"Those alliances with a blackguard crew: Thank goodness, they do last forever."

Salon "Every time anyone says something slightly dismissive to a cocktail waitress I am immediately, instinctively on her side, as if we were members of a blood-bonded clan." By Jennifer Wright

'The job description had me at “wear a pirate costume.” A sexy pirate costume, for the very sexy pirate-themed bar on Bleecker Street. The fact that the bar promised hundreds of dollars a night for selling people shots sounded quite all right, too.



'I grappled for a few moments over what anyone would find sexy about an eye patch. It implied my eyeball had been gored in a fearsome bayonet fight with a British grenadier. I asked the manager whether I should look for a parrot. She was not charmed.

'But by God, I was. I’d grow up on a steady diet of country club sandwiches and tennis lessons, and this was what I came to New York for: to do odd things, and see interesting people. People who went to pirate bars, for fun. I had been a model for art classes, but I had never been a pirate.'