Girl Fight!

by Rebecca Schoenkopf

Looking back on it, I have never not got into a bar fight at Taix, the dark and tasty Silver Lake French restaurant and bar, where I have many times been offered cocaine. There was the time I chatted up a couple of sharp-suited Afro-Cuban guys, and they went on and on and on about how if you don’t vote for Castro, he kills you. “Huh!” I said. “I didn’t know he even bothered with elections! Yay democracy!” When they left grumbling, the Salvadorean bartender leaned over. “Miami Cubans are bullshit!” he said tenderly. And then he bought me a strawberry daiquiri.

This time, this Saturday, I was minding my own business (I was not minding my own business), trying to chat up the girl sitting alone next to me. It started promisingly enough; back from a smoke with my boyfriend, I asked wryly if she’d put any roofies in our drinks. Naturally, she took offense. Eventually, with much work, I explained that I was kidding, I did not really think she’d put roofies in our drinks. After that, Natalie was just fine, except that she most certainly was not.

At Taix. Not shown: Rebecca.

I was trying to relate a hilarious anecdote about the time I’d been dosed in Seattle and ended up in the ER where the doc claimed there was no GHB in Seattle (but the guy who dosed me was from LA!) and that Rohypnol doesn’t cause gastrointestinal distress (it does, Blanche, it does) and that I was just dehydrated (look Ma, I’m Lindsay Lohan!). Come to think of it, it’s not a hilarious anecdote at all! But I never got through the story because she asked, “Seattle? Are you in fashion?” And then she proceeded to thrill me with tales from the fashion industry. (She did not thrill me with tales from the fashion industry.) She had an odd hybrid accent; she said she was New Zealander with French parents, but she sounded very Zsa Zsa Gabor or Arianna H. So when you read her quotes you must draw them out like this: “faaashohn.”

And so we were talking about faaashohn, and I was asking questions, because I am a generous conversationalist, when Natalie explained to me, “We can’t manufacture in China anymore! China is too expensive now. We have moved all our factories to Bangladesh.”

China is too expensive now? My goodness! But Natalie explained it wasn’t the fashion industry’s fault: you must compete. She named a couple of apparel companies and ended it with “Even Liz Claiborne can’t afford it there. Liz Claiborne is in Bangladesh too.” Liz Claiborne can’t afford it? That’s funny, I said, because Liz Claiborne only pays 74 cents in labor costs for a $198 jacket. And yes, mama had that number ready to go in her hip pocket, because mama knows all kinds of stuff about things! To be fair, that was back in 2000, when Liz Claiborne hadn’t yet moved to Bangladesh. Labor costs in Bangladesh right now run about 22 cents an hour. (Mama did not have that number in her hip pocket; rather, she had it at home on the Google.)

But I had questions! How is it that American Apparel can make garments right here in L.A., and provide benefits, and still make a profit? “American Apparel is in all kinds of trouble right now!” Natalie asserted. “Yes,” I said, because they hire illegals—and yet they still pay them the same living wage and benefits and manage to make a profit. Those profits? In March, their fourth-quarter profits rose 30 percent, despite paying their workers $12 an hour—or, let’s see, carry the one—roughly 54 times what Liz Claiborne’s got going in sweet Bangladesh.

Anyway, it went on from there, Natalie moving on to bitching that the U.S. is overregulated (!), thanks to George Boosh (!), and small apparel businesses are having to shut down because it costs $125 to test a zipper. “Ehverry zipper!” she exclaimed, really quite put-out. And what are they testing them for? Lead. I want to know if there’s too much lead in my zipper, and $125—tested once for each style—doesn’t seem too much to find out. (Effects of long-term lead poisoning include aggro violent-brain, like at a frat party, or at the bar at Taix!)

Anyway, Natalie thought I was ridiculous and I thought she was a complete piece of shit, and we argued over each other for about 15 minutes before I swept my boyfriend off with a stern “We’re leaving!” and never even saw my friend Chad’s band BollWeevil play, until the next night at the Echo, opening for the Mekons. I have never once had a fight at the Echo, but really maybe it’s time I did.

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