Ask A Genius 1140: “Is he gay?”
Author(s): Rick Rosner and Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2024/10/31
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: I have a question. So, I used to—if I can pull it up here—where was it? I asked. When I used to do janitorial work at the pub and the bistro, I would play a lot of Dua Lipa, and I would dance a lot.
Rick Rosner: Was that because you were tired and trying to stay awake? That was probably a coping mechanism.
Jacobsen: Yes, I was overworked at the time. I was also taking the time to really enjoy the janitorial work because it wasn’t overly complicated, but it was honest work, and I enjoyed doing it.
When I was cleaning the stalls, I would play music—what’s her name?
Rosner: So yes, I also had a job that was pretty ridiculous. This was at a bar called Studebaker’s in Albuquerque in 1986. Do you want to hear the not-so-great story?
Jacobsen: Yes, I do.
Rosner: So, I was 26.
I was back in school because I was juggling too much. I went to school during the day and worked at two bars at night. By then, I had stopped delivering singing telegrams. I was probably doing some art modeling, but I had a lot of jobs. I was also tutoring a kid, so I was often tired. Studebaker’s was a themed bar.
They played hits from the fifties, and people dressed in that style. It had a fifties theme, which meant it appealed to older men. Women could come in at age 21, but they didn’t allow men under 25. Periodically throughout the night, the staff, who were dressed as cheerleaders, would get up on the bar or counters and dance. But I was out front, trying to stay awake, feeling sleepy.
Sometimes, I would dance too. Mostly to “Cotton Eye Joe,” shuffling my cowboy-booted feet back and forth. I don’t think they appreciated that. I worked there for a couple of months before finding out I’d been fired because I hadn’t shown up for a shift.
Yet, I had seen the schedule, and it didn’t have me working that shift. What they did, to make it easier to get rid of me, was change the schedule after I had already checked it. I only worked a couple of days a week, so I would have checked the schedule once and then known when my next day was. But they decided to change it after I’d already seen it. Or maybe I honestly missed the shift, but I think it was more about them trying to get rid of me.
So yes, that’s how it went. There were other bars, but this was the only one where they seemed annoyed that I might do things like that.
Jacobsen: You can do whatever you want after hours while doing janitorial work because it’s after hours. You can do it while cleaning stalls because no one cares. Also, everyone at the horse farm thought I was gay. At least, that’s what the barn manager joked.
Rosner: Well, that can be a good thing. Why did they think you were gay, aside from the fact that you’re well put together, clean, and not always making crude jokes?
Jacobsen: I was well-behaved for the most part and flamboyant. Also, one of them told me it was because of my Arc’teryx vest.
Rosner: The what?
Jacobsen: It’s the Arc’teryx vest.
Rosner: That’s a certain brand of vest?
Jacobsen: A high-end Vancouver vest, named after Archaeopteryx. They shortened it to the Arc’teryx brand.
Rosner: So, why flamboyant? What was flamboyant? Are you being sarcastic?
Jacobsen: No. I was very comfortable.
Rosner: When I became comfortable as a bouncer, sometimes I would act gay because I felt more comfortable in the presence of women, especially comedic women. I find them frustrating at times, but I’m generally more comfortable around them than men. So after gaining some experience as a bouncer, I would adopt various personalities to show my contempt for certain customers.
I would sometimes use a western accent, which let the customers know I probably wasn’t going to be helpful. But it wasn’t a sweet, salt-of-the-earth Dolly Parton accent. It was more of a hostile hick accent. Also, I would act gay sometimes because, at that point, I felt tough enough as a bouncer that it didn’t matter, and I didn’t care what people thought.
This was mostly to amuse myself before I got into spotting fake IDs, which became my obsession and probably precluded the use of accents. I stopped acting gay, but I would still do the hick accent anytime someone asked for a favor I couldn’t grant.
But yes, in the other bars I worked at, they didn’t care how you acted as long as you did your job, more or less. In a few places, I even wore roller skates because, why not? A) it made me taller, B) it was fun to work on roller skates, and C) I was a terrible fighter. I figured I’d end up on my ass in a brawl anyway, so it didn’t matter if I was wearing skates or not.
Also, in a brawl, as long as you’re on the ground with the person you’re trying to neutralize, it’s acceptable. So there you go.
License & Copyright
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. ©Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use or duplication of material without express permission from Scott Douglas Jacobsen strictly prohibited, excerpts and links must use full credit to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with direction to the original content.
In-Sight Publishing 