Friday, May 29, 2009
Music news Dangerous Moves: Viva Señor Selleck — Mayor of Ponce bar crawls down Buford Hwy., pt. 2
Posted by J. Winter on Fri, May 29, 2009 at 4:33 AM
This one’s a bit trickier. It’s one thing to ham it up in a sleazy strip club. It’s another to bounce on foreign turf, while them not get the joke and we not speak the language. The pen may be mightier than the sword, but I wouldn’t suggest bringing a ballpoint to a knife fight. At least, not to a fight you want to live to blog about.
“There’s a group playing tonight,” says the door guy explaining the $5 cover. I like that “groups” play these places, not bands. “Groups” sounds like I’m at least getting choreography along with the retardation. Fuck it, here’s my money.
We’re outside Confetti’s Discotheque and the guy is actually making a couple gringos feel pretty welcome. We talk him down to $10 for all three of us. “The pretty lady is free,” he says smiling. I’d smile, too. She’s a breezy in any language.
He doesn’t even frisk us. No matter. To Slay’s disappointment, I left the rest of my steak for the kitchen staff at Follies to scuffle over.
There’s an eerie feeling as we walk in. That’ll happen when you’re instantly met with about 20 or so señoritas milling about by the front entrance in their Saturday night attire. It’s odd, but I’ll take it. Bienvenido, indeed.
The place seems about as you might expect a Hispanic dance club. It’s spacious. There are Mexicans wearing cowboy hats and boots, a stage for “groups” to perform (not bands), pool tables, and tables and chairs that appear to be from old Chinese restaurants. Check, check and check. All we need now is cocaine and organized prostitution.
ONE DOLLAR DANCERS
We meet our ambassador of sorts — a Buford cowboy who says he’s been dancing in Atlanta since the Club Anytime days. Luis is posted Lonesome Dove-style at the bar, and I can tell he wants to talk to Team Peligro. And talk. And talk. And talk.
Much of what’s said I can’t really make out, but I keep nodding my head as it seems friendly enough. A couple of Corona’s later, I get to the real mystery at hand. What’s with the mingling welcoming committee with halter-tops and frilly skirts about?
Basically, Luis explains, they dance with you for $1. Or shoot pool. Or just sit with you at the bar for a song or two. It’s as simple and innocent as that. No funny business. It’s just a good, clean, junior high dance, prostitution ring.
With good advice from Slay, I resist escorting a handful of handpicked bonitas to the center of the dance floor while writing $1 checks ’til I work up a lather. Imagine me, in the middle of all those brown eyes, making it rain promissory notes from Wachovia. That’s not blood on the dance floor, darling; that’s a bad check.
We stay out of the way and out of trouble at an inconspicuous table (that I’m sure used to belong to a Hunan Village). Señor Slay keeps pressing me to go around and ask where a gringo can find a good cock fight in this town. So much for his sound advice.
I decide instead to look for a restroom. On the way, I pass a couple of what my buzz tells me are $5 girls. They make me upset for goofing around in 7th grade Spanish. If only Mrs. Daniels would’ve answered our endless questions of “When am I ever gonna need this?” with a stern, “When your dumb ass is fucked up at Confetti’s Discotheque tryin’ to holler at one dollar dancers!”
That’s when.
I make a turn down a hallway and see a restroom on the right with no door. It’s the men’s room, and it’s occupied. Sure there’s no door, but there’s a toilet, a sink, trashcan, lovely plywood walls, and about six Mexicans standing in a circle doing cocaine.
They all look up, with big, bright, dilated eyes. I feel like Crocodile Dundee when he finds himself in a sticky situation in New York City and suddenly realizes he’s left his knife in the back of Carl Winslow’s limo.
“Uhhh, bãno?” I wince.
“Si, si. Yeah, man. It’s ok.”
They part a path to the toilet as if they’re honored I would piss while they snif. As I’m standing over the porcelain, they tend to their Peruvian. I look over, half expecting to see Pablo Escobar as our ol’ hustler bathroom attendant spritzing out Fernando Valenzuela cologne. Instead I glance down and sure enough there's a brown, uncircumcised, mini taquito hanging over the trashcan pissing beside me.
And I didn’t’ even have to give him a dollar.
Stay tuned for part 3, when Mayor and Team Peligro cap their night off at the Rusty Nail and the Buff bar crawl ends in grand fashion with Don Selleck behind the bar, and Cheryl Ladd’s ass on the wall.
Read Viva Señor Selleck — a bar crawl down Buford Hwy., pt. 1
(Photo courtesy J. Winter)
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