Both are built for the mass-consumption trade, with popular prices and acres of dance floors. Hicks and tourists are dance-bugs. Dick Lam, host at the Lotus, is one of the town’s best-known and best-liked showmen. He was one of the original founders of the China Doll, in New York, and has uptown manners and know-how.
The Blue Mirror, around the corner, specializes in hot jive. Kavakos, as mentioned, features nudes, as does the Players, opposite the Center Market.
Not only can and do some Washington cabarets get away with stuff that would land their owners in the clink in New York, but there seems to be no police control or regulation of acts.
For instance, Billie Holiday, the Negro singer who has served time on narcotics and prostitution falls, is barred from New York night clubs through the ukase of the Police License Bureau, which fingerprints all entertainers and thumbs those with records out of town. But while this was being written, Miss Holiday was starring in Washington’s Brown Derby.
Washington caters to visiting theatrical celebrities. Hollywood stars, to whom the capital spells spotlight, are flattered by attentions of politicians who, in return for free shows and broadcasts, flatter them. This racket was invented by President Roosevelt, and, ever since, theatrical headliners have been welcome luncheon and dinner guests at the White House. In Washington they generally stay at one of the five leading hotels and may be found dining or drinking in the lounges and restaurants of the Mayflower, Carlton, Statler, Shoreham and Wardman Park. Autograph collecting is not a highly developed hobby in Washington; but some juvenile half-wits plant themselves outside the hotels when such celebs are in town.
There is nothing the equivalent of Morocco, 21, Colony, Stork, or Toots Shor’s. The Mayflower lounge, nicknamed “The Snake Pit,” is that—the mad gathering-place at cocktail time for the local celebs: the Senators, lobbyists, army brass and blondest cuties.
Most Washington night-life is as flat as those who patronize it. The headwaiters are off the beam. The major-domo of the Wardman Park’s Caribar, typical of most of the town’s, is so provincial he doesn’t know he could get rich trying to cater to the few spenders that stumble in. We watched him a whole evening and didn’t see him snare a buck.
Patrons of Washington supper-clubs are lousy tippers. Most smalltown Americans adhere to a strict ten percent. When they think they can get away with it, they stiff even that. Captains, headwaiters, cigaret gals and retiring-room attendants they ignore. Southerners are worse.
We were twitting one Senator from a border state about the free haircuts the tax-payers provide for the members of the upper house in their private barber shop. This Senator replied, in all seriousness, “It’s almost cheaper to go outside. When you get it for nothing, you gotta tip the barber.”
The best palm-warmers are South American diplomats, who apparently have no regard for American money. Lobbyists, who like to flash big bills, especially when they are entertaining impressionable legislators, run for place.