It’s absolutely amazing the things that grown men can be amused by. Kevin and I spent 30 minutes throwing a purple foam rubber ball back and forth across the kitchen. The ball, by the way, is a cat toy. The cats sat there, watching, as if to say, “Mom! Those big kids took our ball and won’t give it back!”
Then the cats wandered off, ’cause lets face it, they’re cats and don’t really give a crap what we do.
As 4 a.m. rapidly approaches, I am in pain. My legs hurt. My right knee is doing its thing, which is to tense up and not want to bend. My right shoulder, which I broke playing hockey, is doing its thing, which is to uncomfortably make a loud “POP” about every five minutes. I worked what tiny little bit of an ass I have right off tonight.
Recently I have been reading Alison’s anecdotes about her waitressing job, and they have amused me. She hasn’t been doing it very long, (waitressing that is. Swimming pools, movie stars,) and she seems to get a kick out of the trivialites of human behavior that you witness when you serve things to people for a living. I am amused by her observations because they are completely common and recognizable to me, like old t-shirts that I wear even though they’re not cool, or even very clean. I have become, much to my mother’s chagrin, a professional. I am in the Bar Biz.
For a long time, I was a writer, studying and struggling to get published and make it one day. I was determined to be an artist, but was never in love with the romance of the starving artist. I need to eat. I also need to play, and pay bills, and have a decent car and nice clothes and I am addicted to music and movies. In other words, I gotta have cashflow, baby. It’s all about the benjamins, beeatch. So, I got into bartending.
Guess what? I absolutely LOVE IT. (Mom, quit reading right now.)
I really do. I have a blast at work. Some people go out, party, do the town, have a great time. I HOST their parties, I AM their good time. It’s great for feeding my ego, which has an appetite like a sumo wrestler. Everyone wants to know the bartender, everyone want to feel connected, everyone wants a “hook-up”. I meet 10 new single women a day. I make new friends nightly. I have a high energy level because everyone wants in on my action. I get to people watch, I’ve heard every sob story and dirty joke on the planet, and I never seem to get bored with it. It wears me out, physically sometimes (like tonight, when my club sold over $10,000 in beer and liquor only, and did it all in less than 6 hours), but I get home and I am so pumped on adrenlaine I can’t sleep right away. I am the manager now too, so I have more new friends, more connections, more responsibility, and more worry than ever, and I just can’t get enough.
These kinds of jobs are supposed to be temporary. (Old joke, someone asks what you do for a living and you say “I’m a bartender” and they respond, “So you’re an actor, eh?” and you say, “Nope. I’m a writer. Actor’s aren’t smart enough to do what I do, they wait tables.”) I recently heard about a local musician I know who has a bartending gig somewhere, and instantly wondered if he were any good at it. I know he can play and sing. He’s great, check him out if you get a chance, but can he do what I do? Really REALLY good bartenders are hard to come by. I am the best you’ll ever see, and I’m learning to run the whole show now, taking things in new more exciting directions.
Am I still a writer? Absolutely. You’re reading my words right here, aren’t you? How’s my artistic soul holding up? Like a champ. Being a good bartender makes me a better writer. Being a good writer makes me a better bartender. (Mom, start reading again, and really listen this time) The two do not have to be mutually exclusive, nor do I want them to be.
So, here’s the funniest joke I’ve heard this week. A duck walks into a bar and askes the bartender, You got any grapes?, and he says No. The next day the same duck comes in, and asks the bartender, You got any grapes?, and he says no. The next day, and every day after for a month, the duck walks in and asks the bartender, You got any grapes? and every day he says No. Finally one day the bartender has had enough. The duck comes in that day and says, You got any grapes? and the bartender says, Damn it, I don’t have any fucking grapes and if you ask me that one more time I am gonna grab you and nail your little webbed feet to the bar! The next day the duck comes back and asks the bartender, You got any nails? He says, No I dont have any nails, and the ducks says, Cool, You got any grapes?
Holy Moses in a popsicle truck, Kevin got a JOB!
It would be unfair to K-dog to say that he hasn’t been keeping up his share of the roomate duties, ’cause he has. Bills are piling up a bit, but it’s not his fault. He wasn’t some deadbeat flake sitting around the house doing nothing and living off the Government Teat. He has, however, been around. A LOT!
Like Sarah, I am happy for the man, and like Sarah, I can maybe confess to some selfish joy at the fact that I will have the house to myself during the day for a while. I work nights, he works days, so we wont see each other much and we’ll both have more privacy, which is good for me since he’s the first roomate I have had in five years. More than anything, this makes Kevin happy, makes him feel better, means he gets along with others better, means that I won’t have to kill him for making me crazy. Thank goodness.
Who wants a popsicle?
As the time of the great endeavor approaches, I get more and more fired up. Volunteering this year is taking up more and more time. I am working on the music panels again this year, and can’t wait to meet some more rock stars. Last year I met Ray Davies, and giggled like a kid when he played “Come Dancing” during the keynote speach. I shook hands with Ike Turner, who once shook hands with Elvis. (I don’t want to think about what else he might have done with those hands.) But my favorite SXSW rock star story is about David Byrne, who Sarah keeps insisting is an “AAAAAAAAlien”.
Last year, as part of my volunteer work, I worked on the crew that handles all the speakers for the music panels during the conference. One of those speakers was former Talking Head David Byrne. I’m a big fan, no question about it. He showed up, assistant in tow, and let me tell you the guy is a bit weird, even for a rock star. He was very gray haired, which shocked me a bit. He was very soft spoken and polite, which seemed to make sense after a while. After all, he’s a talking head, not part of The Who. He wore some kind of khaki colored jumpsuit that looked like he bought it at a construction workers clothing store for about 10 bucks. He doggedly promoted his label, but not his record. He went to bat for other people, which was very cool. Unfortunately, I was a pretty busy guy that day, and didn’t get to speak with him at length. However, later in the day, as I was rushing from one panel discussion to the next, I was passing through the back part of the Austin Convention Center through a section of unused booths for the music trade show. I look over, and there are David and his assistant, each enjoying a sandwich. The panelist green room had catered food and was very private, but he had chosen this strange little out of the way corner. If it’s privacy he’s afer, I thought, I should try not to bug him. However, making sure he was all right was a part of my job as a volunteer, so I gave him a little wave as I was passing and casually asked if he needed anything.
He looked right at me, with a mouth full of sandwich, kind of grinned, and said, “Mmmphh.” David Byrne talks with his mouth full.
I assumed that meant he was fine, and went on about my day. For the rest of the conference, and in fact ever since, I always laugh when I think of David Byrne, the Chewing Head.
Believe me when I tell you, IT’S ON. Kev has brought me in again to help run 20X2, his little-brain-child-experiment now turned world-wide-cross-genre-media happening of the year, and as of this week, I am officially fired up about it. Keep checking back, as more info will appear soon. Don’t fear the question. Fear the answers.
I once again have nothing particular to post about, so I am just gonna ramble for a bit.
Luby’s kicks geriatric butt. It totally confused Sarah, which was funny for us all. The fact that Luby’s has a home page is funny to me. Old school meets New.
Kevin’s couch has injured me in some way. Laying on it makes my side hurt after about 20 minutes. The uncomfortable feeling there, like a cramp or indigestion, hasn’t gone away completely for more than a week now. weird.
I totally fucked up at work last night, and I have been kicking myself for it all day. Things will get better after tonight.
My hero worship of Tyler Durden may be getting out of hand. I watch a little bit of Fight Club almost every night when I get home from work. I am Jack’s pathetic late-night acolyte, but don’t tell anybody ’cause the first two rules are I’m not supposed to talk about it.
Roast is coming tomorrow!
The cats got collared today. Their lawyer says they’re looking at 10 to 20.
I’ve just emerged from the near equatorial heat of the bathroom and am fresh with new realization. I was taking a bath, as I often do, not for sanitary purposes, but as escapism. Now, let’s get a few things straight. There are no Martha Stuart-like foaming clouds of white bubbles, chakra aligning droning sitar music or, God Forbid, scented candles involved in this ritual. (“Matha’s polishing the brass on the Titanic, man, it’s all going down” – Tyler) It’s purpose is merely to afford me some time alone with whatever I happen to be reading at the moment. My latest volume of lore was provided to me by a friend, and it’s good, which we’ll get to in a moment, but it’s also important to me because it helped me with my fresh new realization. My bathing ritual involves not only a good piece of literature, but a tub full of water so hot it reddens the skin. The hot water can barely be tolerated at first, in fact can only be entered by degrees. Immersion into this molten pool is a lengthy process involving sitting on the edge of the tub with my book in one hand, thumb along the spine between the pages, and my feet dangling in the water, patiently waiting for the stinging heat like a thousand needles to lessen into merely a tolerable scalding. Slowly but surely the rest of the body is engulfed in this warmth, full to the neck, except for the hand holding the book aloft above the water. In long years of practice I have mastered turning pages one handed. When one arm gets tired from holding the book thusly, switching hands is accomplished by raising my opposing pink skinned wet arm from the depths like the Kraken and drying the hand with the nearest available hand towel, or if there is none, my own still dry hair. This is usually unneccesary however, for I rarely read long enough for either appendage to grow weary. Most often, I drift into the second part of the ritual, the part that was truly intended from the beginning. Encased in my warm liquid womb, comfortable and relaxed, I nap. More importantly, I dream.
Unlike some, I dont remember all dreams. The dreams from a good nights sleep are many and involved, long mystical journeys, no doubt full of adventure, romance, death, suspense and magic. They are also almost exclusively lost to me. I have attempted the sage advice given to many, and written dreams upon awakening every morning, in an effort to learn to remember them, with little success. My rereading of those writings jogs no memories of the dreams themselves and feels only like a bad third hand retelling of a rather dull piece of gossip. So I have given up the effort of remembering the nightly wanderings of my mind, and assign little signifigance to the ones I do retain. However, I always remember the dreams I have when napping.
Short term, for me, seems to be the key. Don’t sleep too long, and don’t sleep too heavily. I often recognize that I am dreaming as I do it, and even manage to retain some sense of what is going on around me during naps. I have always felt that this was somehow involved in the way I dreamed, that it gave these brief forays into mental fantasy a closeness that I enjoyed, like seeing an old friend. It was just today that I realized the truth.
My short, cat-napping dreams are not mine, and it’s all because of this book I am reading.
Sarah loaned me The Virgin Suicides, by Jeffrey Eugenindes. Suprisingly, I haven’t seen the film. It’s captivating, with a narrative voice unlike any I have encountered in quite sometime. While I was dreaming, I had a sense of dread. I dreamt I was speaking to myself from the ceiling of the bathroom, spewing guilt upon myself in the third person. I was using all the hot water. I was tying up the bathroom, not allowing Kevin access to it for longer than was fair. I was wasting water. I was not getting clean, was in fact getting dirtier as my hair was sweating from the sauna-like temperature of the bathroom. As I awoke, I realized something that perhaps in the back of my mind I have known all along.
I was dreaming in the narrative voice of the book I had been reading, and this is not the first time that it has happened. It has, in fact, been happening to me for quite some time. I recently dreamt of sad hopelessnes that slowly bloomed into too lately realized adulthood, and I was doing it in Steve Martin’s voice, both literally and figuratively. I dreamt of esacping dangerous men in the elaboratly matter of fact tones of one of spy fiction’s greatest writers. I dreamt of roaming the plains with both frontiersman and Sioux alike, thanks to a hero of mine. I delighted in life as a young child thanks to another.
I honestly feel a little cheated. I want my dreams to be mine, but cannot to give up reading any more than I could give up breathing. I am very confused. On the other hand, to all the authors I love and read, thanks guys. I’ve been having a great time.
New movie reviews. Enjoi!
The Brotherhood of the Wolf
(Les Pacte des Loups)
Starring Samuel le Bihan, Mark Dacascos, Monica Bellucci, Emilie Dequenne, and Vincent Cassel
Directed by Christophe Gans
“Hey Jean-Claude, lets make a movie”
“Ok, Pierre, what’s it about?”
“Werewolves. Well, one, any way. And it’s more of just a Beast”
“Cool, so it’s a horror flick. Let’s make the setting here, in France.”
“Great, It’ll be a period piece then.”
“But of course, set sometime before the Revolution, when France was still a colonial power!”
“Ah, but we have to get the Revolution in somehow!”
“We’ll do the whole thing as a flashback. Who’s the hero?”
“A French Knight!”
“Who is also a learned man, a naturalist.”
“With the soul of an artist and a Native American blood brother whom he met as he traveled the world on adventures.”
“Great! Can we have Kung-Fu action sequences?”
“But of course, the Native Americans are well known for their slow motion hand to hand combat abilities.”
“Excellent! How about some palace intrigue?”
“No problem. We’ll have a secret plot against the King.”
“And we need a love triangle, between, the hero, a pure yet well bosomed red-haired French maiden and…..”
“A dusky Italian whore secretly working for the Pope!”
“Perfect! Will there be nudity?”
“Loads of it! By day, the hero courts the fair maiden, by night he sleeps in the brothel with his Italian lover.”
“So there will be plenty of harlots about. Will the Indian sidekick have a woman?”
“But of course, a gypsy who never speaks and proves to be his undoing!”
“How about the villian?”
“It’s a huge conspiracy including a mad preist!”
“And a one armed brother to the red-haired maiden!”
“Who secretly bears an incestual lust for her! After all, it’s a French film.”
“Wonderful! Will there be violence?”
“Scads of it!”
“Blood and gore?”
“By the Gallon!”
“Intense special effects?”
“Some of the best CGI work the world has ever seen, and a great camera fade in which the naked whore’s body becomes a perfect mountainside view.”
“How will we maintain our credibility through all of this?”
“We’ll film it in French, stock it full of actors no one has ever heard of, and present the entire thing with subtitles!”
“We are utterly mad French Film Geniuses!”
Funny thing is, that movie actually got made and, with all that, this movie WORKS! 4 cell phones, go see it!
The Royal Tenenbaums
Starring Gene Hackman, Anjelica Huston, Ben Stiller, Danny Glover, Gwenyth Paltrow, Luke Wilson, Owen Wilson and Bill Murray.
Directed by Wes Anderson
Honestly, I can’t talk about this movie yet. As with both Rushmore and Bottle Rocket, Anderson’s previous films, I don’t fully understand it in just one sitting, nor have I ever met anyone who does. Get back to me in a couple of months, if you like, but for now just know that I have never laughed so hard at what appeares to be a framed hand drawing of a pair of mens briefs on a cocktail napkin.