"Esta es por este"

My Spanish isn't that great.

Every here and there I can pick up a phrase or two from a mixture of high school Spanish (Gracias, Seniora Hinkle) and phrases that sound very similar in Italian.

I do know what "esta es por este" means -- "this is for you all." And it's NOT something you want directed at you when you accidentally walk into an all Hispanic/Latino nightclub from a man singing Spanish polka karaoke... which is exactly what happened Friday night for our first REAL weekend in Phoenix.

But the weekend didn't start off that exciting.

I got off of work at 5 p.m., just in time to sit on a bus for an hour and a half, attempting to get to a soup kitchen in Southern Phoenix to help out my casa mates and our support staff (made up of former JVs) before the dinner service closed. Our support staff suggested the idea the very first night we arrived in Phoenix; we'd go down to a local soup kitchen and all of us would help serve the clients. All of Casa Truth thought it was a great idea, but there was the issue that all of the casa mates get off of work at different times and may not be able to make it to help set up and serve by 4 p.m. In fact, me and Eddie were just attempting to get there before the entire event was over.

We didn't. Eddie and I arrived at the soup kitchen's location only to be picked up in front by everybody else -- whisked away to get some pizza instead. We wound up at this mom and pop owned pizza joint that was a pretty fun environment -- down to the music, which was conveniently performed by mom and pop's college-age son. The kid had some definite musical talent, but he probably should not have picked such classics like Imagine, You've Lost that Lovin' Feeling, and Tiny Dancer to remake right in front of us. He was good... but he ain't that good. While all of us were silently grimacing in pain, every single one of the people on our support team was eating it up, loving every second of it. But like I said, he ain't that good. Just as an example, half way through the dinner, he decided to play Every Rose Has it Thorns. I sent a quick text message to my casa mate Greg, who just happened to be sitting right across the table from me, wedged between two members of our support team. "Somewhere Bret Michaels just had another aneurysm," I wrote. My phone buzzed ten seconds later with his response.

"Somewhere I want to hang myself?"

All kidding aside, it was a great dinner. And we got to know our support staff a little bit better. I found out that Lynn is a Santa Clara grad, so we reflected back on our glory days. It seems like just yesterday... oh wait.
After dinner. We parted ways with our support staff and Ms. Krystal, who had kindly donated her night to a Brophy lock-in event. Meanwhile, everybody was ready to hit the town and drown away the stress of the entire previous week.

We drove around for a loooooong time as Greg tried to find alcohol that fit his high standards (he used to be a bartender), eventually winding up at home. Now Mom, before you sit there and wonder what happened to my good Christian values, I will proudly say that I volunteered myself up as Designated Driver. Seriously. You can ask any one of the housemates and they'll vouch for me. Really. Okay, stop laughing.

I drove us down to a bar that was recommended by former JVs. It wasn't bad, but the bar started to empty out around midnight, and we thought that probably wasn't a good sign.

Then somebody mentioned that there was a bar right down the street from our house, less than a mile away, so we could try that one. If it was a complete disaster or really lame, it wouldn't be that big of a deal because we could just head home and crash.

I parked the car in the parking lot and it became immediately clear that this was going to be interesting.

Becky got out of the car and her first words were, "I have a good feeling about this one!"

Er...

As we walked up to the establishment, we were met with two things. 1) Loud polka music that could be heard even outside. All the lyrics were in Spanish. 2) Hardcore bouncers. As me and Becky were getting ID checks, Greg started chatting with the bouncer who was patting him down (yeah, patted down. Like I said, hardcore). "So... we're not going to fit in here, are we?" Greg asked. The bouncer just started laughing.

That probably should have been the first sign.

Now, there is no way to accurately describe what happened next. But if you've ever seen Animal House and the scene where the group goes into the Dexter Lake Club, you have a pretty good idea about how we felt. (This comparison was not my own, but after it was mentioned, I realized it was dead on) We walked in and immediately every head turned our way. Thankfully, the music never faultered, but you know, we did have the polka singer dedicating his song to us. So which one is worse, you be the judge.

Now before anybody gets upset, this happened all by accident, and by no means am I trying to diminish the reputation of this establishment. All I'm saying is that we felt very out of place there, which is probably a good experience for every White person to go through... more than once even. It lets us, as people in the majority, understand what it feels like to be in the minority, even though it was a very abbreviated taste of the experience. And I'll tell you what. It was really uncomfortable and not something I'd like to repeat. I give any sort of immigrant or any sort of under-represented population in this country a lot of credit, because this is not an experience I could repeat on a daily basis.

But I'll give off of my JVC soapbox for the time being, noting that it was a difficult experience, but probably one that I needed.

Anyway, thinking it would probably be more embarrassing to walk in and then do a quick pivot to turn right out the door again, we decided to take our chances and walk up to the bar.

The bartenders immediately started whispering to eachother. Eddie ordered the "smallest beer you have" and was comically delivered an 8 oz. Bud Light. It sat on the counter next to Becky's 12 oz for the next 10 minutes as everybody quickly gulped down their drinks, despites the stares directed our way.

We left pretty quickly.

And cracked up the entire way home.

Oh, and we went to the Rockies game on Saturday. We were unfortunate enough to see Jimenez get rocked by a last place team.

But the four hot dogs I've eaten the past two days were delicious.