Atlanta, as I often I tell my visitors, is a city of with an unusual number of major landmarks and institutions that start with the letter "C". We have Coca Cola, the CDC (Centers for Disease Control), and The Carter Center (Jimmy's Presidential Library), and CNN. Our largest outdoor concert venue is Chastain Park. The 1996 Olympics gave the city Centennial Olympic Park. We are the national headquarters for CARE, and the American Cancer Society. We have this nutty thing called Cyclorama, which is a rotating panoramic painting of the Civil War.
And, now, after my Thursday night adventure, I must add one more: The Clermont Hotel and Lounge on Ponce de Leon Avenue.
The Clermont is to Atlanta, what the Chelsea Hotel is to New York...legendary, beloved, authentic, sleazy, singular. See The Clermont's My Space page. (FYI: Rooms currently rent for $37.50 a night...it's posted out front.) The Clermont Lounge is Atlanta's oldest continually running strip joint, or so says Wikipedia. I'd been curious, but never had the cojones to go until last night, when HEEB magazine had a Jewish storytelling event at the Clermont. Perfect venue.
The evite said, doors open at 7:45, show begins promptly at 8:00. So I got there on time. To my immediate right, an oval bar with a platform in the center. Up top, a big honking white mama in thong and bikini top shaking her considerable derriere. Major cellulite. Booty-ful in an obviously Clermontesque way. Dancers and strippers apparently rule at the Clermont ... patrons can put coins in the juke box, but ONLY the dancers can call the tunes. It says so right on the juke box. Around the bar, old buys sipping PBR's, younger folks throwing back shots. There's nothing "on tap." Cans and bottles of beer only. Smoking is allowed, natch, which made it a pretty yukky to place to be.
The Heeb event was on the left side of the joint. Stage, nightclub style seating, and about 40 people present to hear 7 people each tell a 7 minute "Jewish" story. My friend Rachel P. got up and told about moving to Atlanta in 7th grade, being unpopular and then having her mother force her to run for class president. The publisher of Heeb told about seeing the movie "10" at the age of 8 and having no idea what was going on. A black lesbian Jewish woman riffed on being a black lesbian Jew -- "I needed the trifecta of outsider-ness." A 60-something pony-tailed civil liberties lawyer (he represents the Clermont) told about being a Jewish lawyer defending a criminal who got religion and got off in court. We were out by 10:00, and believe me, I was gasping for air and grateful.
So now I can say, I've been the the Clermont. Even my teenager was creeped out by this story.
Ha! I lived in Atlanta for 5 years and never realized that about the letter C! Too funny.
And yes, the Clermont Lounge is definitely an experience. And we'll leave it at that.
Posted by: Lara | March 10, 2008 at 01:21 PM