Bouncer on Paris Hilton, the Hilton Hotel, and S.F.'s Urban Tavern

By Katy St. Clair Wed., Aug. 10 2011 at 5:33 PM

Categories: Bouncer

From this week's Bouncer column:

No one seems to be watching The World According to Paris, so I have had to take up the slack on my lonesome. The premise of the most recent reality show based on the life of heiress Paris Hilton is her day-to-day existence in Los Angeles. She has to keep reinventing herself in order to remain "hot," to use her parlance. Presumably, these days she is a businesswoman first -- one whose brand is nothing other than her physical manifestation on Earth: blond, rich, exclusive, and pouty. Being the oppositional-defiant journo that I am, I would really like to exalt her with neofeminist theory, but she had to go and say on the show that only "ugly girls" give blow jobs, and that knocked the wind out of my Conair hairdryer. Sadly, she really is a complete and total tool.

Despite Paris Hilton's fame, it is fair to say that no one looks at the Hilton Hotel chain and immediately thinks of her, which is a good thing for the Hilton Hotel chain. Actually I never make the connection unless I am at a Hilton (usually in the bar, which is the only part of it I can afford) and something goes terribly wrong, or appears cheap, or seems cookie-cutter. Then and only then will I say to myself, "Wow, Paris is a stupid, selfish twit who is comparable in depth to the faux-luxury of the chain that bears her surname." It's ironic, really, because technically she comes from old money, at least by American standards, and is not nouveau riche, though she certainly seems to fit the mold.

Most of the time I forget the association between the two. Like the other day, when I went to the Urban Tavern, which is a gastropub attached to the Hilton on O'Farrell. I wandered in without giving Paris a thought, at least initially...

... continue reading this week's Bouncer column.

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