{"id":7927,"date":"2022-07-22T07:30:36","date_gmt":"2022-07-22T14:30:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/?p=7927"},"modified":"2022-07-22T07:30:37","modified_gmt":"2022-07-22T14:30:37","slug":"oregon-tavern-age-summer-musings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/meditations\/oregon-tavern-age-summer-musings\/","title":{"rendered":"Oregon Tavern Age: Summer Musings"},"content":{"rendered":"<!--themify_builder_content-->\n<div id=\"themify_builder_content-7927\" data-postid=\"7927\" class=\"themify_builder_content themify_builder_content-7927 themify_builder tf_clear\">\n    <\/div>\n<!--\/themify_builder_content-->\n\n\n<p>I was sitting at the bar of an OTA joint in Oak Grove. A tattooed female bartender with a nose ring worked the room with her usual spice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Some emaciated older man, but not OTA, was down the bar to my left, drinking a Bud and recounting to another man his career as a male dancer and gigolo in the 80s\/90s and his appearance on the <em>Maury Povich Show<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Across the room an OTA man was reading a fat paperback and eating a plate of fried food. Lifeless classic rock drifted through the air. Mindless sports talk played silently on television.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I had just concluded a shift volunteering at a street ministry that serves homeless men and women of Clackamas County.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One client in particular stuck in my mind, a young man, nicely dressed, neatly groomed. He had waited on hold for almost my entire two-hour shift with a homeless shelter in Vancouver. He told me desperately wanted off the streets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The man finally got through to a staffer and was told he needed an appointment. The next available one was a week away. He&#8217;d have to get on a waiting list for a spot in the shelter and blah blah blah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The man looked whipped, beat. He told me he was trying to be proactive, but it wasn&#8217;t working.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That is unacceptable in this crisis. The shelter should have immediately sent a car to pick him up and treat his desire to transition off the streets as the emergency it is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I took a sip of my IPA and overheard more the former gigolo&#8217;s story&#8230;he was on the cover of <em>Playgirl<\/em> twice in the 80s&#8230;he was a flunky in the adult entertainment industry&#8230;he was in movies&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>and<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>then<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>I didn&#8217;t give a shit.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It wasn&#8217;t worth listening to anymore (if it ever was) so I left the room for the smoking porch and some peace and quiet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I guess I&#8217;ve lost my interest in hearing OTA stories, at least metro Portland ones. They are so dull in comparison with coastal tales. In fact, there is no comparison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Give me an osprey dropping an eel from the sky and knocking out a woman in her yard over a man who said he graced the cover of <em>Playgirl<\/em> any day of the week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But I need coastal Oregon Tavern Age country for that.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I was sitting at the bar of an OTA joint in Oak Grove. A tattooed female bartender with a nose ring worked the room with her usual spice. Some emaciated older man, but not OTA, was down the bar to my left, drinking a Bud and recounting to another man his career as a male [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7928,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,15],"tags":[21],"class_list":["post-7927","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-meditations","category-oregon-tavern-age","tag-oregon-tavern-age","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7927","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7927"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7927\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7930,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7927\/revisions\/7930"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}