Hickory Shampoo and Other Discontents. WHOOOO!

Of course this video has been pawed over, analyzed, and generally chewed like a behavioral studies cud by so many ruminant internet animals that offering my input would be superfluous. But, in the parlance of our times: Do you know who I am? I’m Sippican Cottage! Superfluity is my métier!

I don’t really care too much about these two proto-sea hags in particular. Everyone else has pretty much covered the waterfront [The management cannot endorse this pun, and disavows any responsibility for it] about their sense of entitlement and so forth. Salt water is wet, y’all. But I’d like to bring something new to the table. Add some seasoning to the stew, and stir the pot, too. Share the benefit of my vast experience. So here goes: Just how obnoxious do you have to be to get the heave-ho from Clarke’s bar?

I’ll head the achshually crowd off at the pass and testify that I’m fully aware that the name of the establishment is the Clarke Cooke House. No one ever calls it anything but Clarke’s bar in my experience, which while somewhat out of date, is voluminous. You see, the minute I espied the screen cap on those videos I knew exactly where these two strumpets were getting their comeuppance. The quarterboard that reads Wine Bistro Spirits. The host’s standup desk thingie. The striped awning. I’ve been in Clarke’s lots of time. That’s Bannister’s Wharf in Newport, Rhode Island. I know it inside and out, and since trolling by it on Gargoyle Earth shows that most everything there is unchanged from the way I remember it, I’ll assume what goes on around there hasn’t changed much either.

Bannister’s Wharf is attached to Bowen’s Wharf right next to it, too, another place I know intimately. I performed in bands dozens of times in that general vicinity, and been drunk dozens of additional times, usually not at the same time. They set up a big tent at the end of one of those wharves, I forget which, and we performed there. There was a restaurant across from Clarke’s with a function room over it, and we’d played for another musician’s wedding reception there, and to give you some idea of the way people act at that locale, the groom jumped out of the second story window halfway through the reception. If you manage to cross America’s Cup Ave. without getting run over, you’ll be standing on Thames Street in front of One Pelham East. I performed there several times, and still have PTSD from it. I played in the nearby Newport Bay Club, too, and used to go across the street on our breaks to pound a quick beer with the jazz band that played in the Red Parrot.

You see, Newport has always been THE location for white bread girls like the two imbeciles in the video to let it all hang out. And by let it all hang out, I really mean yelling Whoo! a lot, and asking you to play Brown Eyed Girl for the third time that evening. Did I mention, WHOOH? Of course back in the day the WHOOOOH was accompanied by five drunk girls making ducklips while one drunk girl took an out of focus picture of the other drunk girls with an Instamatic. Now it’s resting bitch face straight into your Instagram cesspit, but the result must be the same. WHOOOOOOH!

Oh man. I’m having flashbacks. Salve Regina night at the One Pelham East. Yikes. Catholic college girls let loose for the evening, packed in like bullets in a box, yelling WHOOOOOH and climbing up on the stage to paw at us and yell whooo into your microphone, which transmogrified it into WHOOOOOOOO! The stage was several feet higher than the floor, thank god, or I wouldn’t be here to call myself Ishmael and finish the story. A WHOOOH! girl once called me to the edge of the stage in the middle of a song and motioned to me to bend down where she was. When I did, figuring all she wanted was to yell Brown Eyed Girl in my ear for the fourth time, she grabbed a fistful of my shirt, trying to kiss me, and pulled me head first off the stage onto the floor below. That certainly made everyone (but me) yell WHOOOOOOOOOH! Later, on my break, I was walking to the men’s room, and the girl’s room door opened, and there she was, with a gaggle of her friends, and they dragged me in there. I eventually escaped with my life, a torn shirt, and more lipstick on me than a maiden aunt, but I still have tinnitus from the WHOOOOOOOOOOH! they let loose in such close quarters.

And Clarke’s? I’ll ask it again. What in tarnation would a girl have to do to get bounced from Clarke’s? If you shot someone in there, they’d probably ask you to put on a silencer before you shot anyone else, but they wouldn’t bounce you. Clarke’s? Really? Oh, how we abused that place. My friend Mark knew someone who worked in the kitchen. He took me and my buddies to the little wooden gate that hides the alley between the buildings, and we entered through the kitchen, made our way through the rugby scrum of sunburned drunken hedge fund managers and dental hygienists in the bar, and came out at that bouncer lectern you see there in the video. Mark would tell the guy we just went in for a minute to see if someone we knew was there, and he wasn’t, so could we have our $10 cover charge back? He gave each of us ten of someone else’s bucks and we’d go right across the alley for oysters and pitchers of beer. That was pretty obnoxious of us, but we were just trying to fit in around there. So I’ll repeat myself: Just how obnoxious do you have to be to get bounced from Clarke’s?

Please understand that I’m talking about how hard it would be for female humans to get bounced from any nightspot around there. If you’re not of the distaff set, you could get bounced, literally and figuratively, by the local constabulary, sometimes at the drop of a hat. This was also a known fact. But girls? Never.

I’m mystified (not really) by the assistant D.A., who not only doesn’t know the law that forbids turning off a cop’s camera under those circumstances, she’s also unaware that the Newport police department has never been in the business of handing out hugs. Everyone always said the were pretty enthusiastic about applying the hickory shampoo to your scalp. I got stopped by the cops  while going home over the Newport Bridge once, going about 40 MPH. It was really late (early), and the bridge was deserted. The cops said the limit was 25, because of “construction,” here’s your ticket. I mentioned it wasn’t posted, and there was no construction. He asked me if I’d like to come down to the station and “discuss it.” I demurred, because I’ve never wanted a second chance for my fontanel to fuse up. With cop-worn cameras, that approach seems to have morphed into a hair trigger, no compunction about telling you to STFU and move along, and a quick trip to the hoosegow if you put up a fuss. The STFU part is the same as it ever was, though.

So I know something the assistant D.A. doesn’t seem to. First, the Newport police ask you. Then they tell you. Then they make you. There’s no other steps, and they’re always in the same order. But to even the score, she knows something I’ll never know: How in the hell do you get bounced from Clarke’s bar?