Hooters & Olympic Uniforms

Journal TPFH's Journal: Hooters & Olympic Uniforms 5

Journal by TPFH on Sunday August 22, 2004 @09:22PM

Last night I went to Hooters for the first time. It was the birthday of a friend of a friend. A woman who is bi, but in a monogomous marriage, and she wanted to indulge in looking at scantily clad woman or something.

While getting my stuff together, I thought about bringing a tarot deck. Most of the people in the group, including myself, were neo-pagan and I just thought it would be funny to be in a hooters doing tarot readings. (Also, I've been re-reading Zelazney's second Amber series so it puts cards on the mind.)

We were late getting there. My friend, who I was taking, is an LMT and she got a call towards the last minute, and decided to take a new client and be a little late for the party.

It was raining. OK, it rains a lot here in Oregon, but it hadn't rained in a while. One of the most dangerous times to drive, next to having a solid sheet of ice covering the roads which we also get, is the first half hour of rain after it hasn't rained in a while.

Most of the drivers were driving slow on the freeway, but some people were tailgating. At one point I was in the wrong lane, that was getting off, and after I was already signalling and moving into the next lane the driver behind me actually speeded up to try to block me. Well, I was already halfway in the lane, and it would otherwise had been a safe lane change so I took it, but sheesh. Maybe he didn't like my bumper stickers?

So then I get to 26 and traffic gets really bad. After a couple miles my guess was confirmed. Accident. A truck had turned almost all the way around and the front was pretty banged up. I think most of the drivers that weren't already driving extra safely mellowed out after that, but it started raining hard, hard for visibility. We had a little trouble finding the place cause yahoo's directions told us to arrive at our destination when it hadn't directed us to the exact street.

We park, get in, and find our party. We were taking up 3 tables. The music was really bad 80s music, at least when we first got in. Playing stuff like Starship and Jay Giles Band. (I was going to say George Michael there but my friend just called and while we were talking she said that JGB was playing when we first walked in and she really hates them.)

Food. I ordered a Philly Steak Sandwitch and curley fries. I said no cheese when she asked, but got it anyway. She was nice enough to take it off the bill. I also asked for malt vinegar (for the fries) but got oil and vinegar bottles like for salad. Um.... OK, thanks. The food was edible, but just barely. Even the fries tasted bland or something. What kind of place can't even make french, err freedom fries right? OK, I'm a good cook and a picky eater so saying it is edible might be construed as a complement but if I ever go there again I'll eat dinner beforehand and just get dessert.

Oh yea, that's right, most people don't go there for the food. I suppose I should have gotten the BBQ Chicken wings since that's what they are famous for. Except the obvious. Which I guess is why I wanted to write this. Either that or I'm just really really bored.

I'm not a prude. I don't have a problem with scantily clad women. I prefer it when they are dressing that way out of choise however. And personally, I don't care for halter-tops or orange short shorts. In general I don't like orange clothing, even if they are short shorts.

The staff seemed happy enough. I guess a lot of them acted like cheerleaders. But sometimes happy people bug me, especially cheerleaders. (I do like the Radical Cheerleaders on the other hand.) I'll get this out of the way and hopefully get to my main point. The place was loud and crowded. The music was too loud, and everyone is talking over it and too much energy for me to deal with, and just too many normal people. Ack!

But yea, I'm a libertarian, and believe that if woman want to work for Hooters, or become a stripper or whatever that should be their choice and I should respect that. At the same time I am also an Anarcha-Feminist and know that not everyone who works in such an environment is doing it by choice, but many out if neccessity.

Not really a moral delema. I just try to treat everyone with respect. I do this no matter how someone is dressed until they give me reason not to respect them.

Is this what I wanted to write about? I'm not sure. But while we were there they had a bunch of TVs all tuned into sports stations. I'm not really big on sports, but one of the TVs had women's beach vollyball. I noticed that the uniforms were little more than bikinis. I remembered reading an article in Ad Busters about woman's olympic uniforms, and how they are getting smaller each olympics. I mused that in four years they will be wearing thongs.

But it is beach vollyball. Traditionally women would wear bikinis. (Oh, and today I noticed that Germany's team was wearing pink bikinis. Is pink part of Germany's colors?) But it isn't the only sport where the wear such revealing clothing. The article that I had read implied that it is official olympic uniform standards, and teams or people that don't comply face fines.

Also today I caught the Women's Marathon just as the American came in to win the bronze. I noticed most of the runners were wearing little more than bikinis. Do a lot of runners do this? I would think you would get a heck of a wedgie running a marathon in a bikini. And a bit later today I noticed that you could clearly see the outline of a nipple through the uniforms of the beach vollyball players. Quick! Someone call Michael Powell!

I guess I don't have a point. I guess I just wanted to muse on this all. But I wonder if the olympics is becoming Hooters for TV. Not that I think that it is wrong, I like looking at scantily clad women, as well as women in lab coats, but I thought we were supposed to admire these people for their athletic abilities.

Oh, after Hooters we went to the Boiler Room for karaoke. I didn't sing, partially because I didn't feel like drinking, but primarily because it was too crowded. I'm scared to death of public speaking, let alone public singing. But they had a better selection of songs than Chopsticks. I still want more songs. I won't be happy with karaoke bars until I find one that has Current 93 and Skinny Puppy. I was happy that they had a decent selection of Leonard Cohen. But I want more Devo songs. How can they not have Girl U Want and Jocko Homo. I also want Road to Nowhere and Once in a Lifetime by Talking Heads, and Boys Don't Cry by The Cure.

Ok. I think I'm done now.

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