President's Day Weekend

Holiday weekends are fun, as long as you don't work in the industry. If all of you have off, all of us have to work that much harder!

The phenomenon of President's Day weekend began during my days at the Studio Six. The formerly sleepy little holiday began turning into a mid-winter party holiday that rivaled New Year's Eve and quickly became the better one, at least for nightclub staff. Where New Year's Eve is derisively known as 'amateur night', at least President's Day was full of your more regular club kids (meaning night club regulars, not the eighties definition) who knew how to handle their drugs and alcohol. Now it seems to have spilled over to day drinkers, at least as evidenced by this past weekend. Friday was not very busy but it gave us a chance to discuss plans for the following day, since we had ninety-six people on our reservations, a very high number for a place like the Distillery. That also meant that the walk-ins were going to be massive as well. 

Saturday didn't disappoint.

Right out of the gate, we were busy, with two large tour groups coming in and many other four-tops, around forty people sat in a matter of minutes. The tours give me a small window to breathe, since most of the people are there for the actual tour and I only have to make a handful of drinks right away, it's the end of the tour that I start getting slammed and once that happened, most of the rest of the day was a blur. Thankfully, my roommate (and ex) was there acting as my barback. I told everyone, he was there for me and me alone, I needed to know that all the other stuff was being done behind me so I can pump out the cocktails as quickly as possible. He kept the glasses clean, my bottles full, and general clean-up and it lowered my stress levels considerably. I don't think I could have done it without him there. Emily, our diva server and bartender in training, was also a godsend, she keeps a lid on things and everyone is a little afraid of her, which is (generally) good. Towards the end of the day, I did get to sit for a minute with some friends and chat, it was nice to take a little break right before we shut and started getting the bar ready for the next day. As you can see, I don't have much to say about the day as a whole, my total focus all day long was on making drinks, about two hundred and forty in all over the shift. On a side note, I giggled a little when our Little Water Distillery social media page shared all the people's Instagram photos of their drinks when they were there and I realized that I had made every single one of them. 

And they all looked perfect, if I do say so myself. It's nice to see the positive feedback, though, after such an intense but fun day. 
Sunday came and, although not as busy as the day before, it was far busier than most Sundays there. Without the extra staff on hand, and still a little exhausted from the day before, I was getting a little harried with having to clean glasses and do the set-ups, our drinks can get quite complicated so every little bit of help makes my job easier and more efficient. We strive to make sure each drink is handcrafted and fresh, no pre-made watered-down cocktails. I prefer it that way but it's unavoidably time consuming. Our regular guests know that going in, and we do remind everyone when we seat them, but the pressure is on me to make sure it's done as quickly as possible. Thankfully, all my decades of training at the Studio Six and elsewhere prepared me for high-volume bartending. We made it through and I was home before seven o'clock, which was a happy surprise.
And nothing makes the day fly by like being mad busy! 
I think I was dead asleep by eight thirty. 

All in all, it was a great weekend for the Distillery. The next big event is our fifth anniversary which, if it's anything like last year, will be a record breaking day! 

Ghost Story

My boyfriend Joe and I decided to finally get a place of our own. It had been long enough and we were doing well financially, with my shows and our cleaning jobs, that we felt that we could afford something small for the two of us. One of our cleaning clients happened to have recently bought a small property on Richards Ave. in Ventnor a block from the bay and she offered to rent it to us. We took the obligatory tour of the little one bedroom and immediately fell in love, it was very quaint with a porch, living room with a mantle, dining area and a kitchen to the left and a bedroom to the right towards the back of the house. The bathroom was tucked under the stairs going up to the apartment above but we thought that was charming, even though that meant taking daily baths since there was no room for a shower stall.
We moved in quickly, we didn't have that much to begin with so there wasn't a whole lot to haul across the island. We settled in, getting as domestic as a drag performer and tortured artist could possibly get in the middle of suburbia, since that's what Ventnor is compared to Atlantic City, although in condensed form. There was an attached garage and a little front and back yard that Joe quickly commandeered for his artistic needs and I cordoned off a bit of the porch to store my costumes and accessories. It was an idyllic time in our lives, the money was coming in, the rent was cheap and we were enjoying our lives as a couple. Of course in short time, our home became an end point for our nocturnal wanderings, we routinely came home with an entourage after a night at the Studio Six or wherever else I had been performing. Alcoholic libations were plentiful and we continued our party well into the mornings, watching the rest of our little block wake up to begin their day as we drifted off to sleep.
Halloween came that first year and Joe and I went mad with the decorations, transforming the entire driveway and front yard into a haunted house, with creepy sounds coming from the hidden speakers in the azaleas and crazy glowing televisions lining the lawn with bizarre images flashing on their screens, along with the copious spider's webs and insane decorations that we came up with to scare the neighbourhood children. We dressed up and frightened the kids as they came up to our front door, the panic was clearly evident on their faces but you could also tell they loved every minute of it. We had a blast decorating and giving them a good thrill for our favourite holiday.

I'm not sure when I saw him for the first time, but I clearly remember to this day the first time I saw the old man in our kitchen.

Actually, I think it was summer of that first year. I had fallen asleep on the couch watching the telly (no idea where Joe was) and when I woke up it was getting a little dark and, as I glance across the room, I saw an old man wearing a hat, shuffling back and forth in our little kitchen. There was no door to the room so I had a clear view. He would go to the sink and then stand in front of the washing machine and then turn and go out of view. Of course, I was startled out of my skin, I had no idea who this was in my house and how he got in! I jumped up and crept across the living room to see further into the kitchen and, curiously, no one was there. Confused, I walked across the dining room and turned on the kitchen light, nothing was amiss, and I looked at the back door and it was locked tight, from the inside.
Needless to say, I was freaked out a little. I ran through all the possibilities and could only conclude that I had dreamt the entire thing. But I couldn't shake the feeling that what I saw wasn't my imagination running wild.

Joe and I went about our lives, planning a big event at the club (I think it was our Fantasy Show, to benefit Dooley House in Camden) and everything was as normal as it could be in our lives.

One day, I came home from a cleaning job, unlocking the inner porch door and I went to put my supplies down by the doorway and when I looked up, there he was plain as day, the old man in a hat shuffling back and forth in the kitchen again. Of course, I jumped a little and gave a start but he didn't notice or respond. As he wandered to the back of the kitchen, that's when I saw him simply vanish, melt away into the air as if he was never there. This time, I was unnerved but more convinced that I hadn't dreamt him up and what I saw was a ghost. Of course, the scientific side of me continued to doubt what I saw but it was so real, and this was the second time, that I could come to no other conclusion.

I saw him more and more over the months and I finally had to tell Joe. Of course, he wasn't surprised at all, he had seen him, too. He told me he'd see him when we were snuggled on the couch, the old man would appear and do his little thing in the kitchen and then walk to the back and disappear. The sightings became so common that we just accepted that he was there and didn't give it any more thought. Of course, when our cat would come walking in from the kitchen when we had let her out the front door earlier, that would freak us out a little knowing that, somehow, our old man ghost was letting Lesco back in the flat.

After one after-party, we all staggered awake in the late afternoon, clearing our heads of the night before. I came out of the bathroom and our friend Michelle was on the couch, I asked her how she slept and she hit me and said, 'Why didn't you tell me about the old man with the hat in the kitchen!'

Well, we explained that we didn't want to sound crazy by telling people about our little ghost. And the fact that we didn't tell anyone and she saw the same thing only confirmed that we had an actual ghost in our home. He seemed to be benign and, over time, it became a badge of honour for our friends to see him. We were all in on the little secret, not revealing anything until someone said they saw him, each person confirming for the rest of us that our ghost was really there.

Joe was always out in the front yard, tinkering around, and one day I woke up to him covered in dirt and our entire lawn was missing. He decided to make it a wildflower garden and began transplanting bushes and flowers and landscaping the little patch of land into his new vision. In short time, it bloomed and blossomed into a beautiful little garden, flowers grew at different times, bursting with colours all over. The neighbours would come by and tell us how lovely it was and that's when we began to hear stories of the original tenants. They were an older couple who were very much in love. The neighbours said that the original couple would have loved the new front garden, they always had flowers around. We were happy to know that little bit of information and figured our ghostly old man was one of the original tenants, who simply wasn't ready to leave his home.

Time went on and, for whatever reasons, Joe and I eventually moved from our flat to other places. We had heard friends of ours moved in but hadn't seen them for nearly a year. Eventually, I saw one of them at the Studio Six one night and he came straight over to me in a beeline and playfully hit me on the shoulder saying, 'Why didn't you guys tell us about the old man with the hat in the kitchen!?!'

I guess our little ghost was still keeping an eye on things at Richards Ave.

True story.

Happy Halloween!

Prom Night (Plus Twenty)

I think I have more than proved that I am a VERY social person. Not only am I an attention whore, my years on stage and in the workplace testify to that, but I thoroughly enjoy social settings like parties, gatherings, reunions, barbecues, weddings, you name them, I'll be there. I love meeting/observing people. One source of disappointment I've had to endure was the loss of the social atmosphere that used to reign at the Studio Six. Back in the day (I find that I say that phrase way too often now-a-days), you went out to the club to meet people. Yes, there were the sexual hook-ups and the meat-market aspect that all clubs have but one of the things that people have often remarked upon, especially those people that went there years ago, is that they met the best people at the Studio. It was like a common living room, an ongoing cocktail party that friends and neighbors went to on nearly a daily basis. And everyone was invited to join in on the fun. The primary object was to meet people and have a good time. And along the way, we met some of the best friends of our lives, friendships that last to this day. It was unlike most other clubs that were primarily places for people to meet for a one night stand. Cheap and abundant and anonymous sex.
And then the culture changed. So many alphabet drugs came around and before you know it, the music got too loud and intense, the people were too fucked up to engage in anything but getting more fucked up and the rapid degeneration of that wonderful era ensued and the primary function seemed to be about isolating oneself through excess.
It's hard to be social when you no longer speak the language. In this case, Crackinese.

Lance had asked me to attend his high school reunion a while ago and I had forgotten about it. I also was working at Le Grand Fromage at the time and on the day of the reunion (a Friday) so the possibility that I could go was slim to none. Then, as it often does in life, things changed and I was free on the day of the event and I agreed to go with him. He was surprised and kept asking if I was sure I wanted to go. I told him I was looking forward to it and I couldn't wait for the day of the party.

Now, some people would not want to go to someone else's high school reunion. I mean, it's a bit awkward being the perpetual outsider at the event. You have no touchstone with these people except for the music of the time period. Other than that, they have their stories and inside jokes that you can never be a part of. And, as an added wrinkle, it was Holy Spirit High School, I went to rival Atlantic City High.

But I'm not those people. I really couldn't wait to go! The week before, I went to the M.C.B.A. mixer at the Chelsea Hotel, it's our local businessperson organization and political meet-and-greet. I know most of those people but, honestly, I have no real business being there. I'm not much more than a professional party guest. Wait. I guess that gives me (tenuous) credentials. I had a ball hobnobbing with the Atlantic City elite and keeping my skills finely honed. It's a bit like Dorothy Parker and the vicious circle when you attend these little shindigs and you have to be on your best game. Politicians aren't the nicest bunch of humans although with all the fake smiles, you'd think they were actually enjoying themselves.

I found a dark blue, two-button Ben Sherman fitted jacket at a second-hand shop the weekend before and I decided that was what I'd wear to the reunion. It fit me to a T and with a crisp white shirt and nice tie, I thought it would be sharp. The day approached and the Thursday before, a slight wrinkle was thrown into my plans.

That wrinkle's name is Tara!

Next: Hurricane Tara and the Homecoming Queen