Saturday, December 04, 2004
Good Morning at 4pm
Take me down to the New York City
Where the skies are scraped and the girls are pretty
Take.
Me.
Home.
One week to go. And what a week it's going to be. Blitzkrieg bartending, barroom blitz. Worked last night, got home at 6:30am. Worked the night before, got home early, 3:30am (we threw them out early because they were boring and unpleasant). Working tonight, not getting out till 6am, at the earliest. Off Sunday (whoo! Par-tay!). Working Monday, Tuesday, possibly Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and finally, finally, FINALLY leaving Saturday. Yes. Oh, yes. Woo hoo.
Wednesday is uncertain because I wasn't originally on the schedule, but it's a gigantic, insane, 400-person (capacity crowd) thing at lobo, and they're want me in on it. They're bringing down bartenders who never work downstairs because they need the speed. It would be a 12-hour shift, the party kicking off at 8 and going to 2:30, with something like a €40-50 service charge. There's holiday shopping done. But on the other hand, it would mean I'd be working eight of nine days, it would be dizzyingly fast, exhausting, interminable work, and--and this is the worst thing of all--it's all on vouchers. That is, they have a tab, and--if it's the same as last time--they have vouchers worth about €4, and one gets them beer or wine, two gets them a G&T or some other two-part drink, and three gets them a cocktail. And no one blows three. So it's boring, rote work, too. I'll see how they're going to work it. I haven't committed fully to it yet. If I'm not dead after tonight, I'll think about it.
Friends came in last night, Stephen, Duncan, Caitriona and three others. Very much fun; hope I don't get nailed for undercharging. Also, brought home some loot: a big Jameson ice bucket, which I needed very badly for parties, and a Boston shaker (the kind you clap over a pint glass. It's a much better shaker than the blind kind, that is, the kind where you can't see how much you've just put in. Plus it looks way cooler. I only ever use Bostons). Dan just asked who wanted some swag, they didn't need it. I'm very excited.
Oh, oh, but I've forgotten to mention something, oh, rather key: the fucking Irish government finally gave me my emergency tax money back, to the tune of €626. There's nothing like checking your balance, expecting it to be wallowing in the mire of not having been to work much in the past few weeks, and seeing that it's miraculously leapt nearly €800. Made my day.
<<>><<>><<>><<>><<>>
In other news, I occasionally attend a small college down the road. Lately, I have familiarized myself excellently with the library, having thrown myself fully into this postmodernism paper I started thinking about. A System Has No Memory, I think is the thesis. It'll take at least a month. Further bulletins, deadly, deadly dull bulletins, are guaranteed. In the meantime I do have to crank one out before I leave. I'll either do Donne or Wilde; I don't have time for anything more difficult. I'll probably do the love poetry of Donne; poetry essays, especially on thinky, iconoclastic poets, come real easy. Recall the Blake essay written on the plane. Plus I like Donne. So what if he was gallingly misogynistic? He wrote some spectacularly dirty poetry.
Although there is one development worth noting: I've finally realized, after years of beating my breast (albeit with a cotton-ball scourge) over it, why I continually fail to produce sober, formal, conventional essays. It's because I've never believed there to be any organic difference between an essay and a poem, just like I don't recognize any decallage between a poem and a novel, or a novel and an essay, or an essay and a letter, and so on. There's no reason why the forms shouldn't overlap, why essays shouldn't be laced with poetry, seeing as how they are, at root, the same thing. Language, generated, manipulated, above all inhabited. Inhabited. The writer inhabits the written, this is how he understands it. I cannot write poetry on material without understanding the material; why, then, are less formulaic, more emoting poetic explorations of the thesis such an anathema to the essay? It's a hell of a lot easier to fake an essay than it is to fake a poem. The essay as a graded thing is nothing but a curb on education, an obstacle. Because, shit, who am I writing this thing for, anyhow? It's not like the tutor needs it. And that's another thing I resent: the idea that, even now, after having done this for over a decade, this essay thing, my output is still seen as practice. Inert. It doesn't live but in the lifelessness, the frigidity of its form. An essay written for a tutor is inert; an essay written for oneself, however, a turning over of the matter in text, is a living, palpitating thing. When Donne writes a poem, he usually starts out by trying to do one thing, finds it can't be done, and then asks himself, Why not? The gusto and verve of the simple dialetic. See the lovely sexist "Aire and Angels." But with an essay, any feeling it produces in the tutor who reads it is an aberrance, mendacious, even, seen as hiding a lack of content with an excess of style. Flair, some call it. Why does good writing still only meet with hollow, mistrustful praise? It's seen as duplicitous and superficial, a splendid sauce slathered on rotted meat. Even today, content still lords it over style in the binary. Style, which is all in "poetry," is only mendacious to the extent that the essay is a thing disjunct from "poetry." And I am saying straight out that that distinction is entirely fabricated, born of the need to name. What's this thing?! What's this thing?! Quick, name it! Naming is how we control things, keep a suspicious eye on their coming and going. A nameless thing is frightening, I've said it before. How do you assess a nameless thing? It has no context, no history, no future...and no meaning.
That's why poetry, or even somewhat "poetical" patterning, is an anathema to the academic essay. It threatens it. It erodes its definition, the basic fact of existence, by parodying it, as drag parodies and threatens gender, showing it to be the imitation of an imitation it always already is. This is normalization. This is yoking Play to the plough. This is a way of avoiding acknowledging that the system we have made ourselves, the system we have invested ourselves in, is desperately inadequate. It's like democracy and the family: disasters, but the best things we've got.
<<>><<>><<>><<>><<>>
One more thing: the New Year's Eve party. A rager, major rajor at Ashworthshaus--on December 18th. I'm flying back to Dublin on the night of the 30th so I can work New Year's, since it's double pay, and plus how else am I ever going to get into a party with a cover charge of €50? So we're doing the party early. I don't think I need to do much more in the way of advertisement, do I?
And lastly, happy birthday Jacob! Sixteen at last!
...um, it is sixteen, right?
Where the skies are scraped and the girls are pretty
Take.
Me.
Home.
One week to go. And what a week it's going to be. Blitzkrieg bartending, barroom blitz. Worked last night, got home at 6:30am. Worked the night before, got home early, 3:30am (we threw them out early because they were boring and unpleasant). Working tonight, not getting out till 6am, at the earliest. Off Sunday (whoo! Par-tay!). Working Monday, Tuesday, possibly Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and finally, finally, FINALLY leaving Saturday. Yes. Oh, yes. Woo hoo.
Wednesday is uncertain because I wasn't originally on the schedule, but it's a gigantic, insane, 400-person (capacity crowd) thing at lobo, and they're want me in on it. They're bringing down bartenders who never work downstairs because they need the speed. It would be a 12-hour shift, the party kicking off at 8 and going to 2:30, with something like a €40-50 service charge. There's holiday shopping done. But on the other hand, it would mean I'd be working eight of nine days, it would be dizzyingly fast, exhausting, interminable work, and--and this is the worst thing of all--it's all on vouchers. That is, they have a tab, and--if it's the same as last time--they have vouchers worth about €4, and one gets them beer or wine, two gets them a G&T or some other two-part drink, and three gets them a cocktail. And no one blows three. So it's boring, rote work, too. I'll see how they're going to work it. I haven't committed fully to it yet. If I'm not dead after tonight, I'll think about it.
Friends came in last night, Stephen, Duncan, Caitriona and three others. Very much fun; hope I don't get nailed for undercharging. Also, brought home some loot: a big Jameson ice bucket, which I needed very badly for parties, and a Boston shaker (the kind you clap over a pint glass. It's a much better shaker than the blind kind, that is, the kind where you can't see how much you've just put in. Plus it looks way cooler. I only ever use Bostons). Dan just asked who wanted some swag, they didn't need it. I'm very excited.
Oh, oh, but I've forgotten to mention something, oh, rather key: the fucking Irish government finally gave me my emergency tax money back, to the tune of €626. There's nothing like checking your balance, expecting it to be wallowing in the mire of not having been to work much in the past few weeks, and seeing that it's miraculously leapt nearly €800. Made my day.
<<>><<>><<>><<>><<>>
In other news, I occasionally attend a small college down the road. Lately, I have familiarized myself excellently with the library, having thrown myself fully into this postmodernism paper I started thinking about. A System Has No Memory, I think is the thesis. It'll take at least a month. Further bulletins, deadly, deadly dull bulletins, are guaranteed. In the meantime I do have to crank one out before I leave. I'll either do Donne or Wilde; I don't have time for anything more difficult. I'll probably do the love poetry of Donne; poetry essays, especially on thinky, iconoclastic poets, come real easy. Recall the Blake essay written on the plane. Plus I like Donne. So what if he was gallingly misogynistic? He wrote some spectacularly dirty poetry.
Although there is one development worth noting: I've finally realized, after years of beating my breast (albeit with a cotton-ball scourge) over it, why I continually fail to produce sober, formal, conventional essays. It's because I've never believed there to be any organic difference between an essay and a poem, just like I don't recognize any decallage between a poem and a novel, or a novel and an essay, or an essay and a letter, and so on. There's no reason why the forms shouldn't overlap, why essays shouldn't be laced with poetry, seeing as how they are, at root, the same thing. Language, generated, manipulated, above all inhabited. Inhabited. The writer inhabits the written, this is how he understands it. I cannot write poetry on material without understanding the material; why, then, are less formulaic, more emoting poetic explorations of the thesis such an anathema to the essay? It's a hell of a lot easier to fake an essay than it is to fake a poem. The essay as a graded thing is nothing but a curb on education, an obstacle. Because, shit, who am I writing this thing for, anyhow? It's not like the tutor needs it. And that's another thing I resent: the idea that, even now, after having done this for over a decade, this essay thing, my output is still seen as practice. Inert. It doesn't live but in the lifelessness, the frigidity of its form. An essay written for a tutor is inert; an essay written for oneself, however, a turning over of the matter in text, is a living, palpitating thing. When Donne writes a poem, he usually starts out by trying to do one thing, finds it can't be done, and then asks himself, Why not? The gusto and verve of the simple dialetic. See the lovely sexist "Aire and Angels." But with an essay, any feeling it produces in the tutor who reads it is an aberrance, mendacious, even, seen as hiding a lack of content with an excess of style. Flair, some call it. Why does good writing still only meet with hollow, mistrustful praise? It's seen as duplicitous and superficial, a splendid sauce slathered on rotted meat. Even today, content still lords it over style in the binary. Style, which is all in "poetry," is only mendacious to the extent that the essay is a thing disjunct from "poetry." And I am saying straight out that that distinction is entirely fabricated, born of the need to name. What's this thing?! What's this thing?! Quick, name it! Naming is how we control things, keep a suspicious eye on their coming and going. A nameless thing is frightening, I've said it before. How do you assess a nameless thing? It has no context, no history, no future...and no meaning.
That's why poetry, or even somewhat "poetical" patterning, is an anathema to the academic essay. It threatens it. It erodes its definition, the basic fact of existence, by parodying it, as drag parodies and threatens gender, showing it to be the imitation of an imitation it always already is. This is normalization. This is yoking Play to the plough. This is a way of avoiding acknowledging that the system we have made ourselves, the system we have invested ourselves in, is desperately inadequate. It's like democracy and the family: disasters, but the best things we've got.
<<>><<>><<>><<>><<>>
One more thing: the New Year's Eve party. A rager, major rajor at Ashworthshaus--on December 18th. I'm flying back to Dublin on the night of the 30th so I can work New Year's, since it's double pay, and plus how else am I ever going to get into a party with a cover charge of €50? So we're doing the party early. I don't think I need to do much more in the way of advertisement, do I?
And lastly, happy birthday Jacob! Sixteen at last!
...um, it is sixteen, right?
Tuesday, November 30, 2004
Got ripped at work
It was only four of us: Stephane, the bars assistant manager, Dan, the lobo manager, Nico, who'd been bartending there something like four years, and me. A French guy, a Chinese guy, an Italian guy and a New Yorker. The Irish were nowhere to be seen. We started deliberating, going through books, discussing what we were going for, at about 5:15, Nico left at 6 and by 8 we had our finalists to choose from. Then, of course, we had to make and try them. By about 10 we had our winners. Seven of the eleven we ultimately chose were mine. Of course, I hated most of them. But it turns out my taste is a fairly good indicator of what no one else would drink in a million years. So, as follows:
•Apple Martini (tough when you lack Sour Apple Schnapps):
•La Bomba (tequila-based)
•New Yorker
•Chocolate Martini (with Bailey's sunk)
•Cappucino
•Squashed Frog (Shot. Layer grenadine, Midori, then Advokaat)
•Woo Woo (ugh. Ugh ugh ugh.)
The others not suggested by me are a Pink Lady, the Tequila Boom-Boom, the Chupito and the Bling bling (these last three are shots; shots are not my area of expertise. I leave them to those dumb enough to pay for them). Lastly, but best of all, is the Watermelon Basil Martini. That one there's a doozy. We haven't got the recipe down yet because we couldn't get basil yesterday, but it looks like it's going to be, scrupulously proportioned, Gin, cointreau, a hair of dry vermouth (my idea), a touch of simple syrup and watermelon and basil muddled at the bottom of the shaker. It's going to be a motherfucker once we nail it down.
Now, most of these had to be tried, of course. What I forgot to remember was that I hadn't eaten but once that day, and it was just a little grilled emmental, cranberry sauce and bacon bits sandwich (no, really, it's great). So even just taking little sips, I went pretty fast. Then I went upstairs to the café bar after two good hours of tasting to hang out. Elaine made me a Manhattan--she's a perfectly good bartender, but did have to be instructed in how to do it--followed by an Affinity (a perfect Rob Roy, but with an excess of vermouth. It changes the whole flavor, makes it lovely). I ambled out, very happy, around midnight.
•Apple Martini (tough when you lack Sour Apple Schnapps):
•La Bomba (tequila-based)
•New Yorker
•Chocolate Martini (with Bailey's sunk)
•Cappucino
•Squashed Frog (Shot. Layer grenadine, Midori, then Advokaat)
•Woo Woo (ugh. Ugh ugh ugh.)
The others not suggested by me are a Pink Lady, the Tequila Boom-Boom, the Chupito and the Bling bling (these last three are shots; shots are not my area of expertise. I leave them to those dumb enough to pay for them). Lastly, but best of all, is the Watermelon Basil Martini. That one there's a doozy. We haven't got the recipe down yet because we couldn't get basil yesterday, but it looks like it's going to be, scrupulously proportioned, Gin, cointreau, a hair of dry vermouth (my idea), a touch of simple syrup and watermelon and basil muddled at the bottom of the shaker. It's going to be a motherfucker once we nail it down.
Now, most of these had to be tried, of course. What I forgot to remember was that I hadn't eaten but once that day, and it was just a little grilled emmental, cranberry sauce and bacon bits sandwich (no, really, it's great). So even just taking little sips, I went pretty fast. Then I went upstairs to the café bar after two good hours of tasting to hang out. Elaine made me a Manhattan--she's a perfectly good bartender, but did have to be instructed in how to do it--followed by an Affinity (a perfect Rob Roy, but with an excess of vermouth. It changes the whole flavor, makes it lovely). I ambled out, very happy, around midnight.
Sunday, November 28, 2004
Oy. My eyes hurt.
Last night went without a hitch or twinge (except for somehow slicing my thumb and bleeding copiously for a bit. It was funny. I handed a customer a drink and there was blood smeared all over one side of the glass. She didn’t notice and I went haring off to the sink). Got home at 6:30am, head hit the pillow at 7 and I woke up, inexplicably, at 9:30. Haven’t been back to bed since. I’m off tonight, but tomorrow I have a one-on-one with my boss for a few hours. Turns out when they hired me, they really did mean for me to be part of creating a new cocktail menu. None of the other bartenders are being consulted. Yeah, I feel special. So tomorrow I get to go in and try to get rid of all the drinks I hate making, (roughly all the blended ones and champagne ones except the fucking Bellini, which is, of course, sacrosanct) and talk them into putting more sensible ones on there (I have a long list, each chosen largely for the name and the ease with which it’s drunk,), as well as ways of improving our service--that is, increasing the level of performance. Because it is, of course, performance, and a certain level of showmanship and virtuosity (not that any of us are virtuosic in any way save with respect to the hopeless poverty of experience found in the average customer) is expected. Little things we take for granted in the states, like free-pouring, Boston shaking, cracking the egg, garnish prep, and slightly showier stuff like bottle spinning, multiple bottles in each hand and glass pyramids (tried that for the first time last night with four cocktail glasses: three as the base, and one in the middle on top, pour steadily into the top one and let it flood into the others. Worked great and pulled in a €10 tip)--these things are wholly novel to the average drinker here. It’s pretty sad, frankly. I mean, come on. I’m 19, the youngest employee in the entire hotel, probably been bartending the shortest time, working part-time and I’M the authority? God, that’s just hysterical.
 |  |
 | |
 | |
 | |
| Graphic Design Job |
