Last night I met up with some classmates at Sancho's Broken Arrow on E. Colfax & Washington. The only bar in Denver with a jukebox full of Grateful Dead and Widespread bootleg CDs. The only bar in town with framed Phil & Friends concert posters on an entire wall from ceiling to floor. The only bar in town with bench cushions covered in plastic. weird.
When I arrived at Sancho's my classmates had already been there for quite some time and they were already a bit surly. 3 petite girls with a lot of energy, a lot of booze, a lack of inhibitions, and a lack of a defined sexual preference. Needless to say, these girls were quite enjoying themselves.
They had taken to dancing and wrestling on the plastic cushions. Why not? That is what the plastic is for, right?
Wrong.
Sancho's began to get crowded with neo-hippies, and the girls began to run out of room to dance and wrestle on the plastic. The neo-hippies didn't seem to mind the girls' behavior. After all, they were 3 petite girls grabbing and pulling and pressing on one another. Not a bad little show for the patrons. But neo-hippy management did not like these girls' behavior one bit. As soon as an opportunity presented itself, they gave us the boot.
One girl had laid down on the bench and closed her eyes for a few moments. The bouncer ran over and said the establishment can't allow people to pass out at the bar. (Hippy establishment is a not an oxymoron anymore.) She had to leave. She sat up and said she wasn't passed out. He didn't care. She tried to take a drink of her beverage and he took it out of her hands. He told her to leave again. We all said, "really?". He told her to leave again. And again, we said, "really?". He wouldn't budge. So we all left.
I'm not sure when hippies became so intolerant, but they are right up there now with fundamentalist christians and muslims. well, maybe not that openly intolerant. But they sure don't tolerate people dancing on their plastic-covered cushions.
We left the bar and the girls adjourned to their nearby apartment. I was not invited to partake in the after hours festivities.
I walked to my favorite night time bus stop. The 11th & Broadway stop that is directly across the street from Club Vinyl. Whenever I am in the vicinity and it is after midnight, I like to watch the clubbers filter in and out while I wait for my bus to pick me up. And Thursday nights do not disappoint. Fat girls leaving the club with skinny dudes, provocatively dressed girls running away from desperate guys, drunk guys stumbling into the street looking for a place to throw up, big security guards patting down dudes with big, baggy, saggy pants (when the security guard checks their pockets, they have to reach down to somewhere around their knees), and me trying to blend into the streetscape.
I watch the scene for about a half an hour, but it is late and I am tired. I decide I am close enough to just walk home (12 blocks). Not two minutes after I start walking, my bus flies passed me. that pisses me off. I decide to duck into the next bar for one last drink. I need to relieve my bladder anyhow.
I walk into the Moontime Bar & Grill (another neo-hippy bar). It is mostly empty except for a few people at the bar and a little hippy dude dj-ing with a laptop and speakers. No bartender. No waitresses. I walk straight to the toilet and relieve myself. I walk out just as the bartender and waitress are returning to the bar with dinner plates. The waitress sees me and looks terrified to see a strange man walk out of the toilet. I give her a wink and walk out the door.
I guess I thought it would be more entertaining to leave her wondering if I was some cat burglar that just purged the mens room of all the paper towels and toilet paper, rather than sitting down and ordering a beer and becoming just another bar patron.
I walked out onto Broadway, pulled out my headphones, set my ipod to shuffle mode, and stared up at the stars while I set out on the long, lonely, drunken walk home.
