somebody else's paradise

where do you go when you want to go out dancing in santa cruz? the obvious place in town is the Dakota, the lesbian bar on Pacific Avenue. obvious, because its the only queer one (officially listed as “gay friendly”) among the handful of places to dance downtown. i’ve actually never set a foot inside; it’s not that much of an obvious place for me to go. last time we tried to get in, if you remember, the expedition ended with the hysterical-aggressive bouncer calling the cops to get us away from the side-walk in front of the bar. [link to entry] but there aren’t really so many alternatives in town, and sahar wants to dance, so here we go…

as we’re walking up Pacific Avenue we make a code: i’ll say c’est elle if its the same bouncer. it sure is. maría goes first, she has in fact already been in the Dakota. she shows her Belgian driver’s license. the bouncer looks and hesitates. “hm, let’s see what the other IDs look like.” then there is sahar’s iranian passport. then there’s my belgian passport. she scrutinizes it. by that time i know that she recognized me and is most likely checking out my name. her hand finally takes lotte’s belgian passport while her head already shakes no. “no, there’s no weight and height on these.” lotte throws one of her killing you-must-be-joking looks, “you need our weight and height?” the bouncer stays very calm this time, i mean, rude and ignorant and stupid, but very calm. but these are valid passports, we respond, what more do you need? the point is of course not our weight and height, it’s about the IDs which she can accept “according to the book”. she goes in to get “the book” with pictures of different types of IDs from all the states, and even Canada. and ours are not in it. right, because we’re not from the states, nor Canada… as we argue she turns to me and acknowledges our previous encounter: “we had this conversation before, i even had to call the police, now move on.” i can’t help repeating that we’re on the side-walk and that this is public space. this time it is lotte and especially sahar who insist – just to get it clear: “so with a non-american ID we simply won’t be able to get in?” the bouncer kind of confirms this, although we all know it remains arbitrary – among the four of us maría was already in the Dakota, and in the company of last time, berna and bettina were as well. but the thing is precisely that non-american IDs are subject to this arbitrariness. when we finally leave we hear her say “sorry to spoil your holiday”. sure, when you don’t have a US ID you must be on a holiday. i turn around and say: “we live here. we’ll see more of each other no doubt.”

we walk down Pacific Avenue to Blue Lagoon. half naked men are screaming and molesting their musical instruments while moving their head in such a way that a 15 second imitation gives me a headache. heavy metal night. people getting drunk. an american flag at the bar. seems like a bar in Mississippi, lotte comments. i can’t really describe how depressed “going out” in small town america makes me. not that i’ve done a lot of that, i basically get depressed in the first half hour and don’t try again for many weeks.

we leave and on our way back up Pacific Avenue we bump into leta, jenn, mihui and two of their friends. they came from the Dakota, where leta had asked to peep in to see if their friends were there. the bouncer refused, but as they continued arguing with her, she asked leta who her friends were. when leta says “sarah” the woman tells them that she didn’t let us in and send us down the street. “no hard feelings,” she adds, as they follow our steps down Pacific.

khalas. time to act. a visit to the SCPD (santa cruz police department) soon. check out the legality of the refusal of non-US passports as legitimate IDs. if it’s not legal, file a complaint. imagine. taking legal action against the one lesbian bar on main street in the supposedly lesbian capital of the world. the bar where i will probably, if this saga continues, never set foot.