Fuck Coachella!
I’m sure music fans will be up in arms when they read this title. I really have nothing against the music festival in Indio, except that it sucks twenty-thousand white people out of the westside. And like the Republican party, white people are an Irish Pub’s base. I have no problem with black people, it’s just that at any given time last time, I could count the number of black people in the pub on my dick. We did have a couple of Hispanics (or is it Mexicans, Latinos, Dodger fans, I never know) in last night; and, although, we have no problem with them, it seemed that one of them had a problem with us.
Wednesday night, Aoife reminded me that Coachella puts a hurting on our business, so my expectations were severely dampened. Happy hour was quiet, but it gave me a chance to chat with customers. I had one couple in and I noticed that she had a list with a post it note list attached. Now I’ve never been a big fan of lists. I have one friend who at the end of each list writes, “Make New List.” That’s a bit too militant for me. I asked the woman at the bar about her list and list adjunct and it turns out that the couple is getting married. For someone who doesn’t really want to get married, nor celebrate his birthday, I sure enjoy the shit out of celebrating other people’s milestones. Turns out this couple is supposed to honeymoon in Fiji. Alas, the constitution has been suspended and democracy has disappeared overnight. (I’m talking about Fiji now.) In order to attract tourists they devalued their currency. Now this couple has no desire to make a statement against the government by canceling their plans, but they don’t want to get jacked by an angry Fijian for keeping them. I wish them luck.
The second half of the night started out slow, scratch that dead. My old girlfriend and former Live And Let Date blogger Liza Persky came in. It’s always great seeing her although the circumstances weren’t. A friend of Liza’s was found collapsed in her apartment. They did an MRI at the hospital and discovered a tumor which they removed. She’s recovering miraculously, but it just goes to show that life turns on a dime. I normally don’t like to shirk my duties at work but I don’t get to see Liza too often and since it was slow, I let Tim and Aoife pick up the slack. That’s the thing about bartending. It’s so easy to get locked into one customer, whether it’s a friend, a regular, or just someone you wanna bone. In any case, I looked up at one point and saw that we were all having one of those moments. It was slow enough that people didn’t have to wait too long, but it was slow enough that they shouldn’t have had to wait at all. Liza eventually took off and I got my head back in the game. Luckily, business picked up. The Ruse, the band that night, brought a good crowd. A couple of semi-regulars, Jen and Theresa, came in. They were chatting with a couple of Hispanic customers, who were drinking well and racking up a tab. At one point, Stevie, the bar back pointed out that one of the Mexicans was starting a fight with another customer. Turns out the Latino in question was getting too close to Theresa and another woman’s boyfriend stepped in to run interference. This didn’t sit well with the Dodger Fan, who went on to say, “I hate white people!” Excuse me? (Shameless plug alert: Ironically, I have a blog called: whitepeopleIhate.com.) I mean I have nothing against people who hate whitey, but what are you doing in an Irish pub in Santa Monica? The only whiter place on earth is an Irish Pub in Manhattan Beach. In any case, they were escorted out, given the opportunity to continue promulgating their hatred on one of the whitest streets on the planet.
Although I normally hate slow nights, this one was actually quite enjoyable. Aside from the anger towards my people; although, “my people” are semitic and lean more towards a shade of khaki, the customers in the bar were alright. I may have jumped the gun on the title. I’ll let you know how tonight goes, but with business the way it was last night, all I can say is, “Fuck Coachella!”
