Broke Fat White People

Last night I was minding my own business at my man Q's house in the Pearl District when I get drunk-dialed by Sammy's ass. He came to pick me up in the broken down Daewoo that he be driving these days, half in the bag, and demanded I take him to several seedy, dark, smelly strip bars around town while he accused me of being a half-ass friend and tried to get me to commit all 20USD I have to a "certain idea." Out of that trip came yesterday's stripper post ...

but the real fantastic discovery was Sizzler's. Years and years ago my family would stop by Sizzler's on some road trip across the nation and for me it always meant massive well stocked salad bars and shrimp platters I could never finish. Steaks I had to share with my punk ass little brother.

But this time around I was sober as a judge and 31 and I got a good glimpse of the Sizzler clientele. Holy Jesus. Sad looking overweight white people living a few blocks from Portland's "infamous" 82nd street sat dejectedly shoving food into their mouths and rising cumbersomely up for another stab at the appetizers and boiled egg salad. A table of old women, combined weight 1200lbs (6 ladies), sat chomping away and chatting about who knows what. Three of the ladies scooted around the salad bar in those motorized wheelchairs for the obese and arthritic.

The waitress ... she gave me the impression of a young tittering girl wearing a fake skin stolen from a tanning salon addict. She was nervous and anxious and brought us three servings of cheese bread (oh God) and giggled way too long at every drunken slobbering piece of bullshit Sammy spat out onto the table.

I sunk into depressed, resigned silence. Reflecting on the kids I aint got, the job I just lost, the wife that used to be fine and my gut that keeps growing.

Irvine, CA and ShadySecond Street Portland. I suppose Obama being elected tells us that these slices of our society are not the majority, but I think they are. It makes me feel like a well dressed man standing on the tip of an ice berg shouting for champagne while the rest of the ship's passengers slowly freeze to death a few feet below.

Strippers

Strippers wanna be watched, stared at, lusted over and dreamt about. Strippers watch themselves in the mirror and wish they could throw some ones at their own wiggling ass. Strippers wanna sit at the bar and talk politics in their skimpy suits and be taken seriously. Strippers want elicit sex between shows in the waiting room with the skinny tattooed bus boy as they tell each other in breathless whispers about all the Johns outside wishing wishing wishing ...Strippers want a rich mysterious hunk of a man to smoke silently in the corner shadowy and lusting and be taken by surprise on the way to the car. Strippers want those coveted night shifts so the money can roll in. Strippers want you to ask them their names as you stare at them, into them, drool about them in your head and they can reply with ardor in their eyes Nisei, Emily, Lynk, Berlin, Gabi, Roxy ... Strippers want to have the sex everyone is dreaming about having as they dance ... they want to go home at the end of the night and have chocolate ice cream and a back rub from their real man as they watch Deadwood and try not to think about rent. They wanna stop worrying and just do like Cyndi said ...

Strippers want me to write this post in my dungeon as the furnace kicks in and drowns out KBOO upstairs and all i can smell is stale cigarette smoke and last week's body odor still mingling with last night's trying to be down, trying to be accepted ...