Page 12-Thursday, May 7, 1981-The Michigan Daily
'Soap addicts' receive daily fix
of 'General Hospital' at bar
4
BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) - As 3 p.m.
approaches, the addicts begin arriving
for their daily fix. Some are in street
clothes, but the serious cases wear
masks, surgical scrub suits and an oc-
casional plastic stethoscope.
It's time for "General Hospital" -
and a few beers.
THE ABC SOAP opera is the hottest
thing among student customers at P.J.
Bottoms, a bar across from the State
University of New York at Buffalo's
Main Street campus.
Bar owner Mark Teitelbaum said he
is flabbergasted by the success of a
"General Hospital Happy Hour" he
launched a few months ago.
"From a business point of view, we
used to be virtually empty between 3
and 4 in the afternoon," he said. "Now
we average about $200 a day. That's
like going from zero to $1,000 in a
week."
THE DEAL IS SPELLED out in a
flyer circulated around the campus. "5-
cent Strohs drafts. 10 wings for $1.00!"
it advertises. And "For those who dare
to wear their scrubs - one free shot of
schnapps!"
Wings, as any true Buffalonian
knows, are spicy chicken wings - a
regional epicurean specialty. Scrub
suits are the loose suits worn in
operating rooms and popular recently
as casual campus attire.
Teitelbaum said he and his partner,
Jeff Koch, heard about the popularity of
green scrub shirts and had several
hundred made up featuring the bar's
7 /
9 k k
AP Photo
Complete with operating room hair-covers on their heads and surgical masks around their necks, students Kim Horst
(left) and Debbie Feldman are getting their daily "fix" of "General Hospital" at a bar near the State University at Buf-
falo's campus.
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WITHOUT PAYING A CENT
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So you could be totally out of debt in three years or % out of debt in
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even enlist in the Army Reserve and get 15% off (or $500, whichever
is greater) for each year of part-time service.
For more information, contact us and ask about loan forgiveness.
name, two intertwined hearts, and the
words "Love in the Afternoon," which
ABC uses as an advertising phrase to
promote its soap opera lineup.
THE SHIRTS SOLD OUT at $3.50
each and they have ordered 500 more.
Teitelbaum said he first noticed the
"General Hospital" craze while cir-
culating advertising in dormitories. At
3 p.m., the campus turned silent as
students gathered around television
sets.
For a while, Teitelbaum and Koch
hired an ambulance to park outside. It
had its lights on in the beginning, but
Teitelbaum said he stopped that after
realizing that it had "negative con-
notations."
BECAUSE HE NEVER watches
soaps himself, his staff keeps a close
eye on "General Hospital" for him.
"One day somebody shot somebody,"
he recalled. "The staff said,
'tomorrow's going to be really busy.' I
said, 'Oh, sure.' The next day I came in it
was packed. Wall to wall.
"So the next day, I got an extra
waitress. It was dead - because
whoever it was was already shot. I gave
up after that."
UB students Debbie Feldman, 19, of
Cheektowaga, and Kim Horst, 19, of
Depew were among about 20 fans wat-
ching a recent episode of the program
at the bar.
"Whenever I can, I watch them all,
from 10:30 in the morning to 4 in the af-
ternoon," Feldman said.
Horst said she and other students like
the programs because "the people on
soaps do things other people just think
of doing. . . It's like a make-believe
world you just wish you could belong
to.
U.S. priest
emerges in
El Salvador
FromAPandUPI
SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador-An
American Roman Catholic priest who
was missing and feared dead for 10
days walked intoi the U.S. Embassy
here yesterday afternoon, an embassy
spokesman said.
A man who appeared to be Roy
Bourgeois, an American priest missing
for 10 days in war-torn El Salvador,
gave UPI a letter Wednesday saying he
went underground to "join the poor."
It was immediately impossible to
verify if the letter came from
Bourgeois, whose disappearance has
caused the U.S.-backed junta con-
siderable embarrassment because of
fears he was kidnapped by rightist
gunmen.
The Rev. Roy Bourgeois, a 42-year-
old Maryknoll priest based in Chicago,
vanished April 26 after he left the
Camino Real Hotel, reportedly to buy
some medicine.
a
0
ARMY
BE ALL YOU CAN BE.
SSG DAVE STANHOPE
COLLEGE REPRESENTATIVE
668-2082
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2 M
_ y i g: n. Q r 6 s+ Y Y 2 i a t