An addendum to the previous entry: the cat I caught stealing from the till last week was officially given his walking papers on Friday night... when someone else caught him dipping and ATTEMPTING to get away with the same activity.
Karma is indeed a bitch.
Another interesting factoid, which I only discovered upon his firing: the lying, theif/bartender/cat just happened to be the nephew (in-law )of the bar's owner. Hmmmm... so, maybe he felt it was cool to take and rob from the boss, since it was all in the spirit of keeping it in the family.
Odd that!
In keeping with the nightlife theme, the following piece deals with my life as a bartender... the things I see, the emotions I feel, the impressions I come away with.
It is a repost, I call:
The Usual Bullshit a Go-Go
Sometimes and some nights you pick up the gist of these conversations your ears are virtually held hostage to hearing. You don’t want to hear them. You’d much rather, not know, because people are far more noble and more attractive when they retain a little piece of their mystery.
But you’re hurled into this cacophonous arena. You’re caught inside this land of ventriloquists, throwing their voices from the slick lips of the jagged, and the twisted. You’re caught… like some reluctant spectator, as the smooth and vicious volleys of nightlife play out.
Everybody wants to be a star, at least after midnight... Everyone wants to shine brighter, to be hotter, and more brilliant than the rest.
If you work in a bar, you begin to intuit this, know it instinctually, detect it in the mirrors. You can smell the smoke and bravado of it. You get to know it intimately. You hear the riffs of its blatant braggadocio, its egotistical emoting, its convoluted conversations seasoned with slick words, slick proposals and slicker motives that will make you go, “like Whoa!”
You know the routine, and you've seen it all before. You know the stagger, the swagger, the vogue of faux emotions, the scam, the scandal, the hustle, the quick buck, and you even become familiar with the woo and ways of the opportunistic fuck…
And it all makes you lose just a little faith in humanity, especially the drunk and the distraught, the lonely and the desperate, and the despeartely lonely kind.
This all paints a wildly psychedelic/imagistic landscape inside the mind how people so easily become victims to the night's carnal crimes, and forge foundations of potentially core relationships on a tradition of paper houses that sit and waver upon acres of bullshit.
However, once, just once, I’d like a night of nostalgia, of respect, of charm, of something on the fringes of finesse. Just once, I’d like some lively intelligentsia which rubs my cranium with a mouthful of lovely. Just once, I’d enjoy the give and take, the ebb and flow of a buoyant conversation that doesn’t hurt so much, or nulls my senses, make me feel so nauseous, used or abused, or to become just another sad citizen of the usual Bullshit, a Go-Go.
In short, some people can astound me with their sadness… this way they attempt, yet fail to mask it with manicures or too much make-up, with gym memberships, or impeccably groomed wildness, or with cologne or perfume to drive away the stink of it. I’ve seen and watched them pickle their sadness into fits of supercilious arrogance. Seen them erect their genital sadness; get it to wink, to smile, to do risqué somersaults and parlor tricks in the neon-lit darkness.
I could be far more specific. I could name names and events and even describe, in great detail, the outcome of these retarded little incidents. But why, when doing so would only blast a light upon it and add more sheen to this sadness; this barren piece of celebrity?
I’ve come to see the Saddest Truth of all is this: people, even barflies, even drunks, even users, even thieves, even adulterers, even bitches, even bastards, even bullies, and even hacks like me… all want a little piece of acclaim.
It gets lonely out there in that fog of horror to head back home all alone, untouched, unkissed, unfucked, unfelt, unloved.
I guess.
One.
