RUNNING DOWN THAT HILL

DEAR MERCURY—Ann [Romano]'s page is the first thing I turn to when I pick up the Mercury ["One Day at a Time," weekly]. Honestly, it's all downhill from there.

-Max

GET THE BUCKET

As a bartender you eventually reach a point of saturation where no amount of piss, shit, blood, and puke will faze you anymore ["The Bartender Chronicles," Feature, March 17]. Your nostrils pucker, you let out a practiced sigh that is intended as much to clear your breathing passages of any airborne filth as it is to show disdain, and then you get the bucket. Fights are a little different. For reference: When two hipsters hit each other once, yell a little bit, and then walk away from the party with tears in their eyes it isn't a fight, it's a regression to grade school. I remember watching blood shoot six inches into the air from a head wound as the bleeder insisted that he was just fine. Like the kid who got his teeth kicked out, some people, especially drunken ones, just don't want the help. As for the subsequent stories about sex in bathroom stalls, on sidewalk walls, and people shitting themselves: That's par for the course. They suck and if you have to clean up after any of it you pull your T-shirt over your nose and hate humanity for just a little more but then you get on with it. None of those stories are particularly noteworthy, several of them are unquestionably exaggerated and a couple are probably at least 90 percent bullshit. This could be a good article but it's dragged down by the fact that most of the stories are sloppy filler. As suggested by a few comments, this could be a good weekly column but seek out stories at least as good as the first one. There's enough of us around that it really won't be that hard.

-posted by glassplayground

GENTRIFABULOUS

The main problem with LV's Sports Bar is that it is a black-owned establishment in the heart of the up-and-coming gentrifabulous Boise neighborhood ["The OLCC Hit List," News, March 17]. The cops love to target the patrons of LV's and pretend as if it is the center of the crime universe. You mean some people who have gone to a bar have also possessed drugs? Wow! I'm shocked. A fight? Two and a half years ago? Good reason to try and shut it down now. Besides, [owner] Mr. [LaVon] Van, aside from his role on the state champion Grant High basketball team back in '86, has gone on to be very involved in the community, donating time and money to help folks out. I realize this doesn't mean much to uptight white people who bike past LV's on N. Vancouver and grit their teeth and wish these pesky poor black people would just go away so something "useful," like yet another gathering spot for sanctimonious wonder bread, can go into that location instead. But that's just the way it is.

-posted by stukasoverpdx

ROTTEN IN DENMARK

I think the system stinks ["The OLCC Hit List," News, March 17]. The wait from beginning to end is ridiculous. A bar with a horrendous history should not be given months or years to keep up the problems. What a bunch of crud.

-Posted by adamskr

THE WAIT

Anyone willing to wait 45 minutes for a tofu scramble has it coming ["Tofurious," I, Anonymous, March 17].

-Posted by frankieb

INDEED FRANKIEB, now where are we going to go for our next plate of vegan nachos with extra soy curls? You win two tickets to the Laurelhurst Theater and lunch at No Fish! Go Fish! where vegans are served with a smile.