The sites, sounds and smells are all very familiar at this point. I can always smell fresh chicken strips when they are brought out, probably more than any other item that is served. One night they played a lot of music that I was a fan of, but the other I had to concentrate on other things to be able to drown it out. I learned about a collage of pictures that they had posted on a series of bulletin boards on one wall. Apparently every once in awhile they have some type of dress up night where all of the wait staff dresses in the appropriate costumes or getups for whatever event it may be. From what I could gather though, it was just a bunch of ass and boob shots. Some patrons were even getting some good gropes on that happened to land on film and subsequently were posted on the boards. The waitress suggested I get a zoom of some of those pictures, which I did to the best of my camera phone’s abilities.
There are two more artifacts that I would consider vital to this place. One is the electronics area behind the bar area. It is a stack of Dish receivers that control all of the different TVs. There is also some DJ type equipment, as well as the controls to the varying types of music that may be playing. I feel this is extremely important, as without this equipment, no one would be showing up to watch all of the games. It would be just another bar, like Boise needs another one of those.
The last artifact that I do wish I could bring in, is the Buster’s original sign. It’s a picture I described in my first post, of the old school 50’s diner type girl, in a short skirt serving up cold beer. In my opinion that is exactly what this place is all about. From my observations so far, most people come strictly for that. I’ve talked to a lot of people in my time here and almost every conversation, even if just a little bit, mentions the skimpy attire on the wait staff.
I don’t really think some of the other questions relating to the different artifacts apply to my particular study. Most I cannot hold or feel. Not many could be compared to anything other than what they are. I will try to find out if my interpretations of them are different than a normal patron’s.
I was more fortunate during site visit 4 than any of my other ones. I ended up doing a lot of partial or small interviews with some patrons, as well as seeing a packed crowd in for a few big games. I was also able to watch some more guys try cheesy pickup lines on the wait staff. Some of the waitresses played it off smoothly or maybe even went along just a little bit. These were typically rewarded with decent sized tips. The wait staff that decided to roll their eyes and walk away were given little to nothing depending on how slighted the gentleman felt. I still can’t get over the odd interactions that happen between the waitresses and the patrons. It seems as much as I tried to observe other things, the most intriguing were the interactions. Some of my buddies that I went with for site visit 4 were trying to coerce our waitress to take some pictures with us for my paper/blog post. She wasn’t going for it by any means. She also looked at me somewhat oddly for writing page after page of observations down. I can understand as the place was packed any everyone else was carrying on about the games that were televised. In the end though she lightened up and was the one that informed us of the collage. She also suggested we come down on April fool’s day for their next dress up night. Even though this project may be said and done by then, I may just have to see what’s going on.
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