Undercover, Cover the Under PART 2
Written By Donny Rodriguez
June 28th, 2010
Ball Sugars is the anti-’sports blog’ blog written by Donny. It is a satirical and statistical spectator’s view of the dim, dicey, and UN-discussed tales of sports.
… So I’m an employee of CTTSB (Cable TV Themed Sports Bar) “interning” as a mixologist/waitress. I’ve infiltrated America’s favorite type of bar that isn’t an Irish Pub or an Irish Tavern. It’s time to learn everything of the spectators experience in this environment.
I’m going to share a legion of occurrences I endured during my time at CTTSB. A few things you should know before I impart these instances with you: Though CTTSB is in the cardiac organ of Chicago’s downtown/magnificent mile district, it is not for Chicagoan’s, but for tourists and suburban families. Two, I don’t like being racist (refer to this sentence when I discuss my time working the NBA All-Star Game). Finally, this company recently closed down but is paying me a severance package that I need to fuel my summers day drinking hobby, so I won’t bash them as much as I’d like too, until that package is paid in full this August. Text me if you want the dirt.
My somewhat official title at this joint was bar wench, but I was actually a 1950′s house wife. The man (customer) would come in, present me with a disinterested salutation and immediately ask me to “beer him” and change the channel to the sports game. He would then tell me he’s hungry and I would have to feed him because I know he’s my meal ticket(the leaver of a 13% tip, hopefully.) So inbetwixt his chewing of cow muscle and slurping of macro brews, he’d tell me how his day went. Like any good American ball and chain, I feigned interest and reassured him , that in fact he was right, and that his superior was the “fucking idiot” and not him. Peppered in this inane verbal dance, I would have to laugh at the benign jests, from the bean counting and rates adjusting husband of mine. After these series of moments concluded it was now time for me to offer him sex (ask if we wanted another beer, after I knew he was done, and when he would say no, I would responded with, “are you sure, it’s on the house”, he’d offer “not tonight, I have a headache”). In any given day this occurrence would happen twenty times a shift.
You can’t spell compromised integrity without T I P $.
Another type of clientele that CTTSB would bring in is the “I live in Chicago, but don’t have NBA season pass package,on Direct TV, so I will go down to CTTSB with my brood of 9 children from 8 different mothers, and have my latest “boo” by my side as we dunk our buffalo wings in buttermilk ranch and cheer on Kobe all night long and leave without tipping” type of NBA fan. On a cold night in February, the NBA all star game was on,and all the NBA crowds came out to show their colors(team inspired and gang related) for what would make for the most interesting night of my bartending life.
CTTSB was jammed to capacity on the night of that All-Star game. Not an empty seat in the whole facility. CTTSB had two dining rooms and three bars, so at no point were we going to turn anyone away, but rather invite them all in and frustrate them with time it took to get a drink or their food. A good start for any dining experience! So by the time they manipulated their way to the front of the bar and in my peripheral, they we’re in no mood to hear that our shots of Henny, and out of season Mojitos were priced ten dollars and up. None the less, I made about 10 Armadillo Stone Sours(LaVoni meant Amaretto stone sours, correcting her would force her to beat my ass!). I was asked if I could make a Corona Margarita.(wtf is that?) Strong Island Ice Teas were slung. And a record 800 Grey Goose Voocka-cransburries(Vodka-Cranberries) we’re poured with my own two hands.
These people we’re getting wasted. Their food was taking forever to come out, so they kept drinking. Myself and my fellow bartenders Brad and Dustin were getting stiffed out of a tip for about 60% of each drink dished out. Why was this? I don’t get it, I was rolling my eyes behind the customers backs, not in front of them. Brad, who is a Tall, White, and Handsome, college educated native of Mississippi (the latter not being an oxymoron), and Dustin was a sassy, gay, all-American white male from Jamaica who was an awesome bartender with a flair for class. If I was an NBA fan, I would want us to be my bartenders. But the masses just weren’t having us. And I figured out why, we didn’t have lady tits or that boom boom pow.
Boy this blog is getting Vent-ey, ironically I’m at Starbucks drinking my coffee which is a VEN……, okay I won’t finish the joke, but I will wrap this post up.
So I really didn’t learn much about sports punching my time card at this gin joint. I just learned to openly complain and demand monetary gratuity that is OPTIONAL. I may not make it as a sports journalist(chubby blogger) but I would make a great waitress. Sadly for my landlord CTTSB closed it’s doors June 16th 2010 in Chicago and four other locations. While most people will miss the people they worked with, I will miss the steady income, access to liquor, and all the free sports I got to watch.
(Jokes aside, (I know what you’re think, ‘wait this is supposed to be funny?’) I made some great drinking buddies at this job. And buddies not just in the sense of facebook friends or other bloggers who comment on my posts so that I’ll comment back on theirs, so it looks like we have deep readership, but legit buds. I shared so many laughs and non-sports stories with Horny ‘Los, Long Dave, Jamie “you have to t-bag” Navarro, and Brad. I learned from my female bartending counterparts that women generally don’t like it when you mimic athletes and pat their asses after they did a good job. Thanks for that tip, and the facial smacks Dani, Lindsay, Brittney, Lindsey,Manager Leslie Jess, Kim, Tara, and the lady who showed me the ropes/my fave, Ms. Christine! Some of you were my friends, but all of you we’re my co-workers!)
Method sports writing is harder than I thought, but I will not give up the fight I picked myself, until I am the ultimate method sports writer (cue “Darth Vader’s intro music or David Bowie’s “Young Americans”, b/c that song is fucking sweet!!)….
