I attended the SOB dance competition at Whiskey Girl last night. Big changes are taking place at that bar. The old management is out, and the new owner has his own ideas of what makes for a good bar. He told me the tables in front of the dance floor will be removed and replaced with couch seating. He’s also going to have live music at least once a week. It appears many of the girls who work there are following the old management to a new bar scheduled to open soon down the highway a bit. I don’t know, but at some point, we are going to hit the saturation point with more bars than customers to support them. Time will tell, I suppose.
A good show last night. I subsidized Jen’s salary through multiple lady drinks throughout the contest. She wasn’t there yet when I arrived at 4:30 (the bar is not technically scheduled to open until 5:00). The waitress who served me in her absence told me the “buy one, take one” offer didn’t start until five. No issues; that’s consistent with the five until eight signage at the front door. When Jen brought my first beer after five, she told me the buy one, take one wasn’t in effect because of the SOB. I got a little bit livid and said that’s not what I was told earlier, and it is not what the neon sign outdoors says. She went and consulted with management, and they relented and gave me the special price. Yay!
Oh, and Ashley was dancing with The Green Room team, and I fed her lady drinks as well—another SOBsidy.
When the show was over at 8:00, I was done, too. Drank my money’s worth, at least. You might call it an Ernest effort.
I spent the morning getting all my paperwork in order for my upcoming trip. That included making copies of my flight itinerary, my hotel confirmation, and the e-travel health pass the Philippine government requires to exit and enter the country. I also booked my onward ticket (one way to Guam) that Immigration requires when you enter the country on a tourist visa. It’s a throwaway ticket that cost me $16, but it shows I’m booked on a flight out of the country before my initial 30-day entry visa expires.
I’m on Cebu Pacific, one of those discount carriers I despise. But they offer the only flight to Bangkok for Angeles/Clark, saving me the dreaded trip to Manila. Cebu Pacific charges crazy prices for checked bags, so I’m attempting to pack for a week in my carry-on. I think I can do it, putting the excess in my backpack. I just checked the Cebu Pacific webpage, and it looks like they will charge me for having more than one carry-on (most airlines I’ve flown consider a small backpack similar to a purse and allow it without additional fees). Ah, well, what will be, will be.
So, that brings me to my last night in Barretto for a week, I’ll be out looking for some interesting people through my beer goggles. In the meantime, here are some of Scott’s photos from yesterday’s hike through Olongapo and SBMA:
Let me leave you with a final pun:
He told me the tables in front of the dance floor will be removed and replaced with couch seating.
Yikes. I hope he covers the couches in plastic, what with all the drunkenly sloshing beer, possible vomit, and probable bodies lying inert (and quietly drooling/pissing/leaking diarrhea) after whatever event is over. I don’t see this going well. Because people are assholes.
Oh, and Ashley was dancing with The Green Room team, and I fed her lady drinks as well—another SOBsidy.
So in a sense, you are somebody’s ATM. Several somebodies’.
I spent the morning getting all my paperwork in order for my upcoming trip.
I hope you have a good trip. I don’t know how frequently you’ll be blogging from Thailand (are you OK with blogging via your phone? Do you do that regularly in the PI?), but here’s hoping you slap up at least a captioned photo a day. Of local food.
re: spell disaster
The word disaster‘s roots break down to “bad star” (dis + aster). May your trip in no way be star-crossed.
Kev, we’ll see how the Whiskey Girl remodel goes. I remember thinking when he told me his plans, I’d prefer sitting on a stool at a table. I guess he’s going for more of a lounge vibe or something. Anyway, if I don’t like the new look I’ve got lots of other options.
To be clear, there is a big distinction between voluntarily buying some lady drinks versus being besieged with pleading messages for cash infusions. The latter is where my “not a goddamn ATM” shirt message will be most applicable. I don’t mind buying the occasional lady drink (I don’t like being asked, though) because I know it is how the girls earn and supplement their salary. Most bars pay a ridiculously low daily wage (like five bucks a shift), and the girls are expected to earn drink commissions. In fact, some bars have drink quotas that, if not met, result in a reduction in pay. By charitably “donating” some lady drinks in the bars I visit, I can better ignore the exploitation of these desperate young women. And as an added bonus, they pretend to like me!
I definitely intend to blog from Thailand every day. I’m bringing my laptop with me (I’ve never blogged on my phone before, I can barely respond to messages on that tiny keyboard), so it should be business as usual.
Anything I eat in Pattaya is “local food,” right?
I never knew the origins of “disaster” before. Here’s hoping the stars are aligned in my favor!
Is Whiskey Girl owned by a “silent” owner, who hired a manger, and that manager has now left/fired? Or was the old manager also the owner who sold to the new manager?
From your various bar crawls, it seems as if there are already too many bars for customers. Maybe they are more crowded after you end your evenings. But all too often, it seems as though you are the only, or one of a few, customers in a bar.
Safe travels. Looking forward to hearing how this trip to Pattaya goes.
Brian, as I understand it, Whiskey Girl is owned by an American who has been working in Saudi Arabia. He hired a manager to run the place in his absence. I guess he’s back now (or at least he was Friday night) and there was some dispute with the former manager (the owner made a big show of posting a sign that said, “Darren does NOT own this bar!”. Anyway, small-town drama.
Yeah, my bar hours (usually five until eight) are probably not a good indicator of how much business a bar is actually doing (most stay open until after midnight). Still, with over thirty bars in town now, I don’t see the expat community having the numbers to make them all profitable. I have been seeing more out-of-towners lately, and I think that crowd is what the bars rely on.
I’m just hoping I’m feeling healthy in Pattaya. I am going to try and get a checkup while I’m there.