The Lightbulb

Had one of those moments yesterday that really makes this whole being a writer thing worth the heartbreak it usually consists of. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining, but this is some Sisyphean business most of the time. Push the rock. Push the rock. Push the rock. Why is the rock down the hill again? There’s a reason they say works of art are never finished, only abandoned.

But sometimes, sometimes you get that light bulb, and it shows you something whole enough that you can make a thing out of it, and when it does, oh man, that is some good shit right there. But the switch is only flipped for so long, so when you get that brief illumination, you have to drop what you’re doing and get it down, or you could lose it quick as you found it.

I had that experience yesterday (it’s been awhile). I was in the shower, starting the process of getting ready for work. I had already cleaned myself, and was getting ready to shut off the water and finish my personal toilet when for whatever reason I started thinking about this thing I saw at Burning Man maybe ten years ago, and the guy who had built it, and then I was thinking about Wilhelm Reich, and orgones, and everything just started to snowball from there. A story-frame (and title) crystallized in my brain as if from the aether, and I barely stopped to towel myself off before I ran to the table, still naked, and grabbed a pen and paper. Over the course of maybe eight minutes I scribbled a page and a half synopsis teasing out that frame into a more-or-less complete story arc.

I’ve only had this experience a few times. Continue reading “The Lightbulb” →

A Thing to Remember When Dealing with Nasty People

Got reminded again early on during tonight’s shift of something I’ve been trying to teach myself (and others) for years now, which has, as you might suspect from the title of this post, to do with dealing with particularly nasty people, one of the bigger occupational hazards of working in the Industry.

One of the things you learn early on, and have to learn to deal with the regular occurrence of if you’re going to survive in the Industry, is that some people just can’t seem to help being just extra shitty to you. Everyone who’s ever worked front of house knows who I’m talking about: the people who treat you like a servant, who are bitchy and dissatisfied from the get-go, who do their absolute best to take a shit in the middle of the happy place you have to cultivate and share in order to do your job. Any given night you work, these people will comprise 5-50+% of your clientele, and if you’re not careful, they’ll suck the reservoir of joie de vivre you need to do this kind of work dry.

So what do you do when someone tries to take a dump in your psyche? Continue reading “A Thing to Remember When Dealing with Nasty People” →

A Generational Shift of Which I Do Not Approve

These kids today should get off my damn lawn, at least until they learn how to play on it properly. Seriously, I know it’s trite for old fogies like me to bitch about the younger generations, but this, I think, is a real loss, and, professionally speaking, I’m sick of fking dealing with it.

I was raised by old-school drinkers, children of the Greatest Generation. I remember my father telling me on several occasions that the way he was raised, you drank what you drank, but you held yourself together, and didn’t let on how hammered you were, no matter how hammered you got. I remember, growing up, feeling proud of myself when I could tell he’d been drinking (which wasn’t often; he was a responsible parent). It was always the tiniest slip, a moment of clumsiness you could miss if you weren’t paying attention, and it was rewarding to be on-point enough to spot it when it happened (my sister and I have bonded over this). I’m not saying his example was universal, but there was a respectability to it, and it’s something I think has been lost somewhere along the way.

For one thing, I think, parents stopped teaching their kids how to drink sometime not too long after the generation that raised me. Somewhere around my early adolescence there was a sea-change in the way people in this country parent, and as younger and younger kids come of age, I’ve noticed a sea-change in the way they relate to alcohol as a result. Continue reading “A Generational Shift of Which I Do Not Approve” →

An Excuse to Commit Violence

Last Friday night was a rough one at the bar. It started off ugly, with a walk-in group of 12 British tourists, one of whom may have been one of the most spectacularly ugly-on-the-inside human beings I have ever encountered, the assimilation of whom into our seating availability presaged a busy, chaotic, full-moon-feeling kind of night, one I was glad to see the end of when my ten-hour stint was done. We had just locked up, the other bartender and I, and were chatting about the trials and tribulations as we stood outside the bookstore two doors down when a couple of guys came down the street walking bicycles. One of them wore dark clothes and a ballcap, the other an untucked tuxedo shirt and black pants. The second one’s face was covered in blood.

“You wanna give me money for bandaids?” he demanded, in such a way I was pretty sure that whatever had happened to his face, he’d done something to deserve it.

We both declined, and turned away, closing our conversational circle, but he just got more obnoxious, while his friend stood off to the side looking helpless and embarrassed. I put on my 86ing face and told him to fk off and he did.

But then he decided to come back. Continue reading “An Excuse to Commit Violence” →

An Open Letter to our European Visitors, From the Service Industry Professionals of the United States

We know you know you’re supposed to tip, and how much. We hear you joking about it at your table sometimes (more of us are bi- and multilingual than you think). So come on, guys. Cut the crap and do the right thing. This is how we earn our living.

Sincerely,

the Service Industry Professionals of the United States