Usually, we have some great regulars, as I've mentioned previously. Last night though was the night of disgruntled customers. Being a Sunday, I get the bar all to myself, with Dan coming out and acting as manager of the restaurant. The regulars come in and usually give me a pretty lucrative dinner crowd, cheerful and talkative, all in all it's usually a good night. Last night, however, was an exception to that usual occurrence. Marty came in for his usual beef ribs, club soda and cappuccino. As always, the cappuccino has to be piping hot or he sends it back. Marty is a 70 year old widower, his 4th wife passed away 10 years ago, and he quit his alcoholism 5 years ago, before I had the pleasure of meeting him. Apparently I missed quite a show. He attended the bar regularly, and was booted from the premises just as regularly. Now, he drinks all my club soda and tips a bit less than modestly. But I'll get to Marty later. He wasn't the first to start a scene, I just think that feeling left out, he wanted to join in on the fun. First it was Mike and his usual burger incident. He attempted to send the burger back to be done "right," but I told him I'd refund his money and wouldn't give him the burger. If you don't like the way we cook the burger, don't order the burger. He was surprisingly quiet at my decision to cut him off. He didn't complain or try to argue his point at all, he just returned to sipping his coca-cola.

After putting Mike in his place, Marty began to complain about his broccoli rabe side dish being too cold. I sent it back to be heated up, even though it was piping hot already. I could see the steam. It came back probably no hotter than before, and he was content. His cappuccino came out, too cold, and I sent that back to be reheated. He enjoyed it at first, but said that it became cold too quickly. I asked him if he seriously burnt his tongue when he was younger, if he had no feeling in his mouth. I asked if I could experiment by placing his tongue on the milk steamer and see if it doesn't melt away. He didn't laugh.

John had a glass of wine and was feeling especially talkative, telling the others at the bar how the food here is about average. He says the restaurant down the street has better sausage and ziti, yet for some reason he comes here to get his. Go figure. I asked him why he doesn't go there for his sausage and ziti, and he replied, "I like the people here better," to my reply "they may like you better over there."

I got a few complaints and Dan told me I should go home and get some sleep, come back happy. I told him that was a good idea....

But she breaks just like a little girl

Today I'll return to my cynical attacks on stupid shit that I see every day. Today, snowed in with nothing to do, I came across the Tyra Banks show, where she was doing a wonderful piece on a troubled woman who was living a fake life. For years, since high school, she had been hiding a birth mark above her lip with makeup. Her husband didn't even know she had a birth mark. Now, she is sobbing as her oblivious husband walks onto the stage, probably thinking his wife is having an affair or is pregnant by another man. Quickly and carefully wiping her never-ending stream of tears before they wash away her makeup and reveal her hideous brown dot.

Tyra asks the husband how they met, with his reply, "We hooked up in high school and been together ever since. I wouldn't have it any other way." Which garnered a loving "aw" from the hormonal crowd. Tyra went on to explain to this confused and nervous man that his wife, the mother of his child is hiding something from him, and has been even in high school. He looked as though he was about to ask for a brown bag to calm himself. They went on to show him baby pictures of his wife (he never saw any baby pictures of her, because they reveal her grotesque birth-mark), and he studied them for a few minutes without noticing anything. She announced, after great nervous anticipation on the husband's part, that she had a birth-mark, and the husband looked confused and aggravated. Of course I would be too, realizing that my wife is a shallow and pathetic shell of a human being, covering a mark on her face for her entire life in fear that not everyone would accept her if she didn't have perfect skin.

Marilyn Monroe had a fucking birth mark. This girl had a tiny dot above her lip, and she was very attractive. A woman from the crowd yelled out "I have a birthmark too!" And Tyra, feeling the deep emotions running through the crowd, yelled "Get that woman a mic!" To which everyone cheered and clapped as if Matthew McConaughey magically appeared on stage without a shirt on. The girl with a birthmark, a tiny dot above her lip, was crying more hysterically than the pathetic woman on stage with the dumbfounded husband, uncomfortable and completely out of his element. "I have a birthmark and you just can't live like that you have to embrace it it's who you are you can't hide it you have to embrace it, it's who you are, you have to embrace it!" She continued yelling through the loud cheers and crying women screaming and hugging one another in a sea of insecurities, "EMBRACE IT! IT'S WHO YOU ARE!"

Tyra was teary eyed and asked the woman to come on stage and comfort her fellow insecure sister in misery, and they went on to have a good cry, with the husband looking more and more bewildered and not saying a word, brow permanently tilted, just taking everything in and not completely understanding any of it.

I understand that this woman is going through a lot. When you put on a mask, literally and figuratively, in order to fit into a superficial society (i.e. girl's cliques in high school), it is not an easy thing to break free from. But all of us have moments in life where we call ourselves on our bullshit. For the lucky men and women, they realize the fake and shallow aspects of their personality early out of high school, and even that is a bit late for people to change their ways. Insecurities are alive and thriving in all of us. I don't know if Tyra is just an insecure person herself and actually did sympathize with this girl, or if she was faking it for the ratings. But to witness a mass of hormones and insecurities and confused emotions pouring out of his wife and hundreds of women in the audience and most likely countless thousands of women watching on their television sets must be a terrifying thing for this poor husband to endure.

Should this really be on television? Should we really sympathize for a woman who went to that extent to fit in with a fake group of people in high school? She was probably the insecure and self-absorbed bitch that blew half the football team and ridiculed girls who didn't wear enough makeup and go to the same extent she did to feel loved and accepted. Is this the kind of person that we should sympathize with? In Tyra's defense, maybe a few pathetic women may take this experience as an inspiration to stop stuffing their bras.

I don't know.

Baby-steps, I guess.

I can't do this alone

I enter the bar through the back kitchen entrance, usually greeted by the kitchen help, chefs and whatnot. Today I had the pleasure of meeting the new guy. I hadn't heard him speak just yet, though I acknowledged him with a friendly "hello." He just stared straight through me with one of the most psychotic looks I've seen in my life. Both his eyes seemed off-center, as though each individual eye was focused on a different spot of my face. His eyelids slightly widened and he only took another puff of his cigarette which I later learned he "bummed" off the terrified waiter smoking 10 feet away from him. I gave him a confused look in reply and walked into the kitchen.

"Do you have a problem with me?"

He sat at the bar as I was cutting fruit before the bar opened. I tried not to make an aggravated face as I replied, knowing as soon as I saw him that he very well may stab me.

"Excuse me?"

"I'm just gonna be straight up witchu. Man I like dis job and I don't want my P.O. sendin' me back if I get canned. I just wanna know we're cool."

I told him we were cool, I don't usually have a "problem" with someone I've never met before. It doesn't work that way with me. He then went on to ask me, I swear to God, if I've ever "fucked a sheep." They apparently have them at whatever prison he resided, and he swears that it feels like the same thing. I asked him, politely enough, to get the hell away from me. From now on, I bring a switch-blade to work with me.

This being a Friday night, the bar was full of interesting characters. I found myself having a very stimulating conversation with some successful businessmen. They seemed successful enough, very nice suits, racked up a hefty tab, probably $300 between the three of them. Of course I can't have a stimulating conversation with businessmen about anything "business," we talked of the wonders of legal prostitution in Amsterdam. Did you know that you can have two midgets at a time? Well, Ron did. I still think that they were transvestites. Ron mentioned something about midget transvestites in passing, then when I asked him about it minutes later he changed the subject. His colleagues must have missed it. They can't wait for their next business trip to "Thailand," where the midgets are children! Capitalism at its finest.

I've been seeing Rita. A cheerfully well-dispositioned waitress in the restaurant. Always happy, always friendly, always drunk, never interesting. I've been "seeing" her. By seeing, I guess I mean dating, if you'd like to call it that. I don't understand what one means by the word "seeing," as if that doesn't imply that you are dating as much as it implies that you are screwing, no dinners and money and flowers and candy involved. There is an unspoken communication between two people that makes that decision for them whether they are dating or seeing each other. In this case that unspoken communication has led us both to the conscious decision that this will not last.

James is a server at the bar. Good guy. Hot sister. Brenna. I didn't know she was his sister. I'll start from the beginning. My girlfriend and I are currently in relationship limbo, I guess. "On a break." For reasons that will remain untalked about. Just because it's a boring story, relationships are always a boring story with no one interested in your damn pointless lover's quarrel but you. So stop telling me about how your boyfriend doesn't pay enough attention to you or started talking to his ex or cursed you off, deal with it. Anyway, a very attractive female patron was taking a particular interest in her bartender, i.e. me. I did give her a free half-pint of beer.

The bar closes at 2 am. It is now ten after two, and the bar is full of servers and food runners and bussers and managers and chefs. They are all toasted. I am toasted. I'm having a nice time with Brenna, and Rita is fairly jealous. Rita is somewhat of an anomaly to me. She has just returned from the office where she was with Roger, the head chef and in this case head chef in more ways than one. We have just made out in the kitchen freezer a few hours ago, during the dinner rush and the alcohol on her breath almost sent me into a drunken stupor. Rita always keeps a water bottle of vodka on hand while she works. No doubt about it, Rita likes to have fun. And who am I to judge? Not that I don't feel sorry for a girl such as Rita.

Rita happened to walk by Brenna and me on her way back from her meeting with the "head" chef while Brenna was showing me her tattoo. Rita stormed off aggravated.

The night went well, and wanting to continue our good time, we had a nice little conversation in my car at about 4 am, outside of the bar. After our conversation, Brenna felt guilty. Apparently she just broke up with her boyfriend, and she's not one to talk with other men at this time of night. I, however, knew from Dan and other co-workers that she is not too honest. Apparently her boyfriend was disgusted by her barbie-esque physique, and made her feel insecure. Apparently, you are not allowed to have conversations in your own car at this hour, outside of the bar, because a police officer noticed the fogged windows of my car, from all the hot air released as we chatted the night away. He asked us to step out of my vehicle. As I put my pants back on (it was very hot and I do not like suit pants at all), James's sister decided to heckle the officer. After he refused several times her requests to be arrested I apologized to the officer for the 10th time and drove her to my place.

I lay in bed with my bride to be. My damsel in distress, who surely would have spent a night in jail if it were not for me. Drunken and asleep and I cannot sleep because sleeping beauty snores worse that my father. I miss my girlfriend.

"the world all unreal in the dark and so exciting that you must resume again unknowing and not caring in the night, sure that this was all and all and all and not caring."

-Hemingway

The following was inspired by Ron Hansen's "Wickedness"

Silence was Annie Barton's company for two weeks now. All but the creak of her rocking chair against the hardwood floor of her Hartington, Nebraska home, and the wind whistling outside. And that smell, that awful odor. Outside the pink January sun was resting in the golden sky. There was an agreeable condition in the air, aside from the soft stinging breeze. In her warm home Annie was safe from the treacherously unpredictable Nebraska weather. Inside Annie became consumed by her thoughts, consumed by that smell. What a terrible smell it was.

It's not so much that Annie missed John, but she missed his company. The man was a wonderful husband and father. He loved Annie with all his heart, and she him. After watching John suffer for all that time, though, Annie knew he was at peace. But she missed his company dreadfully, in a selfish way it seems. Two weeks without talking to a single soul plays cruel tricks on the mind. Especially one as imaginative and easily swayed as Annie's.

Annie was a relatively healthy woman of 43, her husband was 48 and died of consumption two weeks ago, in the bed, in the corner. Still there. The gasses released from his body swimming through the air, hanging to Annie's nostrils, inhaled and selfishly devouring Annie from the inside.

At first Annie was too depressed, too brokenhearted to make the 3 mile walk to town and find a priest. Find someone to remove the aging framework of the man she loved. For days Annie rocked on her chair, hopeless eyes blankly focused on his body. "Please wake up, honey. Please talk to me, John." And then, magically, John communicated with Annie. Not in an earthly way we would understand. John communicated with Annie through the air.

She breathed him and became one with him. The gruesome aroma that attached itself to the furniture, the walls, and the cans in the cupboards got the best of Annie. John's body suddenly softened days after his death. Annie stopped paying attention to John's body anyway. She didn't notice the greenish liquid expelled from his decomposing tissue. She didn't even notice the fluid discharge from John's mouth, nose and ears. John wasn't a part of that decaying vessel anymore. He was the house. He was Annie.

Annie had long internal conversations with John, who told her that death is the most wonderful presence. He couldn't have possibly imagined it in life. He told Annie to wait patiently. That they would be together soon. He would make sure of it. John told Annie about the alien beings in the fourth dimension waiting for us all when we pass on. Of course! Death cannot be explained to us simple, ignorant three dimensional beings because we cannot comprehend a reality that defies the rules of space and time. These aliens are all around us, they know everything we do, they know everything we are going to do. They can see everything we have done, are doing, and ever will do at the exact same time. We are vessels traveling in a long strand of spaghetti!

But John told Annie that soon she would break free from her strand of spaghetti and be with him again. He told her that he would make sure of it. In just two weeks time John would impose his presence into the human world and take Annie away from it all. He told her that actually he was with her right now, since he was in all places in the universe, all points of time. He has been to eternity and back with Annie, and he said it was wonderful.

Annie couldn't contain her ecstasy at such a wonderful revelation as this. She was going to be with John for all eternity. Soon her children, Andrew, John Jr., Edith and Lillian would join them. They would spend all of eternity together as one in eternal bliss. Two weeks had finally passed. So much time for Annie to wait, sitting silently, patiently. How could she be patient, when she knew that she would soon be an integral part of an eternal bliss that knew no concept of "patience"? It had been two weeks, and Annie sat in eager anticipation in her house, eyes fixed away from the decomposing body that once held her husband like a caged phoenix. She envied her husband, his freedom. Soon she would tear away from her body like a mummy rising from the dead. Annie calls out to John with her whole body, "It's been two weeks, John. Please come for me. Let me leave this awful place."

Annie looked out the window. The sky grew dark, her heart sank. Grey-blue storm clouds were racing toward her at an amazing speed. In the distance Annie could see leaves ripped from the trees and twirling in the wind, the grass on the hills on the horizon swayed as the ripples of a lake. The sky was almost immediately overcast. Annie's breath came to a stop when she saw it; the whiteness blowing and dancing in the wind. The captivating breath of her husband's love, advancing as determined as any man for his true love's heart and soul. The wind and snow quickly surrounded Annie's house, and she was evermore in the presence of her husband. Out the window only the whiteness, driving in the wind with a furious tenacity. Certainly an environment that no mere human could survive.

Annie opened the door and her heart rose with the stinging chill of the outside. The wind's determination grew stronger, the great roar subsided. Complete silence once again, in the face of her love's resolve. Annie smiled and whispered to her husband, "this smells much better," and stepped out into the freezing Nebraska wilderness.

She took "two steps out her door and disappeared until the snow sank away in April and raised her body up from her garden patch."

Put your keys in the bowl, kiss your husband goodnight

So last night was pretty boring as far as the usual nights go. Late on a Wednesday it's usually pretty quiet, barring the usual few curious customers. I didn't get a chance to be the new rude bartender I wanted to be, but I'll have plenty of time for that on the weekends. Dan arrived 20 minutes late, not a big deal since there wasn't much of a crowd. He was on fire though. Kept sniffing and rubbing his coke-nose... Talking everyones ears off. Our daily regular, Steve showed up, as usual, since he does every single day and stays for hours. He's a damn lonely guy. Comes in around 5 and has a few beers, that'll last him for a few hours. Then after 8 or so he'll get his usual. Jack and Coke with a splash of lime juice, no fruit. He used to have a job, advocating for mentally challenged people who have been adopted. Made sure they got the right care and all that. But just a week ago he was fired for looking at pornography on the office computer. Something you'd think he'd keep to himself. But no, told me all about it as soon as he got fired. Now he's collecting social security until he finds something else. Don't know how he's going to do that spending 8 hours a day at the bar. He's a good guy, polite and quiet, tips well.

So with Steve there to keep me company and observe the madness with the aid of a few drinks, the night went on. Slowly. Only a few people in for dinner, no late night rush. Only a couple drunk women. One married, one newly single. The married one made out with Dan a bit in the kitchen. The newly single one, I think, was pretty interested in me. Unless she really did just want to take me home for pancakes. She said she makes the best chocolate chip pancakes and she wanted me to come home with her so that she could cook them for me. The woman just got divorced. Personal trainer, you'd never tell she has 2 kids. I guess if I went home with her I'd get to look forward to a nice pancake breakfast with her two children who are almost as old as I am. I told her a night out drinking may be what she needs, maybe she does need to have a nice pancake breakfast with a bartender half her age. Maybe she wasn't doing the wrong thing. But I couldn't take advantage of a nice drunk woman who could be my mother. She didn't take this well. She cried for a whole 30 seconds before retreating to the bathroom to vomit. I am very grateful that she didn't miss the toilet. I thanked her. Dan wasn't going to get much more out of his Mrs. Robinson anyway, since she would never cheat on her husband. The married women don't usually go too far. Usually. The longer you work at a bar like this, the less hope you have that you will ever find true happiness. True happiness is out the door when your wife realizes she wasted her whole damn life reading Cosmopolitan Magazine, choosing the right interior design for her boring home and living the same boring life day in and day out with a husband who works his same boring job day in, day out. Then your wife goes out with her friends to a bar like mine and drinks away her troubles. Forgets she has those damn kids out with their own delinquent friends, getting drunk and sleeping with God-knows-who. Husband working late and probably banging the secretary. Oh, there's a cute bartender. Why should my life be so damn boring?

After the good wife and her drunk personal trainer left, the night was pretty slow. Just steve and a few other old guys sitting at the bar, not saying much. Had an interesting conversation with Christie, a cocktail waitress who is never too discreet about her sexuality, especially when there are only a few pathetic looking drunks sitting at the bar anyway. Told me (and everyone else sitting at the bar, who were all listening intently) about her last vomiting experience. On the lap of her boyfriend, while they were driving on the highway. You can come to your own conclusions about how Christie could throw up on her boyfriend's lap. Even the deadbeats at the bar were offended when she was talking about how he had to drive 20 minutes before he found an exit and a restroom.

All in all, the night was pretty slow. Being a Wednesday and all. I'll be sure to get a few more chances to get myself in trouble. Maybe even fired! Stay tuned!

Lost but found...

Okay, so I'm tired of being a bartender. Yet, I make pretty good money. I could quit, but I think that would be too easy. So instead, I've decided to enjoy myself a little bit. A little bit more than I have been. From now until the night I get fired, which will hopefully be in the near future, I will be the bartender I've always wanted to be. I've not been such an upstanding bartender, yet I always keep that fake, painful smile on my face as I pour these pathetic wastes of life their elixir. I will not be fake anymore. And I will blog about it.

I work at a nice restaurant and bar at a certain train station. The fact that we're located at a train station does well to bring in some very interesting customers. Some great, some are incredible assholes. I won't get into the good regulars yet. The bad ones are just so much more interesting. Jon, a deaf man of about 60, is a complete asshole. I know, he's deaf, I must be nice. But what deaf person would get angry with a bartender for handing him a piece of paper and pen? I don't understand your moaning and hand gesturing. You jackass. Don't get impatient with me when I'm showing the utmost patience to you. And then don't run up a $50 tab and leave me with a .50 tip... seriously, 50 cents. No one leaves a 50 cent tip unless they are intentionally insulting you. It is not my fault that my ears work and yours don't. Marty, a big-shot lawyer from Philadelphia, is a lonely, royal pain in the ass. 4th wife died on him before he had the chance to screw things up with her. His son doesn't talk to him much. He doesn't talk much about it anymore, since he quit drinking. Yet he comes back to the bar, drinks all of my club soda and obnoxiously barges in on everybody's conversation. Greg is a pretentious freelance sportswriter. He wrote a positive review of one of the owner's other restaurants, and expects me to compensate him for that. I give him free refills on his coca-cola and a few extra meatballs in his pasta and he thinks he's a made man. Mike and Steve are an interesting pair. Mike usually comes in first, orders his burger, and has a glass of water. He's fat and lazy. You can see it in his face. Late 30's. His cheeks sag at each side and make a permanent frown. He's balding. He always wears the same blue shirt with the phrase "Alice in Chains" across the chest, and below, a picture of Alice from The Brady Bunch, bound and gagged and terrified. Steve arrives about 15 minutes after Mike, about just the time when Mike receives his burger for the first time. He always sends it back. The bun is always burnt. I tell him, the bun is grilled. It's not burnt. The butter on the bun hardens and crystallizes. He doesn't like it, but he wants it grilled. Just not burnt. It comes out the second time. Still burnt, but he'll eat it anyway. Reluctantly, of course. Steve looks quite a bit like Mike. Same relative age. A bit shorter, still has his hair, and always unshaven and greasy as if he hasn't showered in a day or so. At least he drinks beer. Mike and Steve sit quietly, watching the television and don't talk much. They leave together. No wedding rings on their hands.

All these people I have to be fake with. I have to pretend I am their friend, and I'm on their side. Everyone has their problems. But I don't get paid enough to be the stress ball. New and interesting people every day, new and awfully ignorant and pathetic people every day, new and completely depressed, suicidal people every day. I've seen it all. A 60 year old woman exposed her breasts to me. Another 60 year old woman had a heart attack in front of my eyes. She died. I met a man with terminal cancer who got a clear bill of health just 30 minutes before. In the bar for some of the best chicken tenders he's ever had in his life. I've made love-less love to 21 year old (I think) girls, all the way up to 40 year old divorcees. In the cafe, the kitchen, the basement, the restroom, the manager's office. I'm not kidding. And I'm not fired. I work with my boss. He's the other bartender. He's a retired cop. He's a coke-head and a sex-addict. He's a hell of a good time. I can do pretty much anything I want at that bar, that is if it's after-hours, and it's okay because Dan (my boss) has my back. He's been there and way beyond. Slept with a midget. Stole security tapes of himself with a few unlucky ladies. He once double-teamed a girl on the roof of a club. She tripped and fell down the trash chute, he grabbed his friend and they disappeared. His friend got married and moved on, all of his friends got married. They are not allowed to talk to Dan anymore. He has no friends, he is desperately lonely, and he has me on Saturday nights. We have a hell of a time. And I'm tired of it. He's 42, I'm 23, and I'm tired of it.

Ignorance is bliss...

I was recently at the Philadelphia Museum of Art with the girlfriend. We saw some great European art, Asian art, some really neat armor and weapon collections spanning back to the 13th century. We saw pieces by timeless artists, Monet, Cezanne, etc.

We eventually came to the Contemporary Art collection. I walked into a bad acid trip. I came across Cy Twombly's "Fifty Days at Ilium," which is an entire room consisting of ten massive paintings which play out the last fifty days of the Trojan War, as described by Homer in his "Iliad." Upon first look, I was a bit confused as to why an entire room in the Philadelphia Museum of Art would be devoted to scribbling on canvas. But I decided to push my ignorance aside for once and attempt to appreciate art that I obviously do not understand. I examined the paintings in the room carefully. They are all no doubt ripe with symbolism. Vibrant and violent colors definitely bring forth strong feelings in each piece. The childish handwriting does have an effect on the overall tone of the paintings, and he did seem to stay true to the theme of the the Iliad. These paintings are surely not something anyone who read the Iliad could easily create.

But I do have a few issues. I still don't appreciate this crap. Picasso created all kinds of abstract art, but he was fucking Picasso, he proved himself first. I was so fascinated with this Cy Twombly guy and his childish sketches that I went home and googled him to try and find any kind of painting that may require some kind of artistic ability, in the old school sense of the word. Nothing. No contemporary paintings, no self portraits, no normal, everyday paintings. Just more and more scribbles. And the man has such a brilliant mind that critics can see it in his scribbles and spashes of paint on canvas. I have no doubt that his mind definitely works in a different way than that of normal society. Give me 7 big canvases, 10 hours, a handful of psychadelic drugs and I will create an epic depiction of Dante's layers of hell that will attract any contemporary art critic for a further look. The only problem is I'll have to be smart enough to bullshit him into thinking there's any "substance" to it. "Well, I was tripping my ass off and I started to think that I actually was in hell, so I threw some red and black paint on the canvas and I feel that it evokes some terrifying emotions. I mean, I was fucking horrified at the time, my dog turned into the Devil and started screaming at me."