cosby

last night i found out that a co-worker once sold marijuana to bill cosby outside of ben's chili bowl.

buncha savages...

another typically rewarding evening at the theater. of the fifteen checks i had tonight, thirteen left me nothing while the other two left less than ten percent. one of the thirteen went so far as to destroy her receipt, tearing it into dozens of pieces. this, i can only assume, was done to prevent me from writing in a tip for myself and forging the customer's signature. i frequently receive little in the way of compensation for my time and effort at the theater, but it is not often that i am insulted so casually, yet thoroughly.

if it ain't broke...

hire a workman to install some expensive equipment; this seems to be the philosophy at the corporate office. to combat the utterly non-existent problem of fraudulent clock-ins and outs, they have commissioned fingerprint scanners for the timeclocks. the practical effect of these scanners is that people can no longer have a co-worker clock them out if they forget to do so before leaving, and although this measure will unnecessarily increase labor costs it will also allow corporate to get mad and punish the forgetful.

so, lets recap: instead of using this money to replace the faulty speakers in one of the theaters, or to fix the damaged stairs that customers frequently trip over, or to hire desperately needed staff so that the managers don't have to moonlight as projectionists, or even to update the menus so that they actually list what we have available for sale, the corporate office has decided to use it to install a system that costs the company additional money every time it fulfills its intended purpose.

i am consistently amazed by what this company is and is not willing to spend money on.

let's rock!

the theater is screening this at the beginning of march.

yeah, i know.

opacity

i don't know quite how to tell you this guys, but i think i have bps. how else to explain the days of silence and self doubt following the unprovoked assault upon my person nearly a week ago at the theater? i think that the cycle of self-blame which has consumed me these past hundred hours or so is symptomatic of my occupation. having been told for so long that i am to blame whenever things go awry, i have had great difficulties evaluating my experience objectively. i think, however, that i am now ready to process what happened and i humbly ask your assistance on the road to recovery.

during my tenure as a tall, opaque person i have come to know about being in the way. i have come to grips with this state of being, both theoretically and in the practical sense. at the same time, i am also aware that the people who come to the theater are decidedly more interested in the on-screen action than they are in my midriff (hot though it may be), so when it comes time to drop checks in my theaters i draw on these two ideas and attempt to make myself as unobtrusive as possible. i crouch down or stand to the side, whatever is necessary.

thus, you will no doubt be as surprised i was when, after dropping a woman's check and turning to leave, the dumpy-looking middle-aged lady hissed at me. thinking she wanted something else, i leaned toward her (but not in front of her) to ask what she needed, and was rebuffed sharply. "you're blocking my way, dude." she hissed as she shoved me away. so engrossed in james cameron's not-even-good movie was this lady that my mere proximity distressed her to the point that she felt it was appropriate to shove her waiter. when i returned later to pick up the check, she had not looked at it, and was upset that i had returned to bother her again. we continued our little game until she finally realized that if she paid me i would leave. with an overloud, exasperated sigh she slammed the check presenter to the bartop and in a carrying voice announced, "i want all my change back, dude"

i bet this lady has a satisfying home life.

note: i am in no way making light of the victims of routinized physical and emotional violence. i have the greatest sympathy and respect for the survivors. we can have a discussion about this.

flavacol

this salt does not supply iodine, a necessary nutrient.

bathroom

tonight i saw two guys exit the same stall in the bathroom. blow? or blowjob? you make the call.

schadenfreude

buncha savages in this town...

class

some classy behavior at the theater recently. tonight a lady drank a lot of stuff and vomited (noisily I'm told) in the ladies' room. also tonight a dude drank a lot of stuff and got unconscious in the other bathroom, though he was considerate enough to not leave a mess behind and around him. a family was for some reason allowed to bring an infant into the building and they repaid this indulgence by changing it in a theater then leaving the full diaper on the bar in front of their seats. on the employee side of things, someone smoked up in the server hallway which is very dumb because it is a hallway and not somewhere that is ventilated.

gratuity

tonight someone tipped me a hotwheel. here is a picture of it:

christmas music

today they started playing christmas music on loop in the theater lobby which means the bartenders will be subjected to songs like winter wonderland and i saw mommy kissing santa claus multiple times each day for the next two weeks. it is well that i am not a bartender because i would undoubtedly have a psychotic episode.

sidenote: in 1952 when i saw mommy kissing santa claus was released it was apparently so controversial that the catholic church tried (and in boston succeeded) to have it banned. they also shouted at the obnoxious little shit who sings it (so overall i have no complaints).

painting

tonight i painted for nine hours. i painted and listened to music.
it was the best day.

authority

dear friends, i have some bad news bears. i know you have all become very fond of cocaine the food runner. he's only been with us for a short while, but he's already been so much to so many of us - friend, colleague, cautionary example - that he's become part of our shared experience. it saddens me to inform you that our time together has come to an end. worse still, i may have had a hand in his departure.

since he started running, cocaine has consistently deferred to my judgment: whenever he wanted to take a break or smoke a cigarette, he always asked my permission first. i never knew what to make of this because i mean do i look even a little bit like an authority figure? i always said yes when he asked because doing so meant that he would go to a place where i wasn't for a while. after a couple weeks of this odd behavior, my curiosity overcame my desire to avoid having him get all close to me, so i asked him about the manner of his deal. he explained that my boss had introduced me to him as "head food runner" then made an extremely clever joke about oral sex. he must have thought the the joke had gone over my head because when i failed to laugh he explained that "head" is a slang term for fellatio (who knew?).

anyway, he disappeared yesterday during a shift without notifying any of the managers (which is considered voluntary resignation). my theory is that he asked me if he could leave (assuming that i am a manager) and i, in my fervor to avoid engagement, assented without actually processing his request.

actually, what happened is that he came to work after having drugs and quickly decided that rather than continuing to have employment, he was going to wander off and have extra drugs.

godspeed, cocaine. thank you for making us all look better in comparison.

aiming low

there is a guy.

well, there may be a guy. i can't be entirely certain because i have not seen him. however, given that this person's zone of operation is the men's bathroom, i am going to assume for the purposes of this post that there is in fact a guy (though i readily concede that it may be an unusually stealthy girl).

ok. so here we are in the bathroom. there was a guy in the bathroom previously, but he is gone now. he has, however, left indelible traces behind. the word "curley" is scrawled everywhere - scratched into the stalls, the mirror, even the porcelain. i have two ideas about this:

the first is that "curley" is an old man. his wife died from cardiac amyloidosis when he was a young man and the chemotherapy she received during treatment left her sterile. he never came to terms with her death, so he remained childless and alone. his friends became distant and eventually melted away as he allowed his grief to overwhelm and consume him. now an old man, shriveled and alone, he feels the icy touch of the reaper. he will never have children, but he wants - he needs - to leave something behind. so, like borf or that guy my roommate knows who's thing is the big boy with three eyes, he has adopted an alias and taken a stab at immortality. he has aimed low. he knows that.

my second idea is that "curley" is not a sobriquet. his father, an illiterate man, gave him the name after seeing punch drunks for the first time. his mother was against it, but his father was a forceful man. a reserved sensitive child, curley never demonstrated an aptitude for physical comedy. this lack opened a rift between him and his father, who took to drinking and domestic abuse. curley's feelings of inadequacy and persecution intensified following his introduction to the school system. children are indiscriminate in their cruelty, but once his fellow students learned his ridiculous name, that cruelty was distilled, focused on him. battered at home and school, curley began to create elaborate revenge fantasies. blaming the three stooges for his nightmarish childhood, but unable to take revenge on the dead, he set out to destroy the film industry entire. having grown up in such a stultifying environment however, curley's plans were relatively uninspired. defacing movie theater bathrooms is the best he could come up with. he has aimed low, but he doesn't know that.

new moon

hey, you know what movie i saw recently that was worse than the twilight sequel? that was a trick question. i have never seen a movie that was worse than the twilight sequel.

family dinner

remember the cocaine huffing bartender who almost left his friend for dead in a swamp? well cocaine the bartender got demoted and is now cocaine the food runner. i resent, by the way, the fact that a night doing my job is used as a disciplinary measure for other employees. but anyway, last night ctfr had his first conversation with me. it went like this (keep in mind, this is the first time we've had any contact besides "hey" and guy nods):

ctfr: hey, man
me: (cautiously) hi
ctfr: (in a rush) i'm only gonna be here for about an hour tonight. i am going to dinner with my girlfriend and her parents.
me: (noncommittally) oh, that sounds nice.
ctfr: (leans in close) yeah. i knocked her up.
me: (leans back, cocks eyebrow)
ctfr: oh, it's cool. i'm not paying for shit.

twilight

tonight is the premiere of the new twilight movie. tonight i will be surrounded by 1500 people who think that combining vampirism with angst and sparkly lip gloss is a good idea. i do not believe in god - in fact, i consider the existence of the twilight franchise conclusive evidence for the non-existence of an omnipotent, benevolent force - but tonight i would appreciate it if you prayed for me anyway.

i am not ok

tonight an actual man asked me to bring him a straw for his beer and i had to do it and now i have to come to terms with being an accessory to what happened.

lucky charms

today was new poster day at the theater. as one might expect studios send promotional materials out along with the film reels. generally, these get stacked by the entrances and are available to whomever. as i headed out the door with lockheed on our way downtown, he noticed a poster for the alvin and the chipmunks squeakuel (shudder). perhaps unsurprisingly, lockheed's reaction was one of near unbridled enthusiasm. the chipmunks! together again at last! but despite his excitement, he had a few reservations.

the first of these was the inclusion of christmas in a kids movie. merely acknowledging the existence of the holiday in a kids film it seems is "an act of deliberate racism" against muslims (who apparently are a race now).

the second of his reservations was the inclusion of lucky charms in a kids movie. so concerned was he that kids would see their heroes, the chipmunks, condoning (and even advocating!) consumption of the popular cereal that he no longer wishes to see the film. but his objection is not the reasonable one. the revolting nature of the cereal, it's utter lack of redeeming nutritional and sensuous qualities, the destruction of our children's tastebuds, the ravaging of their young digestive systems; these things concern him not. no! again it is a "racially" motivated objection. the marshmallows in lucky charms contain that insidious goo, gelatin, which as you must surely be aware is a pork product. pigs are of course haram, and thus the inclusion of pork products in the chipmunks squeakuel (a boardroom full of handsomely compensated people agreed that that pun was a good idea) must clearly be interpreted as a sinister attempt to undermine the muslim faith.

damn those crafty rodents. damn those subtle studio executives.

cocaine

so tonight i had a super awkward encounter with one of the new bartenders. one of the sets had just finished so i had some downtime. i went to the bar to order some food. as i walked up, i heard this guy talking to one of the servers about a party he had attended recently. he was talking about all the drugs he did and how he and this guy had snorted a bunch of cocaine. the other guy had done too much apparently, and was in pretty bad shape but the bartender didn't want to take him to the hospital because he didn't want to get in trouble. so he and a friend took the guy out to a swamp and planned to leave him there (to die presumably), but he woke up so they brought him home. and the whole time he was telling this story, i just sat there becoming increasingly uncomfortable. like hey this guy is standing here telling a story about almost leaving a guy for dead in a swamp like it is a reasonable thing to very loudly talk about in a public place around casual acquaintances and i just want to order a sandwich.