REAL STORIES FROM REAL BARTENDERS >>>

I've been a bartender for a long time. I have met countless freaks, jerks, pervs, sweethearts, rockstars and crazies. Even though it's a physically and mentally exhausting job, these are the colorful people that make it all worthwhile. Well, that and the tips.

I'd like to share with you some of my personal experiences behind the bar, along with the stories from some of my fellow bartenders. Each week - under the clever heading of "Behind Bars" - I will dig into my memory bank - and the incident log books that all bars keep - to bring you some of my favorite stories.

Names of bars, bartenders and patrons have been changed or withheld to protect the innocent.

And the not so innocent.

Cheers!

This week...

Caught in the Act, Part 4

"Blow Job"

So, here we are, Part 4 of "Caught in the Act."

In my years of bartending I've caught more than my share of people with their pants down. Pissing their pants, flashing their boners, whatever. This one though, was a blow job in the ladies bathroom.

It was a busy evening. People were racking pool balls, tipping back tall boys and loading the jukebox with un-godly amounts of Judas Priest.

I was ready for a pee break so I made my way to the ladies room. Upon entering, I could hear some serious mouth breathing backed up by guttural groans. The effect sounded like a weird, harmonious underwater mating ritual. It didn't take me long to realize it was sexual. A quick glance under the stall doors where a pair of bare knees, Vans slip-ons and Levis in a heap confirmed my suspicion.

They didn't give a shit that someone had entered their fortress of drunken fellatio. She kept on slobbin' that knob, and he kept on moaning. Part of me could almost have been turned on, but the many nights of mopping up vomit on the very floor this broad's bare knees were, caused a wave of disgust to wash over me.

"Shit. I don't get paid enough for this," I thought, as I banged my way into the empty stall. As I drained my bladder, I hit the palm of my hand on the graffiti-covered wall next to me.

"Take that shit somewhere else!" I hollered.

As I made my way back to the front of the bar, I caught sight of the couple leaving the bathroom. She was digging for a smoke, hair hanging in her face; he was getting high fives and pats on the backs.

I took my place behind the bar and began pouring shots, shrugging off the recent events as just another day behind bars.

Check back next week for more adventures! Cheers!

LINK: Caught in the Act, Part 1 

LINK: Caught in the Act, Part 2

LINK: Caught in the Act, Part 3

LINK: Past Behind Bars columns

HELP US FIND THE SEXIEST PEOPLE IN THE SOUTH SOUND >>>

Once again, the Weekly Volcano is unleashing The Sexy Issue, giving one and all the chance to gaze at the sexiest people in the South Sound - as voted on by all of you, our dear readers. The great thing about the Volcano's annual Sexy Issue, if we do say so ourselves, is how it manages to prove, year after year, that you don't have to be on a Kia Super Bowl ad to be smoking hot. Our annual Sexy Issue is the Weekly Volcano's way of showcasing the South Sound's sexiest denizens - and by denizens we don't mean celebrities; we're talking about regular dudes and dudettes who just happen to look sexy as hell when taking us on test drives, trimming our meat or brewing our beer. These folks can be just as hot - and a hell of a lot more accessible, theoretically - as anyone you typically see on TV and in magazines. 

This year, we are asking you to nominate the person who makes you all hot and bothered in the following categories: Actor/Actress, Artist, Brewer, Karaoke Host, Lead singer, Lawyer, Butcher, Car Salesperson, Blogger and Personal Trainer.

On Thursday, June 7, the Weekly Volcano will publish The Sexy Issue, immortalizing the sexy, chosen few forever.

Help us find them.

Voting ends May 11 at 5 p.m. - so help the Weekly Volcano find the South Sound's hottest citizens. Vote today!

Vote for the South Sound's sexiest people

DID SHE LIKE IT? >>>

As a fresh-faced co-ed, sometimes you just need action. You can't blame it on puberty now, but why should you? You're a free adult.

That cute brunette from Environmental Studies is standing outside RiekeScience Center. You say, "Hello." You are a language and literature major, and she asks if Dostoevsky is a brand of vodka. But she's close. Right?

Hooking up doesn't require common interests or even the same IQ range. It does require you to be responsible. Planned Parenthood of the Great Northwest wants you wake up the next morning smelling like flowers, not stinking of treachery. The organization has built a new website www.WhereDidYouWearIt.com, dedicated to promoting safe sex and normalizing condom use.  

Last week as part of National Condom Week, PPGNW distributed 55,000 condoms to Northwest community colleges and universities, including Green River Community College, Pacific Lutheran University, Pierce College - Puyallup, Tacoma Community College, The Evergreen State College and the University of Washington - Tacoma campus. The condoms include a QR code that directed users to its website that - similar to other geo-location services like Foursquare or Facebook Places - allow someone to "check-in" their safe sex activity. 

You should "check-in" with www.wheredidyouwearit.com after you hook up with Miss Green, but don't be surprised if you are not the Mayor.

WHAT WE HAVE FOUND TODAY >>>

Tacoma School District: Deputy Superintendent Carla Santorno is being groomed. (News Tribune)

"Do That To Me One More Time": TCC music instructor convinced high school girl she could improve her singing by getting herself sexually aroused. www.thenewstribune.com/2011/10/13/1863929/teen-accuses-instructor-of-using.html#ixzz1alzxNcV5" target="_blank">(News Tribune)

Eat This Bank Of America: Credit union pays you to use your debit card. (Main Street)

"I Came Into This World As A Reject": Fred Durst from Limp Bizkit has signed a TV deal to star in a CBS comedy. (Deadline)

Radiohead: Headed into the studio this winter. (NME)

The Mummy Is So 1990s: Welcome to Slutoween. (Jazebel)

Ronly For The Rweak: Taiwanese death metal. (NPR)

Cool: Mixtape of the lost decade. (boingboing)

Wedgie!

Keep your eye on the ball today:

ADVICE GODDESS RADIO >>>

Nationally syndicated advice columnist and author Amy Alkon (I See Rude People) graces more than 100 newspapers across the U.S., including your beloved Weekly Volcano. Apparently her Advice Goddess column is going global. Alkon will now take your questions and advice requests and bat around issues on love, dating, sex, relationships and manners from 7-8 p.m. every Sunday on her new Internet call-in advice radio show.

You may call Advice Goddess Radio live Sunday at 347.326.9761.

You may listen at this link starting at 7 p.m. Pacific Time Sunday.

There will also be a podcast you can download later here.

LINK: Read her columns

THE POLLS ARE NOW OPEN >>>

Spring is in the air.

This means lust is in the air - and in the pages of the Weekly Volcano.

Once again, the Volcano is unleashing The Sexy Issue, giving one and all the chance to gaze at the sexiest people in the South Sound - as voted on by all of you, our dear readers.

Our annual celebration of the flesh, The Sex Issue is the Weekly Volcano's way of showcasing the South Sound's sexiest denizens - and by denizens we don't mean celebrities; we're talking about regular dudes and dudettes who just happen to look sexy as hell. Not just cliché sex appeal, of no relation to AXE Deodorant Body Spray campaigns, and certainly much more than mere looks, the Volcano Sexy Issue attempts to answer simple question: What defines sexiness in the South Sound?

This year, we are asking you to nominate the person who makes you all hot and bothered in the following categories: Bartender, Barista, Delivery Person, Real Estate Agent, Athlete, Servicemember, Drummer, Tattoo Artist and Mom.

On Thursday, June 2, the Weekly Volcano will publish The Sexy Issue, immortalizing the sexy, chosen few forever.

Help us find them.

Voting ends May 12 - so help the Weekly Volcano find the South Sound's hottest citizens. Vote today!

Vote for the South Sound's sexiest people (please include where they work):

AS SEEN ON ERNEST DOBBIN'S BUMPER >>>

"Studly seeks righteous babe 566-4137."

If this personal ad is a little low on details, that's because it's written - in black marker - on the bumper of Ernest Dobbins's old white Thunderbird.

Dobbins, of Olympia, resorted to the bumper method because newspaper personal ads are getting too pricey.

What about Craigslist? "I don't have a computer. I don't know how to run one," he says. "I'm old-fashioned and outdated and I'll die that way."

The woman he's looking for, he says, isn't "some fly-by-night woman."

"I don't mean religious," he says. "I mean righteous. If it's the right thing to do, you do it."

The ad has been on his bumper for a couple of months - rain won't wash it off, he says - and he's gotten a few calls, but no dates.

His hope, though, rolls on: Halfway through the interview, he asks: "So what about you? What's your shape and size?"

Once he understands I'm not looking for a date, Dobbins, 60, invites me to publish his phone number.

Asked what a righteous date might want to know about him, he says: "I don't go out drinking or anything like that. I do go to buffets."

ONLINE CHATTER >>>

While there were several shoutouts for our interview with Macklemore, today's comment of the day comes from Bill Schlanbusch in regard to our Spew post fishing for categories for our Most Sexy Issue in June.

Schlanbusch, the 10 foot two lead singer of The Plastards - and one of the nicest guys you'll ever meet - writes:

How about Sexiest Barfly? Just sayin'.

We'll have to give that some serious thought Bill since that describes 90 percent of our editorial staff.

FORMER EVERGREEN PROF'S BURLESQUE DOCUMENTARY >>>

Two years ago Red Vaughan Tremmel taught a course called "Gender and Sexuality: History, Culture, and Politics" at The Evergreen State College - typical Evergreen stuff. Now he's teaching at Tulane University and he's a fellow of Columbia College's Ellen Stone Belic Institute for the Study of Women and Gender in the Arts and Media Fellowship Program. He's a very busy man. Plus, he's a filmmaker working on an exciting project. Vaughan is in the midst of creating a documentary film on the history of burlesque centered around the world's first and only museum dedicated to the art of the striptease.

The film is called Exotic World & the Burlesque Revival. Lots of footage has already been shot, and there is information, including sample footage, online.

"We just finished doing the voice-over with Margaret Cho and hope to have (the film) completed by this June," he tells me via e-mail.

Burlesque performer Jennie Lee, known as "The Bazoom Girl," and her husband began preparing to build the museum in the Mojave Desert by collecting photos, props, stories and other materials from retired strippers beginning in the late 1950s, but it didn't really come together until the 1980s when she teamed up with another exotic dancer, Dixie Evans, known as "The Marilyn Monroe of Burlesque." The museum was located in an old goat farm in the desert. It was named Exotic World.

Jennie invited strippers to come to the museum and share their experiences. An annual retreat became something of a Mecca for exotic dancers.

Jennie died in 1990, but her husband and Evans kept the museum alive. The annual reunion of strippers that Jennie had started continued and gained fame. Young performers and older retired strippers began to flock to the annual reunions turning the unique museum at the old goat ranch off Route 66 into a national phenomenon. It sparked an international revival of the art of burlesque.

In Exotic World & the Burlesque Revival Red Tremmel has documented the history of burlesque and the revival of the art as seen through the museum.

Exotic World has now been renamed The Burlesque Hall of Fame.

THURSDAY, DEC. 23, 2010 >>

1. Tacoma's new burlesque troupe Gritty City Sirens will make its debut performance at at 9 p.m. inside The Swiss Dec. 23. Ava D'Jor, Tizzy Van Tassel, Rosie Cheexx, Funny Face Fanny and Polly Puckerup will offer "a night of glitz, glamor, humor and plenty of T&A!" says Van Tassel. Read our special burlesque report here.

2. John Fisher's prints are terrific. The colors and shapes are electric. They are photographs, but he calls them and the show Algorithmic Drawings. The photos are of industrial scenes with streaks and bursts of light created by long exposures of moving lights and perhaps other techniques. The photos were all taken in Seattle and Tacoma. Alec Clayton reviewed the show here. Check it out from noon to 5 p.m. at Mineral gallery in Tacoma.

3. You're sick and tired of driving through the neighborhood looking at the homes of people who think they deserve an award for their light displays. You deserve to take a night to go see ZooLights, which is lit from 5-9 p.m. tonight. Billed as the region's biggest walk-through light show, ZooLights at Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium includes animated light sculptures, live entertainment, snacks, animal encounters, and the Paul Titus Carousel. While enjoying your stroll, be thankful you're not in charge of this holiday light display.

4. Dream of line dancing the Chasse, the Grapevine or the Weave? Or, do you have high hopes of being swept off the dance floor by that special someone? Big Whisky Saloon offers beginner and intermediate dance lessons every Thursday Night starting at 7:30 p.m. $5 gets you a drink and a lesson. Who knows, you might be paired with a cutie-pie.

5. The holidays are traditionally a time for giving back, and in that spirit, Hell's Kitchen is hosting their annual "Customer Appreciation Night." Beleaguered, cash-strapped attendees will be pleased to hear that admission tonight will be free, food will be free and drinks will be sold at preposterously low prices - $3 for well drinks and beers. (Ho, ho, ho.) Live music will include I Defy, Neutralboy, South 11th, Psycho 78 and Klondike Kate beginning at 8 p.m.

LINK: More arts and entertainment events in the South Sound

LINK: Happy hour!