Chapter 3 (Part 2)

As I walk past the rambling bar gossip, I go back to my Friday routine. I stock pint glasses at every station. Even though I try to be working away in my own cocoon, I can’t help but notice that everyone around me is gossiping. If it isn’t about their boyfriends of the moment, it’s tricks and various lovers. It is kind of making me sick just listening to it and less engaged in being there. All I can think about is how I want to somehow end up at a better job than this.

I am getting to the point where I am working and look like that is what I am doing, but mentally 2,000 miles away. In my mind, beneath the little afro of hair on my head, I am on a far away island watching the tide and getting fed grapes by bronzed cabana men (why settle for boys in fantasies when you can have chiseled men?). While my physical being is there, while my metaphysical self is working through that daydream. Then Gina quickly snaps me out of it… She comes up from her station to yell at me. At this point I am already in a bad mood and want to tell the bitch to relax and that I’ll get there when I get there, but actually say nothing. She points out that she is in dire need of cold pint glasses right away.

She then adds in her Gina way, “you need to wake up and start paying attention for god sakes.”

In my head, I am thinking, “bitch, get your own fucking pint glass and stop being rude.”

In my head I am also imagining Julio and Avi arguing over who gets to wash my cloths. They of course are in Israeli Military uniform that is all tattered, cause that’s hot. The world knows that Israeli men are utterly gorgeous so I always have at least one on hand in my dreams. Word to the wise, Israeli men are like latin men, without the Catholic guilt bullshit and less likely to live with their mothers.

Gina likes being the resident belabusta , which is Yiddish for bossy person who thinks they’re in charge, even when they aren’t. That person who always has to be the leader of the group or whatever they take part in, because that’s just how they roll. What I probably am not considering or caring about is that she really is trying to get her job done so she could make both of us money. She is simply calling me out for not focusing on my job, which today is true. But because she gives me honest constructive, criticism, I should for the moment, like my co-workers, write her off as being the bitch I want to be.
I also find out later, that Gina herself she is working, stepping on eggshells because she had just been reprimanded for apparently over pouring a drink a day or two earlier by one second. Our bar’s shot pour standard is 4 seconds then. The cameras apparently caught her and now somebody is out to get her. She probably just wants to keep her job because it does allow her a good standard of living. The over pouring slip/moment in question is of course caught on the surveillance camera of our elusive bar owner who is always watching us.

I rush over to Gina’s station to stock her precious pint glasses. As I reach into the drop down of her station, Nick the MD to be/bartender is performing for some customer, being the show off that he is and bouncing his big ass around. He’s one of those black guys, much like Wayne Brady. He acts stereotypically black only when he needs to, but generally acts like a white guy raised in the burbs. When he works though, he often is not aware of his surroundings. He is usually too busy looking for "hot," Jewish Doctors and Lawyers in the bar. The rest of us have developed a third eye on the back of our heads that help us maneuver our way around the Labyrinth bar.

Nick has no idea about this third-eye business, nor does he care about those around him when he is working. He is very into making his money and calls himself a self-elected Jew of the bar (even though he was raised Baptist), as an actual Jew I’ll speak for all of us when I say 1. No one wants to be Jewish, it just happens. 2. We don’t want Nick, the rest of the world can have him. Nick always focuses his attention on the person with the money in their hands that is within his hand’s reach, like a whore in a red-light district. He is almost at good at guilt trips as my mother. He can guilt anyone to investing in anything he does, from cocktails to a date. The Goy has the skills of an old Jewish woman and the money sense of a Donald Triumph.

As Nick is hitting on some customer and putting a bottle back in it’s place which belong behind him, near his register. He did this without looking. In this course he also accidentally pushes me into the pint glasses I am putting away. This causes a domino effect of problems. This is when the nightmare begins. This action, in turn makes one of the pint glasses shatter into a beautiful glittery rain that looks like an explosion around my hand of glass dismemberment, which drizzles everywhere. Then a huge shard of glass is then push into the skin about three inches above my inner left wrist. I am so in shock that, I almost don’t believe that this happening. As I pull my arm out of the drop down cooler, I could see a piece of my flesh just dangling. I can’t see how deep the cut is, but all I can see is blood. I drop everything and run into the back room. Nick is still chatting with the customer oblivious to what just happened.

On the way to the back room, there are little trails of blood to show where I have been. In a fluster furry, I open the first aid kit that the bar has. Like a cruel joke, it’s of course empty, full of just a pile of napkins and 3 tiny band-aids, and a tampon. I have a double take moment. Being that this is a men’s gay bar, a tampon is highly unusual in our first aid kits. I would more likely expect to find lube or even glitter before a fucking tampon.

I start laughing hysterically, while still unsure as to why I am laughing at a horrible moment like this. I am a person who tends to laugh at the wrong moments. I am the guy who laughs at funerals, any religious ceremony, any of life’s generally awkward moments, when I look at any full-length mirror and during romantic moments in movies when most people cry. I laugh at the sight of bad news, and most people find it revolting.

I pick up the napkins I find to soak up the blood. James walks by and ask if I am okay, while he stares at my arm from a distance. His face look horrified. James ask me if I will be able to work the rest of my shift, and whether I have insurance. I am getting even more upset by this point. I am starting to simmer by this question and the evening’s predicaments. The fact that he has the gaul to ask me such a bazaar question as I have a piece of my own flesh dangling from my arm is ridiculous.
I go from laughing like a crazy person to complete silence, give James an evil stare and tell, “yeah, I’ll work. We can turn this place into a fucking making bloody mary bar tonight.”

As I stare at my mangled arm I begin to feel a subtle sharp, throbbing. It is getting worse with every second that I stare at the blood-infused napkin covering up the glass battle wound.

I am almost in a trance staring at my arm as Gina storms in to the back room, which seem to just be adding to my angst. My heart starts beating faster and there now is a vein on my forehead popping up that I have never seen before. Gina asks me if I am okay. She then picks up the injured arm and looks at the dangling piece of flesh and inspects it. It’s like she instantly turned into the professor from Gilligan’s Island. Maybe she will turn my arm into a radio. Gina then goes to tells James who is freaking out to get us more napkins and to “chill the fuck out.” She looks into my horrified eyes, which are now more upset and worried about loosing my job, than the actual injury. She reads me very quickly even though I try to conceal my emotions from her. She tells me that I will be employed next week and have nothing to worry about. She says that I need to relax, then show me a scar in the same spot on her right wrist. I start to think great, she is trying to fucking bond right now and turn this into an episode of Oprah, get pissed and all of a sudden calm. Apparently she has too cut her self similarly five-years prior. She speaks calmly, petting my shoulder in a way that only a woman could and tells me that I will be fine because I like her am “tough as nails.” I don’t know how true that is, but for the moment she made me feel like a tough lesbian, which is way better than I had felt before this conversation and tougher than any man I know. She hands me $20 dollars and tells me to go take a cab to the hospital for stitches and to call her later and let me know how it all turns out. She makes it seem like it was just another normal day. She has this way about her that makes me calm down. From that moment on, the pain is gone and I have adrenaline that is getting me through this.

I am waiting for four hours alone in the emergency room to get seven stitches. It’s now 5a.m. and I arrived to this mothball smelling hospital ER an 11:30 pm the day before. I find a Vicoden that I guess someone slipped into my pocket before I evacuated the bar. I don’t know who the magical fairy is that left this treat was. I don’t event take a moment to consider where it came from. I of course take it instantly and start to choke in the emergency room. Needless to say, I got to cut the line right away.

The odd thing is that, if it wasn’t for Gina I could see myself freaking out in that cold sterile place that is the ER. Because of her, I don’t feel alone in the waiting room and know that all will prevail. I’m like a little kid, excited to see what kind of scar this adventure will leave me.

Story 3 (Part 1)

It’s the normal Friday hustle and bustle routine, song and prance that we get accustomed to working at the Labyrinth. This is in between rushes, during the expected Friday night 9-10pm lull. The time in between, where the happy hour crowd leaves the bar for a short intermission where they snort their evening hungers away, maybe grab a quick low-carb bite or bowl of "American Fries," then come back out to the bars, drink their way to love and get plastered out of their gords. It's the American way! They get wasted enough to not feel embarrassed dancing like a fool to any Madonna tune alone on a dance floor full of men who are all left feel and seemingly tone deaf. That’s at least what it seems like by looking at the dance floor here. Many leave and chase the white tiger or whatever the kids call it these days… Unfortunately, in this world, in this place, cocaine is what many people use to have fun, while numbing their faces even though they are trying to numb their feelings, but I digress. The key train part is just my assumption based on the fact that at night, many of the weekend customers can often be found grinding their teeth, while their noses run into their and mothball smelling mouths and they don’t even seem to notice. It’s worse than that aunt we all have or had, who always has awful coffee breath. In my case, I never was so lucky. I was raised by Russians. I had this aunt who always smelled like pickled beets, chicken fat, dough, and a subtle black tea smell.

Now I realize how prevalent and stupidly obvious cokeheads often are at the Labyrinth. Within a 5-minute period here one can observe three customer in a row order a drink while they have boogies running down their face and into his numbed, overly lips that undoubtedly were covered in the latest lip-gloss Claire’s offers. When I point out the mess on their face, similar to the way one treats a toddler, the customer smiles, tells me to fuck off and then tells the bartender they are recovering from a cold. I’m thinking if you were recovering from a cold, why are you at a bar? Then I remember the mantra I have learned, gay men aren’t quitters. A second later, as he is walking away, the bi-polar bitch told me that I am “adorable.” Being that I am adorable as this asshole puts it, the compliments is always lackluster from these cokeheads and since its usually said in a sarcastic tone where you cannot tell if they are complimenting or putting you down.

Since my self-esteem is really low, even lower than it was when I was a chubby 12-year old and Monica Gambini would yell at me across the playground, “hey, ever heard of a thigh-master?” I would pretend not to hear that bitch Monica and then walk to my best friend, a janitor and eat three of those carnation ice creams, which of course they sold at my school. This, followed by a healthy back of flaming hot cheetos, to compliment my white trashness. Presently I hope that Monica is fat, and working on her third kid since dropping out of ITTTech.

The second the guy finally walks away for good, all I could smell is the hospital sent, like that of mothballs. It makes me want a sedative or at least a magical brownie to tide me over and keep me from slicing the overly manicured faces of these lovely patrons around me, not that I would really do that. Being that my job is to clean everything up here, I am not making more of a mess than necessary.

As I come behind the bar James is cleaning his bottles and chatting with Johnny about how he had seen Johnny’s trick of the week out earlier with another guy. It’s moments like this that makes me call the bar Castro high. Then Johnny tells James that his guy is like every San Francisco gay man and in an “open relationship.” Come to think of it, in my infantile experience, this seems to be true. In San Francisco, for some reason most long term gay man relationships I am coming to find are actually open ones. Being a young, inexperienced gay who is still optimistic and still clinging to the idea that love exists, this concept makes no sense to me (This was in a world that was different, before we knew that Ricky Martin was in fact a marry, queer, sissy-lala too). These couples would be committed to each other, but also openly have some thing going on side. Why this is acceptable, I will never truly grasp.

As I walk past the rambling bar gossip, I go back to my Friday routine. I stock pint glasses at every station. Even though I try to be working away in my own cocoon, I can’t help but notice that everyone around me is gossiping. If it isn’t about their boyfriends of the moment, it’s tricks and various lovers. It is kind of making me sick just listening to it and less engaged in being there. All I can think about is how I want to somehow end up at a better job than this.

I am getting to the point where I am working and look like that is what I am doing, but mentally 2,000 miles away. In my mind, beneath the little afro of hair on my head, I am on a far away island watching the tide and getting fed grapes by bronzed cabana men (why settle for boys in fantasies when you can have chiseled men?). While my physical being is there, while my metaphysical self is working through that daydream. Then Gina quickly snaps me out of it… She comes up from her station to yell at me. At this point I am already in a bad mood and want to tell the bitch to relax and that I’ll get there when I get there, but actually say nothing. She points out that she is in dire need of cold pint glasses right away.

She then adds in her Gina way, “you need to wake up and start paying attention for god sakes.”

In my head, I am thinking, “bitch, get your own fucking pint glass and stop being rude.”

In my head I am also imagining Julio and Avi arguing over who gets to wash my cloths. They of course are in Israeli Military uniform that is all tattered, cause that’s hot. The world knows that Israeli men are utterly gorgeous so I always have at least one on hand in my dreams. Word to the wise, Israeli men are like latin men, without the Catholic guilt bullshit and less likely to live with their mothers.

Gina likes being the resident belabusta , which is Yiddish for bossy person who thinks they’re in charge, even when they aren’t. That person who always has to be the leader of the group or whatever they take part in, because that’s just how they roll. What I probably am not considering or caring about is that she really is trying to get her job done so she could make both of us money. She is simply calling me out for not focusing on my job, which today is true. But because she gives me honest constructive, criticism, I should for the moment, like my co-workers, write her off as being the bitch I want to be.
I also find out later, that Gina herself she is working, stepping on eggshells because she had just been reprimanded for apparently over pouring a drink a day or two earlier by one second. Our bar’s shot pour standard is 4 seconds then. The cameras apparently caught her and now somebody is out to get her. She probably just wants to keep her job because it does allow her a good standard of living. The over pouring slip/moment in question is of course caught on the surveillance camera of our elusive bar owner who is always watching us.

I rush over to Gina’s station to stock her precious pint glasses. As I reach into the drop down of her station, Nick the MD to be/bartender is performing for some customer, being the show off that he is and bouncing his big ass around. He’s one of those black guys, much like Wayne Brady. He acts stereotypically black only when he needs to, but generally acts like a white guy raised in the burbs. When he works though, he often is not aware of his surroundings. He is usually too busy looking for "hot," Jewish Doctors and Lawyers in the bar. The rest of us have developed a third eye on the back of our heads that help us maneuver our way around the Labyrinth bar.

Nick has no idea about this third-eye business, nor does he care about those around him when he is working. He is very into making his money and calls himself a self-elected Jew of the bar (even though he was raised Baptist), as an actual Jew I’ll speak for all of us when I say 1. No one wants to be Jewish, it just happens. 2. We don’t want Nick, the rest of the world can have him. Nick always focuses his attention on the person with the money in their hands that is within his hand’s reach, like a whore in a red-light district. He is almost at good at guilt trips as my mother. He can guilt anyone to investing in anything he does, from cocktails to a date. The Goy has the skills of an old Jewish woman and the money sense of a Donald Triumph.

As Nick is hitting on some customer and putting a bottle back in it’s place which belong behind him, near his register. He did this without looking. In this course he also accidentally pushes me into the pint glasses I am putting away. This causes a domino effect of problems. This is when the nightmare begins. This action, in turn makes one of the pint glasses shatter into a beautiful glittery rain that looks like an explosion around my hand of glass dismemberment, which drizzles everywhere. Then a huge shard of glass is then push into the skin about three inches above my inner left wrist. I am so in shock that, I almost don’t believe that this happening. As I pull my arm out of the drop down cooler, I could see a piece of my flesh just dangling. I can’t see how deep the cut is, but all I can see is blood. I drop everything and run into the back room. Nick is still chatting with the customer oblivious to what just happened.

On the way to the back room, there are little trails of blood to show where I have been. In a fluster furry, I open the first aid kit that the bar has. Like a cruel joke, it’s of course empty, full of just a pile of napkins and 3 tiny band-aids, and a tampon. I have a double take moment. Being that this is a men’s gay bar, a tampon is highly unusual in our first aid kits. I would more likely expect to find lube or even glitter before a fucking tampon.

I start laughing hysterically, while still unsure as to why I am laughing at a horrible moment like this. I am a person who tends to laugh at the wrong moments. I am the guy who laughs at funerals, any religious ceremony, any of life’s generally awkward moments, when I look at any full-length mirror and during romantic moments in movies when most people cry. I laugh at the sight of bad news, and most people find it revolting.

I pick up the napkins I find to soak up the blood. James walks by and ask if I am okay, while he stares at my arm from a distance. His face look horrified. James ask me if I will be able to work the rest of my shift, and whether I have insurance. I am getting even more upset by this point. I am starting to simmer by this question and the evening’s predicaments. The fact that he has the gaul to ask me such a bazaar question as I have a piece of my own flesh dangling from my arm is ridiculous.
I go from laughing like a crazy person to complete silence, give James an evil stare and tell, “yeah, I’ll work. We can turn this place into a fucking making bloody mary bar tonight.”

As I stare at my mangled arm I begin to feel a subtle sharp, throbbing. It is getting worse with every second that I stare at the blood-infused napkin covering up the glass battle wound.

I am almost in a trance staring at my arm as Gina storms in to the back room, which seem to just be adding to my angst. My heart starts beating faster and there now is a vein on my forehead popping up that I have never seen before. Gina asks me if I am okay. She then picks up the injured arm and looks at the dangling piece of flesh and inspects it. It’s like she instantly turned into the professor from Gilligan’s Island. Maybe she will turn my arm into a radio. Gina then goes to tells James who is freaking out to get us more napkins and to “chill the fuck out.” She looks into my horrified eyes, which are now more upset and worried about loosing my job, than the actual injury. She reads me very quickly even though I try to conceal my emotions from her. She tells me that I will be employed next week and have nothing to worry about. She says that I need to relax, then show me a scar in the same spot on her right wrist. I start to think great, she is trying to fucking bond right now and turn this into an episode of Oprah, get pissed and all of a sudden calm. Apparently she has too cut her self similarly five-years prior. She speaks calmly, petting my shoulder in a way that only a woman could and tells me that I will be fine because I like her am “tough as nails.” I don’t know how true that is, but for the moment she made me feel like a tough lesbian, which is way better than I had felt before this conversation and tougher than any man I know. She hands me $20 dollars and tells me to go take a cab to the hospital for stitches and to call her later and let me know how it all turns out. She makes it seem like it was just another normal day. She has this way about her that makes me calm down. From that moment on, the pain is gone and I have adrenaline that is getting me through this.

I am waiting for four hours alone in the emergency room to get seven stitches. It’s now 5a.m. and I arrived to this mothball smelling hospital ER an 11:30 pm the day before. I find a Vicoden that I guess someone slipped into my pocket before I evacuated the bar. I don’t know who the magical fairy is that left this treat was. I don’t event take a moment to consider where it came from. I of course take it instantly and start to choke in the emergency room. Needless to say, I got to cut the line right away.

The odd thing is that, if it wasn’t for Gina I could see myself freaking out in that cold sterile place that is the ER. Because of her, I don’t feel alone in the waiting room and know that all will prevail. I’m like a little kid, excited to see what kind of scar this adventure will leave me.

Chapter 2 Meet The Staff (Part 2)

Back to the story, here, we all have become each other’s chosen/adoptive family. We watch each other’s backs when customers would gang up on us or even more so, when it is the owner of the bar. He is the be all and end all. He simply runs a tight ship and keeps that bar packed while keeping everyone within a camera monitor, big brother sort of a hand’s reach. All the alcohol pours are watch, record, counted and then scrutinized from his office at the bar. The cameras are even connected to his home computer. Keeping this in mind, we know that even when no one is watching, he could be watching us from home maybe right after an episode of “Golden Girls,” while smoking a double and maybe eating a pack of flaming-hot cheetos? We are observed like pandas at a zoo. We deal with the cage because we know there isn’t another bar in San Francisco where we would make the kind of money we are making there at that maze of a bar. Gay bars are much like zoos anyways. People dance horribly, like idiots on a dance floor to the latest Kylie or Madonna single and look for every reason to take their crop tops off in hopes that Mr. Right Now is watching. It’s very animalistic.

When it comes to each other, I have also noticed another approach my coworkers seem to have. We are all oddly “friends.” We all keep our friends closer and then their enemies even closer. It’s hard for me to tell which of us playing this game and who is truly genuine. If they like you, they seem to actually help you from getting out of trouble with other co-workers, our boss and patrons. If they hate you, it’s like working with the little girl from “the Bad Seed.” For those who haven’t seen the film, it’s about a little girl who is a murderer, but no one suspects it because she plays this whole innocent act that people eat up like lifetime movies. We all keep a game face going while working. On the turn of a dime we can go from friend to killer. Most of the others have no problem stepping on a “friend’s” toes to save their ass or make a few more dollars. I guess time will tell who is a friend and who is a foe.

This is how I’m told it works here. People here either work at this place for a hot second, a week, maybe three, and others are there for years. Some work there so long that they become a fixture there like the booze in the cups they serve. While the barbacks and doormen employed here keep a revolving door open for new drifters, the bartenders seem solid. Bartenders would get fired for various reasons. Sometimes the reasons can be obvious and understandable like “over pouring” and giving away free booze. Other times the reasons are more vague is less reasonable and more superficial. There is though always a “valid” reason even if it is completely fabricated by the owner of the bar.

For the owner, sometimes it looks as though we are just pawns, and maybe more like shoes. One could always have extra pairs of shoes in their closet, and then use them to walk from point A to point B. Then, when you purchase a new pair of sneakers, you start to wear them at all the times you used to wear your old sneakers. Then those old sneakers make their way to the shadows of the closet and eventually you may decide to get rid of them. This is all because they are worn down and or maybe just less shiny than the new ones. One day you could be his pet and the next, he could and simply make up reasons to get rid of the old and move the new into their spots. For all of us, keeping our jobs seems to be a calculated guessing game of watching each other’s backs mixed with a shit-load of luck.

The group of people who work there, are more interesting than words can tell. This is because there, everyone employed there, all see the value in who they are, in relation to the bar. They know where they stand in the larger gay community. This is even if the rest of the world didn’t give a rat’s ass. While there, these individuals all seem to think of themselves as hot shit, most of them are recovering nerds and misfits. Most of us here are recovering kids that were teased in high school for being fagots and not being what hero-normative society tells us we are supposed to be and support. Here our uniqueness is applauded and precisely what people like about us. The shoe I hope is on the other foot. We now get to see what it’s like as the big kids on campus, it is just a different terrain.

Gina has been there for 2 years at that time. She is the resident, self-proclaim bitch and Queen bee. She is what I would call a career bartender, one of those who knows their job, does it well and doesn’t apologize for rocking. Being the only woman there, she demands respect from all of us and will not settle for anything less. Gina is about 25 years old. I guess the bitch attitude concept is her replacement for her lack of balls, literally speaking. She seems like the type of girl that probably at one point had and may still have those stupid hanging nuts dangling off of the rear bumper of her truck. If she didn't, she has guy friends who do for sure. She is a recovering party girl who went to San Diego State a few years prior. She is an ex-sorority, Capa-Delta-something. She was apparently the only lesbian there, so she said. Gina has a masculine haircut accompanied by curves that only could be described as feminine and gentile. Her frame and tits perkier than a bottle of adder often overshadow her rigid-masculine persona. I guess it is because she has to compete in a bar made for gay men, in a staff of men. The thing that many people misunderstand about her is the fact that they consider her a bitch and often write off the rest of her as being anything but. In truth, she is the most straightforward of the whole bunch. If she had problem with you, she would tell you. If she likes you, she will tell you, if not in words, actions. If you get in her way, she will make sure you get a good swift kick or step on a toe. The odd thing is that she actually does guide people whom she likes. Help them do better at their job. She always offers unsolicited criticism to those she loves and even worse critiques to those she hates to working with. When she walks through a crowd she demand attention and the same is true when she is behind the bar. Gina often offers management that doesn’t necessarily require her intervention. She is our know it all. What people seem to rarely understand is that is her way to help? She truly is the foster mother of the bunch, in a semi-butch sort of way. It is like she is the big sister I never knew I needed.
There is also James. He is a newly appointed bartender. He has been here for about a year and a half as a barback and has just recently been appointed to the ranks of bartender. He is also roommates with Johnny, the “all American” guy from dinner. It is rumor that the two had dated at some point but I am not one to subscribe to rumor rubbish. James always talks about how he is at the bar just to pay off a few debts and then go back to traveling the world. It’s ironic since he has already been working here for a while. “It is just the mobile to get from point A to point B,” so he says. He is about 23, skinny, blonde, average height,. He seems to be of the type made for the Labyrinth. Everything about him screams it. He always jumps and waves his hands when his “jam” cams on, which is usually Mariah Carey or Kylie. He LOVES those bitches in a way that I simply can’t grasp. James does to not look like what I have imagined a bartender to look. At the end of shifts with him, he often offers to drive me home. I will admit that I do love these moments, although I would never say this out loud. We often roll up to McDonald’s late at night, get milkshakes, fries and soak our sorrows by listening to guilty pleasures of cheesy pop and talking about cute boys we meet or don’t meet throughout the week. We both pinky-swore and promise to never tell anyone about Mc Donald’s because it’s really a gross place and we don’t want anyone knowing that we ate from there. In San Francisco, going to McDonalds is like driving a Hummer there, it’s just asking for someone to slash your tires or throw red paint on it.

There is Michael. He is tall, skinny, with dark hair and light features that made him look somewhat exotic. He is a loudmouth who always assumes he is right. We are very similar in the fact that we are both pig-headed. Like me, Michael is the cynic, but in a different style. I consider myself more masculine, than Michael is, although he finds a way to bring out that part of me. He is a complimentary mixture of masculine, male hormones, with slightly feminine undertones, yet he himself is a package is more masculine than not. I love him for the fact that he is so comfortable with himself. I admire it and aspire to get there some day. He is like the jester of the bar. If he has something to say he doesn’t hold back and just says it. He is not one to hold back or sensor himself at any time in any way. No bullshitting, no blowing smoke up people’s ass. He is also the first guy I have ever met in a committed gay relationship. They have been together for 3 years. That span of time together is equivalent to a lifetime in gay years. Having been tied-down for so long, he always tries to live vicariously through me by pushing guys he thinks are cute on me even though our tastes differ vastly. We also have become friends over the love of our friend, Mary. She is would bring us up when we are down and down when we are up from the adrenaline of a long work shift going to the ladder parts of morning light.

There is also Aaron who is probably barely 30 years old by that point. He is the most exocentric person I had ever met. He is really tall and always commands that everyone notice his presence in a room. His outfits, jeans to the tiniest details where all custom made. His fashion sense is a mix of punk, high fashion and drag queen glamour. His hair would change color, shape and style more often than an infomercial. While he probably became a life bartender, I don’t think that this has been his goal. But, who end up doing the job or career they plan? He lives like a rock star. He parties with them and when he goes out he is treated like one. Going out with Aaron is like going out with rock royalty with a gay twist everywhere we went. I love working with him, I lately have started to call him “Gentle” due to the fact that he is the only other Jew other than myself who works there and has a love of Barbara Streisand. The only other person I know who loves her more than him is my mother. My mother will gladly sell her left arm to meet that woman. Aaron always fascinates me by hitting on every fuzzy little bear man who crosses his path. He always talks about how he loves their “chubby, mushy, furry, little, average bodies.” The first time I heard him say this, I didn’t know how to react to that comment. Now I just laugh.

Aaron is known for many, many things. The tag line, for which I will always remember him is the first sentence I hear him say during my first shift with him. “The human body is so resilient, I have been up for 3 days.” Aaron truly lives like a rock star. He is also a self proclaim – J.A.P. With taste more expensive and gaudy than any Jewish American Princess I ever did meet.
It is interesting how there are so many different types of people who work at that bar. Everyone works there for very different reasons. For some, it is a lifestyle, a career, a means to an end, a way to pay for their habits, a social mechanism, and for others a summertime job. It is like when I studied abroad. I’m living in Florence, Italy for a semester. I’m 18-years old. I am always fascinated when walking through the various outdoor markets of Italia and by all the random people I meet who work there. Many Americans live there, all there for very different reasons. Some come through on vacation and simply never leave. Others start off at a local university studying abroad and essentially defect there. There are some who stay for love, while others are running from the mob, or something back home.

Whatever the reason is, like Florence, the Labyrinth is a place many people run to in order to escape stuff in their lives for whatever reason, it kind of consumes people. You would start there, with one goal, end with another. Eventually you are just there and unsure why because your initial reason for being there is now irrelevant. The question all of us working here wonder is, why am I here?

Chapter 2 Meet The Staff (Part 1)

My dad’s response on the phone when I tell him that I am now working at a gay bar: “like in the Birdcage.”
Me “I wish.”
Dad: “(exhales cigarette smoke then chokes on his own laughter) To bad, I love that Robin Williams. He’s no Eddie Murphy, but he was great in Moscow On The Hudson when he says ‘I am job!”

There are so many different kinds of people employed there. It’s an eclectic, cutthroat group that work there to say the least. Everyone is in their own realm and version of reality compared to greater society. There is something in this place that makes us all similar and therefore creates a cohesive staff, besides the fact that most of us are fudge-packing, Nancy-boy-queers and dykes. In comedy, when there are a group of gays on one show it’s called an “alternative showcase.” The question I always ask myself when I hear this is “alternative to what?” Working at this bar is similar, only we consider a “regular” hetero-normative bar the alternative showcase.

I hate the word queer almost as much as I hate the word “partner.” Queer insinuates that there is something wrong with being gay and that is simply untrue. If gay is odd or wrong to someone, then that’s their problem. For example, Michelle Bachmann’s husband is queer because he is a weirdo, not because he is gay, allagedly. Trust, the gay community doesn’t want him.
When gay people use the term “partner,” it makes me just want to punch them and say, "Hey, he's your fucking husband! Are you living as a couple who occasionally gets down or business partners who play golf? That word makes us look even more like outcasts of greater society than we are or have to be."

I hate when gays use the term partner almost as much when straight people use it. This is not their fault though. They are making an effort to treat us the way they are told we want to be treated, even though the term just alienates gay people more. "Partner" makes gay people sound like they are talking about a business venture. If you are gold-digger and marry a person old enough to remember when the Louisiana Purchase was in escrow then, you should call your “lover,” “partner,” or "investor" in Anna Nicole's case (may she rest in peace stuffing her face with fried chicken). To sleep with an old sack of skin for some of their fortune seems to be a fair deal when it comes to this kind of partnership. If you are a well-to-do hippy, who now shops at the Mac store and Whole Foods, get over the PC crap, because lets be honest, you already sold-out the second you paid your taxes and invested in that family-van.

Chapter 1 (Part 2)

Charlie calls me about a week later asking if I could come in at 6pm. I have someone at the cafe, where I currently work to cover my closing shift so that I could check out the place. Charlie says that I will be at the bar that night, for what he calls a “trial basis.” I am new to queer life at this point. I have only one fag hag of my own, one-year “out of the closet”, one failed gay relationship turned hazardous roommate-friendship, 4 months out of that shit-storm and no time for mental clarity because I need to figure out school and rent. Being the newbie, I figure that it’s my time to branch out, meet people, learn more about my community and maybe meet a man ready for a relationship. This is all assuming that I know what I am talking about, cause I really have no idea what gay people do. I don’t have a lisp any more thanks to my high school braces. I also don’t care for really have a disdain for Brittany Spears and know nothing about show tunes. All I have in my mind is the stereotypes that I was fed that gay men are supposed to be like instead of the reality. Living in San Francisco, I presume that the Castro will be the best place to start this journey.

As for the decor of this place, the Labyrinth it’s a site for eyes. I mean that literally. There are so many lights and mirrors in the place it could make anyone self-conscious or even induce a seizure. The walls are stainless steel and black. The bar itself has this aroma that I can only describe as euro-man, doused in cheap colognes and regret. It reminds me of the smells one encounters on European buses and in the company of Russian men, where the invention of deodorant is rarely utilized. There is this hint of: man-musk, alcohol, all blended with the Old Spice and cheap after-shaves, which are mixed into the air to create the vibe. Video screens are on everywhere, with little neon lights strewn about the metal walls. This place is made up of several rooms with TV screens conveniently located at every direction the eye looks. All these lights light up to the beat of the pop music videos, playing on the screens. From Cher, to Kylie and of course then Madonna, the music blasts with repetitive pop-beats and videos. I have never seen so many men in one place and who are admittedly listening to such shit music. I prefer emo-crap myself, but will bend the rules if I must for this place. Looking around, it really is an odd mix. The whole package of this place is kind of intriguing, liberating and embarrassing, all in one.

It’s a Friday afternoon on a brisk summer’s day, and my second San Francisco summer. For those unfamiliar with SF should know that summer here is non-existent. It’s always funny to watch tourists come here in their Hawaii shirts, shorts and flip-flops just to encounter an overcast breeze or passive-aggression. Our summer is like a San Diego winter. It is often slightly overcast with temps between 50 and 60, where I like it, but we digress. I am a struggling college student trying to pay rent while getting though the grudge that is college. It’s still daylight outside yet, once you step inside the bar it’s like Vegas. This element for some reason reminds me of my grandmother and gambling. The two topics go together like happiness and food. The woman is a lovable mess who loves dark glitzy places like this and Vegas. She would love the place, a room of men to compliment her on how she looks so young in her glittery vest and tightly pulled back face under the bright lights of this place. Add a nickel-slot or keno machine for her to play while she day-dreams of being a Gabor (she sounds just like Zha Zha). Maybe a buffet that she could steal food from and she would be set.

Back to the bar, there is no concept of time inside there. There are no clocks. The only time markers there are flow of the crowd, marked by happy hour and shot specials posted with construction paper, all over the bar, in ill-matching font. While I’m walking into the bar, daylight still peaks slightly through the bar’s window blinds. The bar is sparsely populated with customers. I go up to the first bartender I see within five steps of entering this place. I then, ask him where to go if it’s my first day. I kind of expect be greeted with a welcome-mat of a smile. Or a training manual like the ones I received when starting at most of my other odd jobs. Instead the guy just shrugs. He seems unimpressed with me, he smiles at me the way someone smiles at a small child that burped and says, “Stud, go down the hall and knock on the door, one of the boys will show you around.”
“Stud?” Surprised by that label, I wonder if I really seem like a stud? I have never heard someone use that word without laughing. Until this moment, I have never been called anything like that. A word turns me into a signalized person. I am a lot of things, sexy or a stud is not one of them. I am 21, and the guy that people love as a friend. I'm like the Kimmy Gibbler of people, without being as annoying. I am no one special. I don’t wear the average gay-shirt that's 1-3 sizes too small, complimented with extra tight jeans that make my ass fat leak over the waist. My jeans are loose, comfortable and I definitely do not look like a model. I am still wide-eyed, shy, timid and mousy. Many of the guys here have his glow about them. It may just be fake tan, not sure. I don’t think I have that same presence. I will have to assimilate though. I will look like I belong here. I will probably have stop wearing the black-rimmed glasses, which up until now were my signature. Maybe that will help me blend into the wall the way I like it?

I then push the long afro of curls off of my forehead and march slowly to that back door. I am oddly nervous and have a slight bit of perspiration on my forehead. As I walk to that back door I encounter many interesting people. Being new to the gay game, this seems like an interesting place to hangout, although I personally couldn’t see myself here very often as a patron. Walking though this place is the closest that I have ever been to walking though a circus. At least at a circus I could eat a funnel cake and not feel like the fat girl in the room. There is one big man, who is somewhere between 35 and 60 is off to my side and he instantly catches my eye. This man had somehow has laser ed off and numbed every sign of his age. He has an over-muscled body stuffed into a tiny extra-small Abercrombie shirt that looks like it is repelled by him as well, where he allows his liver-spotted, tanned, muscled arms to ooze out and connect to hold hands with this little tiny pocket gay sitting right next to him. The old man also is over compensating with brown hair, which clearly has white roots; it’s just too much for the eyes to handle. Abercrombie’s boyfriend or toy of the moment is this little bleached-blond boy that has the body of a skinny, starving, young girl, with huge platypus feet. This boy looks like a Kate Moss, during the Calvin Clean days, but maybe about 10 pounds lighter.
The view of the bar from here makes me dizzy and wonder what kind of circus I am getting into. As I pass them, a random hairy Persian looking man pats my ass like that is normal status-Que. I am so caught off guard by this that I am silent and even more wide-eyed as I begin walking faster to that back door. The odd thing is that this man, resembles my Russian uncle being round, jolly and hairy, with just slightly darker skin. His body I imagine is made of large meatballs, black hair, and dough, at least that is the thought that came to mind. Trying to keep my cool, I scurry to that backroom with a bit of a sprint.

Once in the Labyrinth backroom, I find a small room filled with a time clock, beer boxes, people’s backpacks, beer kegs and bartenders frantically counting their piles of money. I have never seen so many crumpled one-dollar bills and quarters in my life. Actually, I take that back, once at the slots in Laughlin with my grandmother, but that was another time and place. The only woman in room comes up, looks past me as though I isn’t there, and then pushes past as she sends a quick text message. She is what I label as soft butch. She has many feminine assets, yet they where somehow complimented with some masculine qualities that I had never seen on a woman until then. She then comes back, “sorry, I needed reception, Gina here… what’s your name? You’re first day? Cute, you don’t know what you are getting into…Just hustle, don’t get in my way and you’ll be fine.” She smiles and sits back in her money counting seat and doesn’t glance up again. It’s as though she never met me.

Everyone else just glances up from counting their money, piles of $1 bills and one at a time does a generic head bob, followed by a “hey man” or “hey babe.” Then a little Asian man pops up out of the shadows of this ominous back room, which by the way is filled with boxes upon boxes of beers. It’s a frat boy’s fantasy come true. The little Asian fellow talking to me has a dingy dishtowels hanging out of all his pockets, like the people at the car wash or that demand to clean your car when driving out of Tijuana. He then says to me with a heavy Chinese accent, “Hi! I am Ricky. Yuuu… How you say name?” As I began to answer him, I wonder what his real name is. As I open my mouth he continues: “You are barback, pick up glass all over bar, be fast, carry many glasses, don’t have be nice, get done, keep floors clean and be fast for happy hour.” He hands me one of the dirty towels from his back pocket and a key as he shews me on to the bar floor.

My job is to walk through the crowds of drag queens, twinks, muscle daddies, manly women, lipstick chicks and more. I take their dirty cocktail glasses to wash. I stack them like legos and carry them to wash… It sounds like a job a monkey could do, but hopefully I’m better then a monkey. Within what seems like a matter of minutes, the bar is packed, wall-to-wall. I am busing all the tables, urinal rooms, bar tables, while looking over the general security of the bar. This will later mean kicking people out for being too drunk, rowdy or not paying. Some may find this job demeaning, I find it challenging and a great place to study all the millions of types of people who come to this place. After a few minutes, I have made several figure 8 circles around the bar and had an armful of pint glasses with old napkins in them. As I step to set the glasses with the other dirty glasses near the bar/dishwasher, a little shit man, short enough and emotionless enough to be made by Mattel, pinches my ass. This in turn makes me loose my balance with all the glasses in my hand flying into the air and then like suicide bombers diving to their impetuous death. Of course a scene is made. Everyone is watching as I dropped to my knees where I gathered the glass with a towel. They all just stare in aw as though they have never seen broken glass or someone clean it’s broken shards up. Then a few random people try to help, making it even more difficult trying to hand me a few shards of glass that they pick up with their drunken I feel like Cinderella, hands and knees on the floor to clean up other people’s messes. It is at this point and future moments like these that I am reminded exactly of what my role is here, I am simply help.

After 3 hours of work, I am drenched in sweat, noticeably sweatier than everyone else working. I feel like one of those obese people you see on Maury that sweats from taking one step. Maybe it’s because they are used to it or out of shape? Jon seems to be just working away like the freaking’ energizer bunny, untainted, without a bead of sweat on him. I feel like I have been there for three times longer than the three hours I was assigned to work. One of the bartenders taps me on the shoulder, then wipes the sweat off of his hand on his jeans. He acts like he got a bit of shit on his hands or something gross like that. He lets me know that I am done with my shift. This whole shift went so whirl-wind-fast that I am shocked to be finished and so tired and drenched in sweat from a mere 3-hour shift. As I follow him to the back he hands me my tip money for the shift and invites me to dinner “with the boys.” I have never made that much money within a simple 3 hours. I made $80 dollars in tips from just rushing around and stocking glasses. Feeling like celebrating I agree to dinner.

Having lived on campus until months earlier I apparently don’t seem to have the concept of going to big nice dinners in my head. To go home to my apartment with a crazy roommate who is now becoming a crystal mess is something I am at this time trying to avoid anyways, so I agree to go to this dinner. I assume that we are going to a near by taco shop with these new coworkers, who would later become the closest I would ever know to brothers. Instead, the boys take me to a real dinner with steak, calamari, and of course cocktails. I am quickly educated on the fact that after Friday happy hour they always pick a restaurant with booze.

There are 4 boys keeping me company at dinner, there is Johnny, a tall, boy next door kinda guy, tall, in his early 30s with muscles and a smile that contains a mixed of sex and apple pie. Next to him sits Paulo, he hails from South America, a beefy, built-mid-twenties type. When I say built, I mean, he looks like the gay stereotype with tight muscles, tanned body, light hair, perfect smile, teeth and a Latin accent complimented by a subtle lisp. There is also Anderson who is an average height. He is what I would consider a silver fox type. He has a slender build with blonde/grey-hair, he is the most down to earth out of the group, with a chic sense of style. He begins to educate me now on how one needed to always specify alcohol in their drinks to handle it right. His drink of choice seems to be cosmos with the best flavored-vodka possible. There is also Nick, a big handsome black man with a Montel Williams head, complimented by an ass the size of my head. It is a solid kind of posterior which resembled that of Michelangelo’s David with more muscle. He tells me about how he is near the end of Medical school and currently working on his residency.

By the end of the dinner I learn so much about everyone through the table’s gossip as I am the fly on the wall. I now know things that I wouldn’t normally car about like that Johnny is dating someone else’s boyfriend or ex who gave them a STD or a complex, I can’t follow this crap too closely cause there are so many conversations going on here. Anderson keeps on asking me the classic questions, where I came from, where I am going, followed by a Cosmo suggestion every few minutes. Nick just nods, smiles, then too asks about school, where I am going, then ventures into a story about one of his patients or a guy he has been seeing. Paulo meanwhile, keeps on separating the carbs in his meal from the protein when he thinks no one is looking. By the end of the meal his place has meat pieces and bones on one side of the plate with a pile or rice and bread on the other all separated by a red sauce, creating a seascape of the red sea. Paulo keeps on asking “honey, no boyfriend?” Then he venture off into conversations about himself and his boyfriend who’s name keeps changing every few minutes. Come to think of it, maybe it is different guys he is talking about and I can’t keep up.

Finally the bill comes, after I had dined on a meal of salad, cosmos and gay drama. For me, it is better than a Novella, with prettier men and more intense storylines. I got the salad trying to be thrifty, since this place is so expensive. Then Anderson tells me it will be $60 each. My eyes tear up. That is nearly all of tonight’s money. All that I could think of is about how much I am paying for just a fucking salad. Paulo sees the look of discontent in my eyes and suggests that I only pay $25 since I am not eating or drinking as much as the “big boys.” This is when I first realized that I am in a new game, new turf and I would have to play by new rules.

After a month of the Labyrinth, I am making an average of $6-900 a week and working around 25 hours and maintaining a full-time college student status. To me, then, this is equivalent to winning the lottery. I have quit the lame café that I had to work four times as much to make the same money. I am making enough to live in the expensive city and enjoy it. This is the beginning of when I learn what it meant to really have good taste and play with the big boys. The Castro makeover begins.

Chapter 1 (Part 1)

I interviewed with the owner of the bar about a week earlier, this is how it went down:
When I enter the bar, this older man, with a pencil-thin mustache and a suit greats me from a dark corner of the bar. He introduces himself as Charlie. It is as though he materializes out of nowhere. He then invites me to meet with him in one of the other rooms deeper into the bar. This bar, when you enter has two large rooms, which lead to a dance floor. He walks me to near the dance floor, which instantly confuses me because I, like many Jewish men have 2 left feet and couldn’t dance if my life depended on it. As I follow him he stops near a bar, next to the dance floor and puts his melted drink on it. His voice is low, subtle and unassuming. It is hard to hear what he is saying because with every word he says he turns away from me and refuses to give me eye contact. It’s like talking to Ray Charles or I guess someone like him who is alive. He sounds like a Teddy Ruxpin when they have run low on batteries, although less lovable and attractive. Unlike most interviews I have been to in the past, he is like a politician in an odd way and provides more questions than answers. It’s like talking to the Riddler. He seems to be a man of little words who talks with grumbles and eye contact more than actual cohesive conversational words. He doesn’t once look into my eyes during this meeting. It seems that he is looking right past me to something in the distance most of the time. Since this interview is conducted in the middle of a bar, which is covered with mirrors on every wall, I wouldn’t surprise me if he is just pre-occupied and caught off guard by his own awkward reflection in the distance. It’s like chatting in the middle of a fun house. I assume that distance could also be because my curly hair reminds him of Medusa and he had possibly has never seen a frizzy-jewfro like mine outside of it's natural habitat, Lohman's.

He of course glances down at his drink from time to time and swirls the sliver of a lemon-twist, which is when I notice his ugly beige Dockers and at this second he lets out a grumble. I am not sure if that is good or a bad sign. It’s similar to the sound a child or old man makes when constipated. His elusiveness just makes me more interested in working there for some reason. What can I say? I like a challenge.

At the interview, my questions consist of the following: “have you been here before?” followed by “what is your availability?”
I of course lie and flash my Kathy Lee Gifford/clone smile, which I had learn while working at Starbucks a few years earlier, where a fake smile is required before the blood oath. The second part was a joke, so please don’t sue me Starbucks.
Charlie skipped the usual interview question that I love. “Where do you see yourself in 10 years?”
To which I usually want to respond, “breathing” or “outside your window.”

I quickly told him that it’s my absolute favorite bar in the city. I n reality, I have never been inside this place until a month ago, when I turned 21. What I do know is that I need to make some cash to cover living in San Francisco, also known as the expensive shoe-box. I also have some eccentric habits to pay for like food and drinks.

After the questions, Charlie says, “You’re okay with working”… Mid-sentence he just grumbles, looks at me, my resume, me, the bartender who is setting up the bar out of the corner of his eye, his watch, grumbles, smiles and walks away. I assume this means that the interview is over? It feel like one of those bad hook ups, where once you look at them in your bed in sober-light, you have to find excuses of things to do to sound busy and make them leave. Instead of lying and telling me that his roommate or husband was coming home soon he just skipped to the punch and walked away. I leave feeling like I am doing the walk of shame without even having gotten laid, which I must say is less rewarding. I have a feeling that somehow I bombed this time and decide to go to the competing bar around the corner where I proceed to check my dignity at the door as most gays in my situation prior to rehab do and drink my dinner. This is a means to save money, calories, after all, I am on a budget. Once I am delightfully bombed, I go home to write about the situation after of course I make a sandwich from pop-tarts, turkey and Cheetos.

The Epilogue to the book I'm writing...

(Just a little background. The book I'm writing takes place years ago and loosely is based on my experiences working in the bar industry)

A few weeks ago I turned 26. It’s odd how with every year the birthdays seem to come faster and faster, and little by little they become more meaningless. When we are children, our birthdays are a big deal. We mark every year with a party, cake and if you’re me, then you piss yourself at the sign of a one Mr. Chuckey Cheese. It only happened twice, but I digress. After a decade or 2 the birthdays just become more meaningless numbers, like the amount of cigarettes in a carton or the lotto numbers on a losing ticket or blood pressure. The older I get the less I care about birthdays period. I care more about writing dick jokes and finding a way to make someone piss himself via a well choreographed sentence. That’s just me though. It’s the little things. I am not saying that I am Grandfather time, although I would love an excuse to tell “pull my finger jokes” and shit my pants without guilt or looking like a lunatic.

I do not live in, nor have I ever lived through any major wars or famines, unless one counts the great family feud of 2005. Like many Jewish families this was when my family would have an argument that would last years. Jews, unlike many other cultures, while we value family and bargains, we also are very stubborn people. In this book we will not go over what happened in this family rift because that is best suited for Oprah type shows. I will say this though, as result of my family being the way they are, I choose to stay as removed from the situation as possible. I work in a city and make my own family. This why I create my own life and one of the reasons I laugh at things that make most people cry. I will forever be that person who laughs at well written dead-baby jokes and funerals. It’s wrong but so are many things in life.

I live in San Francisco for the past 6 years or so. The most important thing to know about me is that I can barely make it through skipping breakfast and get cranky if I go more than five hours without food or booze, but we will go over that later. Word to the wise: DO NOT get between my food and me, cause it will get ugly. When I get nervous I have to pee every five minutes and sweat like a sumo wrestler. I do not think that all children are beautiful, some are ugly and that’s okay. I have learned the hard way that there is no nice way to tell someone that their kids are ugly, even though people with kids have to always ask stranger’s opinions on the looks of their kids.

“Isn’t he a looker?”

“He looks like something.”

“How could you say that?”

“It’s not like I said, I didn’t know cellulite started so early on some people.”

I don’t believe in blowing smoke up people’s asses, never have. Some people respect it. Others… well they see things differently. That’s fine, it’s just not me. I am one of the most stubborn people you have ever met and will argue for the sake of arguing some times just because I can. I am that guy. It's in my nature, for I am a Jew.

My biggest fear is that I, first generation Russian Jew, will end up getting one of those fat Russian man bellies. One of those bellies that no one knows what it’s made out of but it could be rubber. I imagine if someone ever shot a man with one of those bellies, the bullet would just get lodged in the rubbery-jelly belly and they would just be able to pull out the bullet and use it to pick out the fish guts from their teeth. These are the things I think about.

In my family, arguments/silence can last decades and sometimes lifetimes without lighting up. My parents came to the United States as refugees from the U.S.S.R. This explains the weird name. Yuri is my name, or as the kids in my kindergarten through sixth grad class liked to call me, urine, other’s stuck with Eureka’s Castle. The kids I went to school with weren’t all that creative. Somehow the chosen name alternatives work for the American kids I grew up with. Unlike them, I grew up with a father who thought that hot dogs, potatoes, vodka and cigarettes were the part of any well-rounded meal. As an adult, I blame my hunger for hot dogs, vodka and cigarettes and anything similar to this nutritional training. I had a mother who thought that everything should be made in the microwave, and packed lunches like bread with butter or caviar. This was just one of the reasons that I rarely brought lunch to school. The dirty looks the other kids would give me when they would notice my stinky lunch was enough to make me wish I could starve myself. Instead I decided to compulsively eat, but that's another story and really the Russian oddness made me stronger. It also made me better understand many an Elliot Smith song.

Unlike my parents, I have no real clue what it's like to live in any country that reprimands me for being a Jew. I have never really been looked down upon for being a Jew. I do though to have the people working at sizzler and any buffet stare at your group with evil eyes because they know what we have planned before we desecrate their buffet. My grandma would always put half of the buffet in her purse for later. She would then complain to the waitresses for the food being too spicy or too bland while my grandfather would be mumbling bad things about the waitress in Yiddish under his breath. My mother would then force us to change tables a minimum of 30 times upon getting seated at any restaurant, while one of my aunts would be talking about stuff and wave her hands so much it looked like she was conducting an orchestra.

Unlike my family, I only know what it's like to be an American. What it's like to live in a place that treats me differently due to my sexual orientation. Gay men can't kiss in a T.V. commercial here without everyone shitting a brick and making a big deal out of it. When we perform anywhere as comedians, actors or anything we are called “alternative” when the world doesn’t even know what they are really comparing us to.

I am just 26, still a boy as others have put it. At least that is what people tell me who is even a minute older than me. Maybe they say it to make themselves feel better about growing older? What I wonder is how long this will last. One can only be young for so long. Suddenly, you wake up and the conversations shift from, “you’re just a boy” to “you’re just…” followed by that uncomfortable silence in conversation. People already ask me if I'm tired all the time regardless of how much sleep I have had. I assume that by 45, the conversations will shift to asking me how much longer I will wait to have my droopy chin lifted.
It's odd to be in my mid-twenties cause really this is the turning point. The other day I noticed that everyone on TV is my age or younger. It's weird how that happens. You grow up with everyone seemingly so much older than you and everyone telling you that you have the rest of your life and then bam, it just stops. All of a sudden, you're not the same kid with pre-braces crooked teeth who has to recite their havtorah portion in front of a congregation of smiling people, even though we all know you sounded like shit. I mean it’s really cruel to make boys have to sing in front of a room full of people while their voice is changing and makes them sound worse than Carol Channing’s normal voice.

Regardless of what has happened since the day my mother gave birth to me, I am still the kid who started out as a small child, with skin so light, nearly translucent, to the point where you could see the every vein on my body. I looked like that guy from the movie "powder," but with a huge alien baby head. In time I just covered that up with a farmer's tan and sometimes a nice store bought one if possible. This makes it so that I can be seen without the need of sunglasses or lighting adjustments. I am still the boy who was born on the day that Mark Spits won the Gold in the smog-congested city of angels, where you could still buy oranges on the side of the road, before popping by a drive-through Starbucks, and possibly while on the way to a plastic surgery consultation or acting lesson. In Southern California, where I grew up, this all could be done in just a short afternoon. Where I grew up, it wasn't uncommon to for a young girl to get a boob-job for her high school graduation gift.

I have heard that with age comes some wisdom, although, I still see myself as the awkward big-headed, blue-eyed, little-Jew-nosed kid who was teased for being different in school. I was the kid with the weird name to jerky kindergartners, who is now I am growing into my own skin. I am still the same insecure, pleasantly plump, blubber, pink-cheeked boy that in elementary school had bullies follow me home throwing pebbles at my head for shits and giggles. To this day I don't get how that was funny. I do though understand the reason one would throw shit at my head. My head has always been kind of hard to miss, it's HUGE, like Charlie Brown style. In the third grade this kid Kevin would always remind me by asking how Snoopie was. I have a head larger than most people. I would look like an alien until I grew into it. Some men have large hands, makes everyone question what other appendages they have that match. I have a head so large that when I try on a “one-size fits all” hat it doesn’t fit. It’s so large, that when I worked at jobs in high school, which required a hat, they had to special order one for me.
Too bad no one ever says, “Damn look at that guy’s head, it’s so big, you know what that means!”
Instead they usually say, “look at the melon, on that one, and to make it worse he has the tiniest little feet and hands, how awkward…”

I am the boy that since then has learned to laugh at myself and those around even when it’s just not appropriate to do so. This has created a very cynical and often morbid sense of humor that is of an acquired taste. It has also turned me into the person that will snicker at jokes out of poor taste that offend racially, morally and individually. This in itself makes life’s trials and tribulations more bearable. I am a guy that pees in the shower when I am in a hurry. I am a person who tells people that I am 5’8 when I’m really only 5’7 and ¾. I am the guy that used to eat a whole ½ gallon of ice cream in one sitting, and everything under the kitchen sink because contrary to popular belief, food is love at least while I am eating it. I am the kid that still rolls my eyes when I hear a really skinny person complain about how hard it is to be skinny and able to eat whatever they damned-well want without gaining an ounce. I am still the kid that is supported/raised by a single mother who did her best to support me. I am the guy who has worked ever since I was fifteen years old to get by because I had to even though no one forced me. I am the guy who put himself through school serving people coffee, whipping up puke, cleaning toilets, busing tables and later on by getting them wasted. I am a working class, blue-collar man. I am and will often be remembered by many as a bartender. I’m okay with that. Most people aren’t even that lucky.

Why should someone care about me? Many don’t and I assume that they shouldn’t. I am easily forgettable. I am a nobody with a degree in talking, literally a degree in Speech and Communications, which is only a few steps from a high school diploma, but attached to the loans which own me. I hope that some people at least see that I have a voice and what some may consider a unique point of view. I am just a gay-Jew-man who talks a lot. Maybe one might call my rambling a collection of "coming of age stories" about coming out in a harsh world, in what is often called a “gay Mecca”, with an unusual family both chosen and biological. I am just the help and can only enlighten readers with my point of view as a working class gay man who works as a bartender in San Francisco’s perplexing Castro District, in one of the largest gay bars there. Hopefully I gave shed light on what people think my life is like versus the reality.

I am am going on 5-ish years that I have worked at the “Labyrinth,” A bar in the middle of the peculiar Castro bubble. A bubble, is exactly what that place is. To my experience it has been much like that high school bubble that many of us survived from in our teens and if your friends were like mine, people eventually left that bubble for brighter futures or more often rehab and popping out babies. This bar has become my home in many ways. The bar metaphorically speaking has become my adoptive parent who adopted my orphaned self and nurtured me oddly. While we haven’t meant for it to be this way, life isn’t generally how we plan it. As I have grown, the bar restrained me. As I experience life, the bar has educated me. As much as I would like to say I hate this place for taking away my early 20s, and forcing me to work every major street-fair, holiday, week day, Madonna/Kylie/Pop nightmare cod-release party and weekend of these years. I in confidence will admit on occasion, this experience has actually made me stronger. Maybe I should leave San Francisco before I become too soft. The Castro oddly is the part of San Francisco that has softened me, while giving me the edge that we San Franciscans are not known for having. I am hard-boiled me, so to speak due to the weird shit I have seen bartending and living here. I would like to show others what the weird world I live in is like.

Something that happens when you're GAY

In my experience, when a man is gay, the common assumption is that they must be single. We all apparently fit a certain mold. I don't know if this is the case for lesbians. For them, the opposite is probably true. They meet each other, get a U-haul, a guinness and they are coupled off. That is just my observation of what people assume about lesbians though. It's just odd to me. If I am out at a bar, working or just hanging out, there is always some straight girl that has to approach me. They start to ask me questions about being gay, because as gays we automatically become the embassadors of anything gay. It is apparently our duty to speak on behalf of every other gay which is odd. The fact that they assume I am gay doesn't bother me because that is nothing to be ashamed of. It's the second part that bothers me.

They always have to make the same comment which is something along the lines of, "have you met my friend ______? I think he would be perfect for you. Sure he's 400 pounds and still lives with his mother, but he's gay."

It's stupid. Just because we a re both friends of Dorothy doesn't mean we are going to be a match. Second, I wouldn't use the same logic and fix up my straight friends based on the fact that they have corresponding genetalia. After the clueless straight girl makes her brilliant statement of how she thinks she has just my match, I tell her whats up nicely.

Me: "Sorry, I'm actually I have a boyfriend."

Her: "Oh, well then after that's over."

Me: "Huh?"

Her: "Where is your partner right now?"

Me: "We aren't connected at the hip and we aren't in business together."

Her: "Um... okay. How long have you been partnered?"

Me: "We have been together a few years but we aren't opening up any businesses any times soon, he is my boyfriend."

Who the hell has that kind of response? This exchange of words happens at least once a month. Not sure where this is going but I'm sure this will turn into a joke somehow...

Recovering Commies Podcast with Christina Pazsitsky

Check out the Recovering Commies Podcast on iTunes and rate us! "Recovering Commies Presents: Behind the Curtain." In this episode we we interview the amazing Christina Pazsitsky who headlined our last show. We talk about comedy, life and what it's like to be a "Recovering Commie." We also mention Bobby Lee and Margaret Cho. If you know either, please feel free to send the Podcast to one of them.


http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/recovering-commies-presents/id463087309?i=96974074

Rant about balls.

Whenever I hear someone say "Man that guy has some big balls," I instantly want to call a doctor. The expression doesn't make sense. It make no fucking sense. Balls are fucking gross. Balls are so gross that even they know how it. That's why they aways stay far away from each other whenever they get the chance.

If someone has big balls, there is a problem, maybe an infection and it's not a sign of virility. No one sees a man chopping wood in a forrest and then says, "Sure he can do that, but that must be because he has balls the size of grapefruits." That would just be stupid.

Women don't talk about their dates to their girl friends like, "he was so cute."

Then their girl friend interrupts, "yeah, yeah, but the balls, how were they?"

No one cares about fucking balls. The expressions we use make it for some reason sound like we do. Like when a woman gets something done or becomes committed to a cause, there is always some asshole who says, "she has some balls."

Using any expression with balls and women unless they are perverted, make no sense. No she doesn't have big balls! That's teaching the wrong anatomy to the kids.

Another thing that doesn't make sense to me is how suicide bombers always say they do it because they will get 72 virgins in the afterlife. Who the hell wants that? That would be like getting 72 of the girl you dated in high school who thought dry-humping could get them pregnant.

Have you ever been so broke that you find yourself stealing toilet paper from work?

Have you ever been so broke that you find yourself stealing toilet paper from work? Then you get home, ready to use this infamous teepee just to find out it's 1-ply? It's an awful feeling. It's worse than that feeling when you just realize that you have tapped someone else's bumper while backing out of a parking lot, but no one else saw and then you start wondering if you should really leave a note or put the petal to the metal. Using 1-ply toilet paper is a joke. Never trust anyone who uses 1-ply toilet paper in their home or office. The worst one is going on a date, using their bathroom and finding that they use it. I would rather find out that they voted for George Bush then see that shit in anyone's house. Using 1-ply is essentially telling people that you have no personal hygene. Why use 1-ply? You may as well use your hands cause that's pretty much the same thing. Don't shake hands with the 1-plyers, cause well you know where their hands have been.

I don't know where this rant is going either. Sorry. I have never been fired from a job for stealing toilet paper but could imagine the embarrassment that follows.

Then calling up my mother, "hey mom, it happened again."

Mom, (Russian accent) "What happened? The toilet paper sing? Really? In Russshia we had no toilet paper. Vee used Newspaper."

"It was 1-ply too! I feel so stupid."

"You should. 1-ply? May asvell use newspaper. "