Lil Spill
November 16, 2009
Working: The owners hired us translators to help us hold employee meetings. On Tuesday, the day before the opening, we had the girls all day trying to hold bartending classes. The bar did not have a soda system installed or ice so lets just say we were strapped to teach real bartending, and of course they only had 5 girls who had ever bartended before. Daniel held classes all day while I gave interviews to about twenty different publications, tv stations, and celebrity magazines. At one point I see Lee taking video of daniel holding a bartending class. Lee told me he needed to video tape Daniel being mean with a translator. At one point I heard Daniel look at the translator ” tell the girls to shut the fuck up”. I am very proud of Daniel he was definitely calmer for this opening. He held his tongue quite a bit. I am sure it is a mixture of being part of corporate going in to advise a licensee and the size and scariness of the bouncers!!
Everyone in their life has some deep seated fears. I have two. 1. Public speaking. Specifically giving a speech in front of a lot of people. I am terrified of that. 2. Having my picture taken professionally in front of others. On Tuesday my second fear came to fruition. OK magazine of Europe had been booked by the russian PR company to photograph me. I didn’t know this, thank god, so when they showed up I started to feel very anxious. Then the nightmare started to get worse. They had brought stylists and I was to model 5 evening gowns while on the bar. ” I’m not a model. I don’t know how to do that.” ” Please god let this be over quick!” The first gown was this beautiful red gown. The photographer told me that he wanted the first shot to be of me crawling on the bar. That wasn’t enough of course I was told to ” roar like tiger” If this wasn’t humiliating enough it happened to coincide with our planned full staff meeting. ” Please god let this end! Please god can you stop Daniel and Lee from laughing! Please god can you translate into russian, “I can not roar like lion!” This horror went on for 3 hours. People walking in and out while I posed in weird position with different dresses making goofy faces. About an hour in I asked Daniel for a shot of vodka and I loosened up. I was never able to ” roar like tiger” but I nailed ” smile like you are in love with me” and ” surprise like prey being pounced by predator.”