The Doorman’s Diary: 1.7-8.11

The jazz club was closed over the holiday weekends – both Xmas and New Year’s. It’s been three weeks since the doorman’s stern and stoic face cast an appraising gaze at those entering the club. During the break I renewed my membership in the International Academy of Doormen (formerly the Royal Academy of Doormen) and mailed off the equivalent of 20 British Pounds Sterling to the London office. I also took time to relax before the crackling hearth fire with a snifter while rereading The Strict and Unwavering Code of the Professional Doorman—which the core of the slim tome was published in 1647 (out of respect and to honor the English writer Francis Meres (who had passed away that year), especially well known for his Palladis Tamia, Wits Treasury, a commonplace book that is important as a source on the Elizabethan poets, and more particularly because it is the first critical account of the poems and early plays of William Shakespeare). This first night of twenty-11 was exceedingly slow. We had two pleasant couples seated at tables for the majority of the night. A young Hispanic couple joined them late in the night and I think I read the young lady’s ID from Mexico incorrectly. She was born in 1990, so unless she was born in the first seven days of this year, she was underage. (Crap! I need to be more diligent.) And then another Hispanic couple stopped in for a quick beer. The woman had long brown-black hair that reached down to her waist and her boyfriend has something to do with carpet cleaning since he got into a long discussion about dry extraction vs. wet chemicals with the club owner. I was lost in his lady’s hair and the trio’s rendition of a Freddie Hubbard song to pay close attention to his spiel, thus I have no idea which carpet cleaning method is best.