Dealing them off the arm

My mother always said have a backup skill in case those dreams of marrying wealthy and divorcing wealthier didn't work out. So I learned to type. Very fast. And typing was good. It paid for a trip to Ireland in my senior year of college. I couldn't believe how lazy all these student were who hadn't learned to type.

If one backup skill was good, two were better. So I became a waitress, which pays much better than typing and you get drinks at the end of the day. I used to regale my friends with "service industry" stories. Like the time I waited on 30 people on Mother's Day, couldn't take any other tables because this party kept dribbling in, growing larger and more demanding and ordering food every five minutes. After two hours, 45 goddam tossed salads with the dressing on the side, constant refills of Dr. Pepper, and a $300 check, one of the wives pressed a $5 dollar bill in my hand and thanked me for a lovely job. Her nephew was in the kitchen, cooking the day's food and she wanted to show her appreciation for his coworkers. For a brief moment I thought about beating her mightily around the head and face. But instead I laughed. I tipped my bartender with that fiver on my first drink of the evening.

The Waiter has felt my pain, joy and incredulity, and written about it in a book to be published this August, Waiter Rant. I harbor a secret obsession with any memoir about the restaurant business. I've spent too many years schlepping food and owe a great deal to the dining room managers who have given me a job at the lowest points of my life. I've read Debra Ginsberg's Waiting: True Confessions of a Waitress and Service Included by Phoebe Damrosch. Those books are good. But The Waiter has perfectly captured what it is like to work the front of the house. The chapter alone on tipping and why the tip is so important to the server is priceless. I knew exactly how The Waiter's friend Allie felt after she'd delivered consummate service and was royally stiffed. It's not about the money. It's never about the money. Two tables from now, someone will over tip and make it all even for Allie. It's the insult. It's knowing that someone else has to assign a dollar value to your work and deemed it lacking when you know you turned in a top notch performance.

The Waiter understands the emotional toll serving the public can take on a human being. No matter how much he dresses it up, he understands that people who work in food service are hired servants.

With humor, wit, a liberal dose of snark and a soupcon of sentimentality, The Waiter brings the dining room into the reading room. Sometime in August, on a Monday night at the Pine Grove Inn or Tony's Villa Capri or the Airport Cafe or Friendly's or Domino's Pizza or New China or Racine's, the staff will share a drink, the tips and stories about their favorite Monday night customers--who are all in the food service industry. They will also share their impressions of Waiter Rant and none of them will find any part of the book to be lacking in verisimilitude

They also serve, who wait.

Spelz lak teem spritz

You can call a Spelling Bee a nightlife. I lived through it and it happened at night! The Boulevard Brewery/KCPL spelling team is so happy. We placed second last night in the city wide spelling bee for LiteracyKC. We had a blast and went out on ’axunge’. Yeah, you try spelling that one under hot lights in the 17th round.

Assurant Employee Benefits won on ’hypnotherapeutic’ (yeah, that’s a no brainer word, everyone knew it). It was the "get this thing over or we’ll all need to get hotel rooms" word. But the Beer/Books team didn’t mind. We were just happy to be there. Finishing second far exceeded our expectations. If you know Bernard, Nancy or Erica, get them to tell you the ’cartilage’ story. Heh.

And just to cap off the night, Nikki, Matt and Erica convinced me our next stop should be the launch party of INK magazine in the Power & Light District. Check Nikki’s blog for photos. After that, it was onto Davey’s for some wild therapeutic theremin-infused jazz with Mr. Marco’s V7s. And to pick up a new Vote No on 3 sign. Someone stole ours off our front lawn. Keep it up, clown. We got a million of ’em from Chris and Mokie.

Happy Marian dance

Last year I wrote a chapter on RA and AV for a friend's book. I barely remember writing it! Yesterday's mail brought a copy of the book and I am Chapter 4!!

Check THAT off the "Life To-Do" list!

Calling all Jane-iacs!

You know who you are. If you're an academic, then you refer to yourself as a "Janeite." Those of us who are hip to Jane's trendster cred refer to ourselves as "Jane-iacs".

Catch a whole month of Jane-inspired programming, events, movies, book discussions and author visits at Kansas City Public Library's month long Jane-uary celebration.


Join the Jane-iac blog, too.

It's okay to hate me. I hate me, too.

Right now I'm in Jacksonville, FL on a riverside balcony with a glass of white wine and 80 degree weather. I'm wearing a tank and flipflops. The sun has set and there are ducks fishing for dinner under my balcony. I can see all the stars because, apparently, they do not believe in street lights here in JAX. Even the guys at the bar next door are being civilized.

This morning when I left Kansas City at 6 am, it was 19. Degrees. I was a cranky wanker.

If I weren't enjoying myself so much, I'd kick my own ass.

Twelve Days of Hellmas

Goddammit how I hate the holidays. In words I cannot begin to type without getting my ass thrown off the MySpace, I hate the holidays. I would enter the dockworkers' blue language hall of fame if I could write everything I feel about the gdngmfcspfsebl holidays. Use your imagination.

I hate the crass commercialism. I hate the blatant cheer. I hate the excessive consumerism. I hate the societal expectations, the stress, the disillusionment, and the countless additions to my already bloated task list. I hate traveling at the holidays with all the stupid amateurs who bitch when airport security rips open a package so they can make sure it isn't a dirty bomb. I hate all the fattening food. I can't frickin' stand "Jingle Bell Rock" or "Frosty the Snowman".

I do like the boozing, though. I can get behind getting drunk. It makes me forget the hellaciousness of the holidays.

I like going to church. Yes, I mean it. I am not blaspheming. And don't worry, that lightning bolt won't come anywhere near you. It's meant for me. I get one moment of serenity at the holidays. It's either at a holiday service or it's late at night, in the dark, with only a couple of candles to light the house.

December. What's to flippin' like? It's cold, it's dark, it's gloomy. It's ridden with holidays that interrupt the regular flow of life. July. THERE'S a month to get behind.

Every damn positive memory I have of this holiday comes with an equally negative one.

If this holiday were outlawed I would not give a crap. Fuck the holidays. Fuck 'em hard.

And the Angels try to bar the Gates

I have to put my grief someplace. We won't have Norman Mailer around anymore to epitomize the idea of a "man's writer." He was a macho, braying scoundrel, but I loved him anyway. A guy's guy. Guybrarian is probably mourning over a beer. Keir is staring blankly out the window of an El car. Bill is trying to compose a fitting Backpage.

Norman was street before all those faux "gangstas" made it a lifestyle.

Bye, Norman. And fug you for leaving us all behind.

Is All Well?

The two sources I trust the most have finally weighed in on the Harry Potter phenomenon.

On the front page of the Book Review, The New York Time printed a review that revealed no major spoilers (although if you're not aware of the ending by now, it's time to sublet that granite subterranean flat you've been living in). Reviewer Christopher Hitchens takes a few high brow swipes at the series as a whole and the final volume in particular, but I expected nothing less.

The most anticipated analysis came from my Uncle Stevie over at the Bible of Popular Culture, commonly known as Entertainment Weekly. Stephen King has been the most loyal reader and defender of Harry Potter , J.K. Rowling and their combined exploits. He is also one of the most astute commentators on the state of today's popular culture.

I'm still mulling over Hitchens' piece and his perceptive parallels drawn between Orwell, Dickens, Kipling, Conan Doyle, and Rowling. Your thoughts?

The Big Read @ Kansas City Public Library

Kansas City Public Library, Park University and Liberty Memorial will be celebrating Ernest Hemingway's classic novel, A Farewell to Arms during October and November.The Big Read aims to encourage Kansas Citians to read, enjoy, contemplate, and discuss Hemingway's landmark novel of love and war on the Italian Front during the First World War.

The program period coincides with the 90th anniversary of the Battle of Caporetto, a devastating Italian defeat that served as a climactic moment in A Farewell to Arms.

More than 500 free paperback copies of A Farewell to Arms will be distributed to interested participants. In addition, there will be special events, panel discussions, book groups and movie screenings revolving around Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms, and Hemingway's influential ties to Kansas City. Register for an event, book group or free copy of the book here.

Contribute comments and insights at the Kansas City Public Library's The Big Read blog.

Beisball's been berry good to SOMEONE!

To the tune of $2.8 million, the above non-descript cardboard image of an old tyme baseball player who is NOT a household name, has been sold anonymously. Read the greedy story here.

Read the story behind the story in The Card: Collectors, Con Men and the True Story of History's Most Desired Baseball Card. Authors Michael O'Keeffe and Teri Thompson trace the history and ownership of one of baseball's most famous, and hard-to-find, cards of a player unfamiliar to most fans except for his face on a collectible.

Now, I expect some sunburnt bleacher bums will cry foul. "The Flying Dutchman" was one of the foremost players of his day. Honus Wagner was an all-star quality player, a contemporay of Ty Cobb and one of the first to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. If his quotes are accurate, it sounds as if Mr. Wagner was one of the most forthright and honorable players of his time, too. There's a lesson to be learned here (I'm talkin' to YOU, MLB All-Stars). It's "How to Be a Gentleman and a Ballplayer instead of a Billionaire Athlete".

Wagner's fame is now tied to a little piece of cardboard he didn't endorse enclosed with a product he didn't condone.

O'Keeffe and Thompson eyeball the hobby of card collecting and aren't sure how to call it. A harmless American hobby that started with little boys and bubblegum (or bigger boys and tobacco) has morphed into a booming and conniving business involving authentication experts, auction house and Wall Street bankers.

Although the history and backstories are fascinating, the writing is a little dry. Some of O'Keeffe's sparkling sports prose would be welcome in this book. Fans and collectors will be entertained and informed and likely a little disenchanted with the moneyfication of the Great American pasttime. But there's no crying in baseball or baseball card collecting, either.