figured maybe she just thought I had been there for a while, already drinking, and that she didn't think I had just come in and wanted a drink. But then a man walked in and stood behind me, waiting to get a drink, and she immediately came over and took his order over my shoulder. (Cue Wanda Sykes voice: Oh, hell no!)

I looked down the bar and saw Asian women chatting up working-class white men. Was this one of those "hostess bars" I kept hearing about, where attractive (read: tarted-up) women flirt with dudes and get them to buy more drinks? Since this wasn't exactly my milieu, I couldn't be sure. And far be it for me to say that this was some sort of alleged ho shack. Nosirree, I couldn't say what was going on here, only that I had a better chance of finding a seat on a Chinatown bus than getting a drink.

This bar committed the cardinal sin of ignoring me. I can take a lot of stuff from a tavern: weak drinks, bathrooms that rival Abu Ghraib's, even Dave Matthews Band on the jukebox, but I will not be ignored (cue Glenn Close headshot from Fatal Attraction) ...

Read the rest of this week's Bouncer column

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