Goodbye, Winnie's

At 1 am I took a lyft to Winnie’s on the Lower East Side because I put at the bottom of a paid Newsletter that we would have a salon there on the pace of life. To be fair, it was intentionally very hidden and last minute. I do a lot of Literati things this way because part of me wants to resist the urge to officiate everything so that Hot Literati can perpetually feel like a slumber party or something.

None of my friends would go to Winnie’s with me. They declared it dead. I mourned that, a little. We’ve always had a love-hate relationship with the strange bar, but I am the one in my friend group who discovered it, for us.

A random weekend fling in town from LA took me there. I was wearing my “reading is sexy tee” and immediately felt too feminine, too earnest upon entering up the stairs that feel like you’re going into someone’s apartment to plop down with him on the leather seats as a random, apparently famous, skater screamed Weezer.

I brought my bandmate with me weeks later and it became a reluctant staple for us. We met interesting people and we got to sing, even if I was shy enough to only cue two songs throughout my months and the bartender was always a little mean.

But, I told you all I would be there, so I went at one am alone. Veered to the backroom and looked for a wall to smoke on. I immediately met a beautiful, kind actor named Skipper who helped me find a light.

My first dog (my brother’s really) was named Skippy. Skipper works at a grocery store, loves their coworkers and acts. I met another friend of their friends who showed us all a stick and poke of a wolf on their stomach. I asked him more about tattoos. They said they liked to practice on themselves because it was ok if they messed up. I wish I could be that blase about my own body, about myself.

The lighter owner asked for it back too quickly. He had a scarce vibe. Was later asking everyone in the room for a cigarette. For some reason, I feel like the tattooer’s name was Andy, Stevie?? Something like that. When I told them I was a writer and asked to take a picture of the one on their leg, their first tattoo done themselves (a protection spell, they called it), they murmured an instagram, something tiny garden. But there’s fun in existing liminally too, right? Less names, less clarification. More questions, more smoke, more smiles across a dingy wooden back room.

I love Winnie’s, but you also sort of don’t. It feels like a performance every time and not just because its a karaoke bar. A performance of who can care the least. Who can “make it” without really trying to. Define make it nowadays, anyways. What does it mean to make it? Now that’s a question.