- L 2002
’HUMOR
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Takin' care of business
I t ’s g e t t in ’
h o t,
Together, wherever we go
in h e r e ....
G reat D ance F loor
DJ M att ' s H ot
A ll M ale , A ll
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T hree S isters T a
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(N o C o v e r )
1125 SW S tark
5 0 3 .2 2 8 .
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S la u < 3 |i> f e r '
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219 NW Davis Street
A Benefit tor
Projeet Quest
&
I he Humane
Societv
k
A Pimps
&
Hookers
Masquerade!
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cc Slaughters P'ese’ i
1
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th e HO O KEF
BALL!
vis,,
oM for details
US
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Northbank
g a y -o w n e d & o p e ra te d
UPCOMING EVENTS
Smirnoff Party!
11/01
The Hooker’ Ball
11/15
The Harvest Party!
11/29
CC’s Christmas Party!
12/14
CC’s New Years Eve ’03
12/31
Slaughters Lounge
Great Food and Drinks
7 Days a Week!
jvw wxc^slau^^
FRIDAYS
High Energy Dance!
SATURDAYS
High Energy Dance!
SUNDAYS
Latino Night!
MONDAYS
Live Dancers!
TUESDAYS
Karaoke with Klass
WEDNESDAYS
Boot Scootin’ Country
Line Dance Lessons @ 8
THURSDAY
Latin Dance Night!
Latin Dance lesson @ 8
e l e o m e
t o
106 W 6th St
Vancouver, WA
360-695-3862
NEW OWNERS
NEW MANAGEMENT
NEW ATTITUDE
We w elcom e ALL diversities
Hours
Tues&Wed - 12pm- 12am
Thurs - 12pm-lam
Fri&Sat - 12pm-2 am
Sun - 12pm- 12am
“Make us your first & last stop’
Th L ( iorncr on
Sr.uk vSi SW I I rh
XM.227ASS-
S0L224.M4I
Pinochle Tournament
Novem ber 23rd , 4 pm
Watch for details
» TLi
~ Casual Dining ~
~ Lounge~
~ Game Room ~
~ Open 4:00 Daily ~
ell, Halloween has come and gone,
f < s
which means Floyd and 1 have been
Igf | | together 16 years. (We met in the
H
third grade, of course.)
We’re not usually big on presents, hut
this year we gave ourselves the best
Hallowversary gift ever: We sold our store.
T h at’s right, after five years o f manufactur
ing a boring hut necessary product we are
free at last, free at last, thank G od almighty,
free at last.
This is how we operate: No matter what
one of us does for a living, the other person
gets sucked into it— as in the word “sucker.”
Call it cooperation, call it codependency; we
don’t ask questions. “Together, wherever we
go,” that’s our motto.
So, despite having no business acumen
whatsoever, 1 went to work at what 1 came to
think of affectionately as I Hate My Job Inc.
You see, after watching Floyd endure years of
me fighting and scratching my way to the
middle as a resoundingly mediocre opera
singer, I thought it only right to help him ful
fill his dream of running his own business.
(And, let’s face it, I needed a job and had few
skills other than the ability to sing loudly in
several languages.)
With the exception of an institutionalized
mental patient, I can’t imagine a person more
unequipped to become a businessman. I
couldn’t even operate a staple remover prop
erly. The first month we were in business, 1
put my head down on the desk and cried
every day.
And with good reason. Our heat
broke in the winter, our air condi
tioning in the summer. (“It’s not
meant to withstand 100-degree
temperatures,” our property
manager told
us. “What the
hell is it for then?” I
asked.)
The store flooded in the
fall and, yes, was actually
stnjck by lightning in the
spring. It was like the lxx>k of Job;
all I needed to do was break out in
boils. Oh, wait, that happened, too.
I lost sleep and gained weight. I suf
fered from headaches, backaches and stom
achaches. I had so many aches 1 had scram
bled aches.
A job you hate is like a vampire; it can
suck the very life out of you. One night after
yet another 14-hour day, I cooked up some
zucchini for pasta primavera on|y to real
ize afterward that I had stir-fried a
cucumber. I then proceeded to pour
the spaghetti in the sink to drain
without the benefit of putting a
colander there first. Too tired to care,
I fished a pound of pasta out of the
garbage disposal, drowned it in olive
oil and called it dinner.
THE GOSPEL
ACCORDING
TO MARC
by M a r c Acito
O f course, there were some days I didn’t
hate my job— like on the weekends, for
instance. But most mornings I had to peel
myself out of bed like an old Band-Aid stuck to
the skin.
Not just anybody can do a job they loathe;
it requires real mental strength to marinate in
all that discontent and resentment.
The worst were the networking meetings.
There I’d he at Dark O ’Clock listening to
some Vice President o f Paper Clips go on
about a job even more soul-killingly dull
than mine, willing to chew off my own foot
to escape (hut settling instead for the Costco
muffins), and I’d think, “T his isn’t the
Cham ber o f Com merce— it’s the Chamber of
Horrors.”
1 tried to make it fun, honest. Our store
was a franchise, so one day in response to a
request from the corporate office for ways in
which they could help us better, I typed a
quick e-mail that said, “Lap dances would he
nice.” I hit “send,” not realizing 1 was distrib
uting it to 400 franchisees nationwide. Store
owners in the Bible Belt were not amused.
Sometimes customers would call and say,
“I’m looking for a quote,” and I’d say, “Sure,
how about ‘To thine own self he true’?
Or ‘Frankly, my dear, I don’t
give a damn’ .r ’
Maybe I was
just trying to
y-vu v
m
remind myself.
who I was and why
m » r—
-
I was doing what I
f /J \ I
was doing. Being Mr.
// \ J Business Owner wasn't
being true to mine own
self, hut it was for mine own
partner, and he is the love
of my life. So I gave a
damn.
And when the opportu
nity to sell came along, Floyd
turned to me and said: “I want
to do this for you. I want you to
have your dreams, too.”
You see, that’s just how
we operate. Together, wherever
we go.
And that, my friends,
is TTietjospel Accord
ing to Marc. j H
M arc A cito has now
1 20 N W Third Avenue, Portland, OR 97209 • (503) 224 3285
Parking Validated Smart Park Davis & Front
www hobos citysearch com
S
ucceeding at business felt to me like
passing a test in school. I was happy to
make the grade hut wished I hadn’t
been tested in the first place.
joined the ranks o f the
unem ployed an d couldn't be
happier about it. W rite him
a t m arcacito@ attbi .com .