Latest dispatch from the Little Corner of Moron.  We’d been talking about how stores who put Christmas decorations up before Halloween are the suck, and how anyone who puts up Christmas lights before Thanksgiving is an idiot.  Also, Fiala hates winter because he says he has something called Reynaud’s Phenomenon, which basically means the cold weather makes his hands crotchety like he’s a T-Rex.

Brennan:  The weather was nice the other day, so Sarah (Brennan's wife) wanted me to put up the Christmas lights, and I was getting mad.  You can't put those up before Thanksgiving!

Me: Some friends of mine put them up but won't turn them on until after Thanksgiving.

Fiala: That doesn't make it any less stupid.

Me: Don't look at me, I don't even put Christmas lights up.

Fiala: You think I do?

Me: I think your idea of Christmas lights is to climb up on your roof with a flashlight and pee onto your yard.

Fiala: I hate winter.  I'm going to go up there, tie a flashlight around my neck, and hang myself from the chimney.  Happy birthday, Jesus.

…some time later…

Fiala: Can you imagine a song called "Teenage Stripper" sung to the tune of "Old Man River?"

Idiots are bad.  Idiots who think they are brilliant are worse.  Idiots who think they are brilliant and also roam around looking for fights are dangerous.

I can always tell, you know?  It’s not just because my bar has a “regulars only” vibe to it so the people I see most I know, it’s that quality a person gives off when you know they could be trouble later on.  And when alcohol is involved, that trouble can escalate very quickly.

Tuesday night, some dude came into the bar and said he hadn’t been there in years.  I’d never seen him before.  He sat down, opened Sauce magazine, and started to bitch about everyone and everything in it.  He had the authority because he'd worked in fine dining restaurants for 20+ years or something.  This person was stupid.  This woman was a bitch.  This guy was a good bartender but a total douchebag.

“Have you ever sat at his bar?” he asked.  “Douchebag.  No fucking personality.  Douchebag the whole fucking night.”

“Hmmmm,” I replied.  “Did you sit at his bar and call everyone douchebags all night?”

Then he started telling me about how he didn’t pay his cable bill, so the “assholes at AT&T” cut it off.  He called them back and “whined and bitched and bellyached for 20 to 30 minutes” before they agreed to re-instate it with a $30 reconnect fee.  He didn’t want to pay the fee, so he demanded a supervisor and spent another “20-30 minutes bitching them out” and got his cable turned back on for free.

And he was happy about it.  Shit, he was glowing.

“So let me get this straight,” I said.  “You didn’t pay your cable bill, and you’re pissed that they shut it off.  Then they offer to re-connect it for the fee outlined in your contract, the one you signed, and you don’t think that’s fair.  And you spent an hour of your time and two other people’s time on this issue.”

“Yeah!  And I made $30!”

“They gave you $30?”

“No, but I didn’t have to pay it.”

“Then you didn’t make $30.  You just didn’t lose it, but you also spent an hour crying about the cable bill that you didn’t pay on, anyway.”

He failed to see the logic in this, and I guess it wasn’t my place to point it out (um, repeatedly), but damn.  It didn’t help that he continued to bring it up, and that every unbidden story he had featured a whole cast of people who were all assholes, cocksuckers, or some other insult.  That includes the entire nation of Germany.  Also, did you know that there are no rural areas in all of Germany?  According to this guy, at least.

(And he’d never heard of “Germans love David Hasselhoff.”  An idiot with no sense of humor?  No way...)

Every time he paid for a beer ($2.50, look out!), he complained a) about the price and b) that he had so many large bills and didn’t know if he could pay with them.  I made change for fifties twice, and after that I politely asked him to use the change I’d given him.  I was tempted to remind him that I didn’t come here to be impressed by other people’s money, and that real rich people didn’t flaunt a wallet full of cash in bars, but at this point it wouldn’t have mattered.

Shortly after, he accused someone of stealing a $50 from him.  I’d seen him put the $50 back in his wallet, which (naturally) he didn’t believe.  In the next 20 minutes, he got into a fistfight with two of my other customers, caused me to call the cops, and walked off while calling me a stupid bitch.  Repeatedly.

To which I replied, “That’s terrific, retard, but I’m not the one getting kicked out of a bar.”

I don’t care much about being called a bitch.  Oh, really?  You think you’re the first one to think so?  Get in line, Chief.  There’s a long list of pissed off people in my personal history, and very few of them have caused me to lose any sleep.  I certainly don’t care enough about being called a bitch to start a fistfight in a bar, especially in a bar where everyone seems to know someone except for me.  The difference between you and I, see, is that although I may be a bitch, I’m not an idiot.  Also I have manners, which you’d probably never guess from this blog.

Lest you think I end everything on such a pissy note, here’s a PET OTTER!  Ohmygodohmygodohmygod.  Otters.  Whenever Graham and I go to the zoo, I force him to walk over to the otters with me.  I recommend watching this on mute, because the song sounds like something John Mayer wrote after his neuter-nuts operation, but pussier.  Much like Michael K, it almost makes me forget about when I lived in San Diego and some woman was swimming off the coast and got mauled to death by sea otters.  No joke.  I’ve seen sea otters.  They’re HUGE and apparently brutal.

Everyone wants to be Lloyd Dobler.

Okay, maybe not everyone wants to stand in a suburban driveway holding an 18-pound mid-1980s boombox over their heads (although I would kind of really like one of those boomboxes for my house), but everyone wants to find a perfect song and deliver it in a perfect way, so that even in the future, whenever whomever you played that song for is talking about their ex (and that would be you), they can say all the bad things they want but that one part of your relationship will be either a) kept quiet so as to preserve its sanctity, or b) bragged about because it was so awesome.

Lloyd Dobler played “In Your Eyes” for Diane Court, which was apparently perfect for their relationship but never made it onto any of the mixtapes I ever made.  Even back in 4th grade when I first started to notice boys and had absolutely zero understanding that Bryan Adams was cheese, “In Your Eyes” was not on my playlist.

But even if it had been, it wouldn’t have mattered.  I made mixtapes for the boys I had crushes on, but those mixtapes were never delivered.

Oh please.  Like anyone delivered those mixtapes, ever.  By the time those of us who were still making mixtapes got around to giving them (which for anyone who is roughly my age was sometime around 1999), the entire process of making a mixtape could be marketed as a musical superiority challenge so as to avoid rejection.  We weren't trying to emotionally expose ourselves, we were trying to be cleverer than everyone else.  Yes, these songs reminded us of them and/or contained lyrics we wanted them to hear, but it was so much easier to pretend that all of our music was that meaningful/cool and we were just doing the other person a favor by sharing it with them.

At least, that’s what I did.  I suppose I was terrified of rejection from the outset.  It wasn’t my fault; no one had invented flatirons yet.

The only mixtapes I ever delivered were to the people I was already actually dating, but I was still careful enough within a certain timeframe to leave out any song that would seem too revelatory or nakedly emotive.  I barely feel that kind of emotion anyways, there’s no need to create an assumption when nothing really exists.

That makes sense.  No guy was like Lloyd Dobler, anyway.  Lloyd Dobler was John Cusack, and I mean, he was back then, too, but back then he was weird and offbeat and got minor supporting roles in John Hughes movies.  Now he’s JOHN CUSACK, and he’s in movies like 2012.

And to anyone who wants to tell me just how accurate 2012 could hypothetically be, because of the Mayan calendar and all, possibly we should all remember that the Mayans practiced human sacrifice and genital mutilation?  So, you know.  Maybe they didn’t really know everything.


PS - new fiction here (plus the old fiction if you never read it before).

You are full of shit.

Possibly also blow.  And almost certainly vodka.  But definitely no food.

PS - If you weren’t so hungry, maybe you wouldn’t have to chew on your bony-ass fingers.

When I solicited advice on which blog site to jump to (from MySpace, which has gotten even suckier since I left), Stephie warned me that a hit tracker, while amusing, would turn into a downward spiral of narcissism.  I knew she was right because she’s smart, but I also knew my own capacity for reading about people who read about me.  After looking around for approximately 3.5 minutes, I signed up for a monthlong free trial.

The logic was that I could accept my own narcissism if it was free, but paying for it would make me an asshole.

Man, IP addresses are the best.  So are region-specific telecommunications companies.  Thanks to them, I learned that I have continually returning readers from Wisconsin, Arkansas, Texas, Malaysia, and Australia.  I don’t technically know anyone in any of these places.  I say “technically” because I (thankfully) don’t know anyone in Texas anymore, but I’m not surprised that they’re still reading all my shit.  If exes and their...um...currents, I suppose, didn’t stalk, would the Internet need to exist?

My free trial ended today.  While I enjoyed the information and accompanying color-coded pie charts, I could definitely see the potential for spiraling downwards.  I was already getting a little too intense about the traffic alerts.  I can’t imagine paying to make myself crazier every month.  I can do just fine on my own for free.

Because I was off for the first time in ever yesterday, I invited some friends over for dinner.  What was going to be 7 people turned into 9, which then turned into 10, which eventually turned into 12, but by then all the food had been eaten.

I made a slightly-tweaked-by-me Martha Stewart pot roast, my first ever try at gravy that was highly successful, goat cheese mashed potatoes, roasted carrots, and Smitten Kitchen’s apple cake ("yay, Jews!").  Oh, and wine.  Lots of wine.  Considering yesterday was Veteran’s Day, the only way it could have been better is if the roast had been shaped like this:

 

...ahem, please no howls of protest from anyone who wasn't invited.  I only have so much and so much money.  You'll get your turn if you haven't already.

This is the latest dispatch from Our Little Corner of Moron.  Keep in mind that this happened today, during working hours, while erstwhile professionals did professional things.  I never said that I was supposed to be one of them.

Fiala: (to Brennan) If you get a dolphin, you should name it Brennan Dolphin.

Brennan: laughs

Me: I hate dolphins.

Brennan:  What's wrong with dolphins?

Me:  It's not so much dolphins themselves, it's the people who go crazy for dolphins.  They're so stupid.

Fiala: I could get behind the Budweiser Dolphins.

Me: Dumb.  You think that dolphin people would be any better than those Clydesdale maniacs**?  Humungo would kill a dolphin.

Fiala: That's ridiculous.  Dolphins can kill sharks.

Brennan: A Clydesdale would step on a dolphin's face and be done with it.  Humungo is 45,000 pounds.

Fiala: Can you imagine the time it would take for a Clydesdale to step on a dolphin?  It's impossible.

Me: A Clydesdale would stomp anything to death, even a dolphin.

Fiala: Not if the fight takes place underwater.

Me: Why would it take place underwater?

Fiala: Because that's where dolphins live.

Me: But why can't it take place on land?  That's where Clydesdales live.

Fiala: Because the dolphin would die.

Me: A Clydesdale would die in water.

Brennan:  Let's split the difference.  They'll fight in space.

All of us: making Clydesdale/Dolphin fighting noises while sitting at desks like we're supposed to be at work.

Brennan: I just don't see how a fish could kill a horse.

Me: Yeah, Fiala, it's like how you think you could win a fight against a dog.

Fiala:  It's called Fi Kune Do.  You've seen it in action.

Me: Yeah, drunk in a bar.  I've never seen you take part in an actual dogfight.

Fiala: I think that in the Miyagi prequel***, Miyagi will have a dolphin named Brennan Dolphin.

Brennan: Hee hee hee!****

Fiala: And whenever Miyagi's in trouble, he'll ride Brennan Dolphin to safety.

Me: Giddyup, Brennan Dolphin!

* Fiala said this to me yesterday.  I wrote it down on my notepad and hoped to god someone from the maintenance crew was confused by it.

** It's true.  The people who love the Budweiser Clydesdales are freaking insane.  We've (and by "we," I mean the usual suspects of Brennan, Fiala, and myself) even discussed licensing a Clydesdale Vibe.  This is for everyone who needs to be told, in Fiala's words, "They're big smelly horses.  Go buy a marital aid, knock one out, and leave me alone."  Trust me.  It would sell like gangbusters.

*** Fiala has (allegedly) been writing the Miyagi prequel for something like five years now.  He assures me that it will be produced someday, but there's no word on whether or not it will be filmed entirely in his backyard.

**** Brennan actually laughs like this.

Despite all the bitching I do about it sometimes, I really do like bartending and I like bartending at my bar.  It’s slow sometimes a lot of time time and I don’t make all that much, but the owners have been good to me and it’s better than sitting at home and getting loaded by myself.

That said, I’m starting to burn out.  Unless you’re one of those ultra-rare bar lifers or one of those pretentious-beyond-belief-“mixologists” who don’t really bartend, bartending is not something that most people can happily do for extended periods of time.  It’s hard.  You’re on your feet all night.  You’re working when everyone else is going out.  And you deal with a lot of fucking assholes.

Every bartender has a “thing” or “things” about their shift.  Most say they don’t allow talk about religion, politics, or money, but I don’t really care as long as fisticuffs aren’t involved.  Others don’t allow Beatles songs on the jukebox, or more than one person in the bathroom at a time, or whatever you could think of that would piss off someone in a bar.

I don’t like the N-word.

Yes, I said “N-word.”  I don’t say the whole word not because I’m afraid of black people being mad at me, but because when I was raised, no one said that word.  Ever.  My parents didn’t say it, my grandparents didn’t say it, and it was implied that there would be unbelievable ass kickings if myself or my sister said it.  It is a bad word.  I know that I have a special affinity for most other bad words out there (fuck ass bitch shit fartsniffer, ha!), but I do not believe in using, even offhandedly, especially not offhandedly, words that denigrate an entire race of people.

I also don’t believe in the N-word being said in my bar when I’m working.  Number one, the reasons I listed above.  Number two, who's to say that I don’t have a customer somewhere in the bar who would be sickeningly offended by the word because of someone in the family, or someone close to them, or whatever, it doesn’t matter, because it’s an ignorant, insulting, ugly word?  One of my jobs is to pour drinks.  The other is to take care of my customers.

Last night, one of the regulars came in with a friend of his.  Both were nearly too drunk to walk, and judging by their facial expressions, they’d run out of coke a short while ago and weren’t about to get more.  This isn’t a rare occasion, but it’s never pretty because this guy and his friend are pretty much the dictionary illustrated definition of “pathetic.”  Like, supremely.  They bitch about money but they’re constantly at bars.  They drive drunk and refuse taxis.  They rarely motherfucking tip.

Anyway.

Total customers are this regular, his friend, Graham, and some girl I’d never met before.  The regular’s friend keeps talking to me when I’m doing other things, which is annoying but it’s not hard to politely ignore at first.  Then he says the N-word, loudly and three times in a row, at which time I say in a quiet voice so as not to publicly embarrass him, “hey, that’s not necessary.”

He then asks me to repeat myself, but it’s in that tone.  The one used by drunk, angry guys all over the place, the one that, if I were a dude, would soon be followed by either “you wanna take this outside?” or “you think you’re better than me, you wanna take this outside?”  Both are equally dangerous, because it’s always a bad situation when an intoxicated moron senses his own inferiority.

I tried to change the subject and even thought I’d succeeded for a hot minute.  But drunks don’t really exhibit a wide range of interests, so he was soon back to saying the N-word repeatedly.  Again, I said, “hey, it’s not necessary to use that word to me.”

He then proceeds to tell the story of why he used the word.  I won’t bother telling it here because it’s disturbing and sad and in no way makes him look like he’s not a galloping racist, which is precisely what he was trying to tell me.  “I wasn’t trying to use it in a derogatory way!” he insisted, which was really hard to ignore but I did it, anyway.

Because I’d wanted to say “Really?  In what other way can you use that word if not in a derogatory form?  The word exists to be derogatory.”

And then he said all the standard stuff that racists say.  A lot of his friends are black.  He loves black people.  They use the word, why can’t we?  What’s he supposed to do when they call him “honky?”

Give me a break.  Number one, no, sir, you don’t have black friends.  Unless your friends are mentally retarded, they see you for exactly what you are.  Number two, it’s their prerogative to use the word themselves, but odds are, if they’re using it freely, they’re just as low class as you.  Number three, you really get offended by “honky?”  Sounds hilarious to me.  But then again, I don’t use the N-word so I’ve never been targeted with “honky.”

BUT I DIDN’T SAY THIS.  I was ignoring the guy, looking very intently at a Budweiser mirror on the other side of the bar.  Graham was ignoring the guy, too, which I’m thankful for because I don’t feel like cleaning someone else’s blood from the floor.  Despite my efforts, not only did this guy scream louder (“you’re not LISTENING TO ME!”), his regular friend told me to stop.  Yes, that’s right.  Apparently, I was supposed to stop ignoring his friend and engage in a conversation about the validity of the N-word to hillbilly assholes who should be bathing in a vat of fryer grease at a NASCAR event.

I told the regular that he was not my employer and didn’t have the most stellar record as one, so he could keep his opinions to himself.  Then I turned to his friend.

“You want to keep going?  I wasn’t going to respond because nothing I say will make any difference to you, but fine.  You’re an idiot.  Using a disgusting word repeatedly is idiotic, and so is trying to defend your use of it to people you don’t even know.  I’m not talking to you because I don’t want to, and because nothing you’ve said in the past five minutes has made you look like any less of a disgusting idiot.  Shut.  The.  Fuck.  Up.”

So they left.  Not without a fair amount of screaming, though, which included the phrases “N––s die!” and “Suck a N–—!”  And then he slammed the door of his rapist van (no joke), peeled the tires, and sped off.  Drunk.  In a rapist van.  Screaming the N-word.

You’re right, sir.  It’s not ugly at all.