Friday, April 9, 2010
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Story 10, Story Reposted and edited (first post)
Image taken compliments of unrealitymag.com
What it's like for me there.
(author's note, I suggest to start from the first story post and to work your way up to this one if this particular story doesn't make complete sense)
Now I am beginning to understand what they had meant in “Showgirls” when saying to “watch out for marbles.” I am now a part of that world. I am not a stripper, nor do I really have the dead eyes down. I am living the bartender lifestyle, my mother will be so proud. I don’t have to strip for my diner, but the competition here is just as bad, its the type where everyone is always someone out to steal your thunder. By steal, I say rip your thunder is more like it. Here, there is always someone ready to take your place. I am wearing newish jeans to work. They are slightly tighter then the pairs of jeans past. They also have the smallest waist of any jeans I have ever owned, so I am very happy for now, but am feeling the pressure to slim down. Within the first five minutes of work, one of the “regulars” has the nerve to mention to me that it looks as though I have gained a few pounds in the past few months, but they love my haircut. What the fuck does that mean? Essentially, they are saying that I look like a pig, but no one will notice cause my hair is great. Are the backhanded compliments also a part of the gay turf? I want to turn back to the fat fucker and ask him if, or actually when he has to pay people to have sex with him, cause he is the type that has to pay for sex. When they do actually bite the bullet, do they have issues finding his penis amongst all his fat? The truth is that I stay silent. I have only been working at the bar for a few months and really have little recollection of this customer who looks a lot like that fat molester looking guy who put together the backstreet boys. For some reason the fact that they have the nerve to come up to me and say something like that just makes me even more upset. In my mind this is may the moment I switch from innocent gay boy to someone who cuts a bitch. I already have issues with my weight, but to have a stranger come up to me and tell me this crap is ridiculous.
Everyone seems to be so damned tough in that bar and the public just adds to that impression. I just don’t get why. On top of everyone’s cut-throat attitude there, I have to deal with stranger’s/customers crap. They give me their unsolicited opinions on me personally, my body, my brain, cause I’m either too smart or too dumb, my eye color, my mannerisms being too gay or not being gay enough, who I date and everything in between. I get told a lot that at this point I am a “straight acting” guy. Why is it that gay men find the concept of this so enticing? I get the description and why they find a straight as more attractive and passing in gay culture, but who the fuck wants to date a straight man? I want a gay man that knows what they want and is confident in who they are. Besides, I want a man that has been around the blog and knows what they are doing in the sack as well.
They talk about me with both compliments and down right insults within an ears reach. It’s like I am not human and just the help and am not supposed to have feelings. Even though I try not to listen, it’s hard to be thick-skinned all the time. I also wonder how much of the shit they say is true, exaggerated or false. It’s hard to deal with and something I never really bargained for. Everyone at that bar seems to walk on eggshells out of fear of Phil. While working, and when out in public, these guys always act tougher than rocks, like gay rebels without causes. The interesting thing is that while working at a bar they may give off the appearance of being there party animals, the life of the party, but the truth is that most of it is a show. The “part” is a distraction from who my co-workers really are and the how normal they really are, if normal exists. Many of them have created this show to avoid their own problems, families, and their current life-shortcomings. I will admit that these people work just as hard as they play. Everyone takes their jobs very seriously, as a profession and not just a job the way much of the public may assume.
I have come in to this industry as a blind man in a city of lights, unsure of what this place has to offer me and what it will take from me, rhetorically speaking. What it will this probably take away from me next? I assume my youth and my soul, just an assumption… In-turn I am not sure what I will take away from my time here. I fear though ending up a life-long bartender, although I am in school and that’s not the goal, it never seems to be. The other issue is this, what’s wrong with being a lifetime bartender? It’s not like I’m committing to a life working drive-throughs. It’s nice to be the life of the party, but all the time? Do I always have to appear happy? If I have learned anything from the “star magazine,” I have learned that no one can be happy at all times, we all have bad days, just ask Lindsey Lohan. Regardless of the questions I have, it is a good profession for the right people. Some people seems to portray the bartender roll to me like that of a model, everyone has an expiration date “make your money while you can, you wont be the it boy forever.” Isn’t that true in all fields and pretty much everything we do in life though? Work it before the sand runs out?
Since working here, I do not like to admit the changes coming over me. I am transitioning into a person who I do not know, although I am familiar with him. I am now peppering my sentences with words that I swore I would never use, the other day I said that something was “fierce” and wanted to punch myself out. I am getting awkwardly more comfortable with being the “big-headed fag boy” bullies always knew I was. I am more comfortable with the world of the gay, the rainbow and all that is connected to this. I am learning how to flirt with men and play the song and dance with them. It’s hard because we are all raised to date and flirt with the opposite sex, but for homosexuality, kids my age have no real gay relationship role models. This is an important social aspect of growing into an adult gay man, and not in a dirty way.
There are “gay” phrases that I will not use. It's not that i can't use them. I don’t use female words for men, unless I want to piss them off. For example, if some burly guy comes into the bar and asks me for a drink, but is a doosh-bag while ordering, I’ll call him Sally to get a rise out of him and piss him off. I do not have a lisp, but am getting more comfortable with my feminine side, although I don’t plan on entering the world of drag any time soon. I will not yet admit out loud my closeted love of old Mariah songs. Yes, I said Mariah Carey, she may at times look like a Rhino in heels, not saying she looks fat, but more so that she needs to stop wearing the same thing she’s worn since she was 19… Regardless, the woman can sing like no other and I’ll leave it at that.
I am getting used to the hassle and bustle of busing a club that is packed from night to night. I am one of the little lemmings who keep it clean and carry heavy boxes of beer through crowds of hundreds of people on a daily basis. I am oddly used to getting groped, ass-grabbed and having coworkers at times treat me like a simple machine. The messy drunks are like moving wallpaper there. There is a furry ignited in each and every one of them once the pop music plays, their inner 12-year old girl is let out and the man they are is forgotten while the music goes. For the entertainment value of this alone, I am more comfortable with the fact that I traded in the smell of coffee grounds-soaked work cloths for ones soaked in beer, cheap booze and man musk.
I now know that in a bar there is no such thing as an appropriate topic of conversation. There are no doors left closed. Most customers have no limits. Every queen seemed to feel it their personal duty to work your self-esteem down to a nub, to the best of their power just because they can. It’s like they are working hard to watch you crumble. If you break, these bitches win. If you don’t react to these cunts, then really you win. If you loose a few pounds, they would tell you. If they thought you looked attractive, they will sure as hell let you know. If you have a bad day and come off as a dick, they will tell you and make sure to cause a scene at your expense. If you are a barback accidentally take their melted, nearly empty, well cocktail, the storm will begin. Word to the wise, never get between a gay and their drinks, the consequences could create a monsoon.
The other thing I am now used to is the sort of initiation that one goes through when barbacking. It was almost like hazing but not in a weird frat sort of way that is illegal and homoerotic, one could only dream about that one. The homoerotic undertones are just an accepted part of the scenery and frankly, welcomed by most employees to a degree. If you do a good job as a barback, coworkers will much like the customers, do little holding back. If they think you suck, they would make sure you understand such. If they simply do not like you, you then are simply not a member of their exclusive club. It’s like trying to get a seat at the popular kid’s table in high school, you have to earn your respect and place. A thick skin is absolutely necessary to make it in that place. Otherwise, an unsuspecting new hire may as well quit before getting hired. Nothing is to be taken too personally or literally. While this sounds easy, it’s the hardest part of the game, but most crucial.
(to be continued)
Friday, April 2, 2010
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Story 9. SIX MONTHS LATER, less funny, but true
It’s about 6 months now that I have been working there, about 5 months since I have enjoyed the peace of a weekend and the world of the living. My life is now all about school, going out and the bar. Actually, it’s less about school and more about everything else. My waist is about 2 inches smaller now. I have contact lenses now and am rarely seen in those clunky glasses buddy holly glasses that are windows into my past life. Life seems to be getting more confusing, while are the same time, it’s starting to make more sense. I now wear a size medium tee shirt at work, which I have cut the sleeves off of. For many this may be no big deal. For me this is a major step for me. I am the same guy who has always avoided showing off my body because I have never been at that comfort level. My hair now is also 4-inches shorter and well groomed. I fear that I will soon start looking like one of the guys from that lame “Queer Eye For the Straight Guy” show.
It’s three weeks before Thanksgiving and I want to go visit my mother who has just moved to the lovely state of Texas, a place I really know nothing about. I am from San Diego, which seems to be a very different place. All I do know is that Texas is a red state. For this reason alone, I have no interest in the place and I imagine my family to be of the only Jews who are calling that state home.
I write down my request in letter-form to the boss, which I am told to set in his mailbox because there really isn’t anyone to talk to about this. The odd thing is that I have been there 6 months already and have yet to really meet or see the owner Phil since I got this job. He is like Charlie from “Charlie’s Angels,” only to be known via telephone conversation, through other coworkers or through notes he mysteriously leaves on our time cards. In the note I nicely ask for Thanksgiving off and tell him that I will though be available for other holidays. Then, as I am writing my time off request, there is Aaron a few feet behind me staring at himself through a mirror we have perched above the time clock. He is putting on his usual Spackle routine of eye cream, powder and a sheer gloss. Aaron’s routine of getting ready for work is much like that of a show girl’s in the old movies, powder and a mirror with a lot of lights. He then glances over my shoulder to see what I am writing. I hate when people glance over my shoulder it makes me as uneasy as when you’re driving and notice a cop behind you, and even though your doing nothing wrong, you feel like you’re going to get busted for something. Aaron proceeds to fill me in and explains that“daddy” may not like me taking off on a major holiday. Aaron then explains how I could easily get fired for the request alone because I am inconveniencing him. Another possible outcome apparently is that he could simply make it hard for me later, with bad shifts or no shifts. The way he warns me, it comes off so unreal, as though my life is now destined to be under the thumb and of Phil who will guide my future’s fate. The way people describe Phil is almost as though he is the god father. The amount that my coworkers fear Phil’s wrath is immeasurable and hard to put into words. He has this power over many of us that I just can’t figure out.
A week later, on a Sunday night I had finish working happy hour and decide to then stay out for one drink. One thing about working in a bar is the second you are off the clock, everyone wants to get u loaded. Keeping this in mind, one drink soon turns to shot, after shot, random drink, after random drink. I was about an hour and a half into my night, I am happily trashed when I bumped into a group of my coworkers who are seemingly equally obliterated. Since they find me at our bar, we all decide that it’s Jagger Bomb time. Whoever thought up the idea of Jagger bombs, should be shot. It’s a almost as evil a concoction as a Long Island Iced Tea. It’s at this point when I know I’m going to be sick from this, but decide to keep going because I’m young and stupid. Soon we are off. This is where my night normally ends. Tonight this is where my night just begins. We hop from bar to bar. They all start to blend together and really after a while all the drinks taste the same. The one thing I can remember is that it’s like going out with celebrities. These guys get us the best drinks, set our group in the best locations and always tip like money was toilet paper. I have never seen money used so frivolously. I am someone raised by immigrants who actually came to the U.S. as refugees, spending money so casually like it’s nothing astonishes me.
By the end of the night/the beginning of the morning, our group has thinned out. We end up at someone’s house, I’m not exactly sure who’s, maybe Johnny’s. Whoever’s home it is, he has and entire bar set up in their kitchen. In my drunken stooper I can’t tell how and when we had left the bar and how we are now at someone’s at-home bar. This is the first time I have ever been smashed with these guys. It’s odd to be this fucked up with co-workers around. Is this standard? By this point I am so drunk that I can’t exactly remember how long I have been in this person’s apartment.
I find myself staring at this beautiful, blue tequila bottle and listening to some random dude chatting into my ear who’s name escapes me. Is I am staring at the bottle, I can see my horrid reflection in it. It’s at the point in the night when your own reflection begins to look scary. It’s like I am in a trance, “snap out of it girl, I got some frosted flakes!” He passes me this plate that looks like it’s covered with powdered sugar. I am not known for passing up stuff with powdered sugar. I am not really sure what’s going on so I take my finger to the plate of powder then wipe it on my tongue and gums. This isn’t the kind of sugar I am used to. I pass the plate on. Aaron then says, “look boys touch of the gums, like a pro.” My entire mouth is numb, the sensation is uncomfortable while euphoric at the same time. I feel like a mess inside, yet I for some reason can’t stop smiling. I watch as they pass around this magical hors d'oeuvres. They keep passing around a bowl, while James played bartender and puts on some pop music selections off of his ipod. I can’t tell how long I have been there, although I feel really chipper now. James keeps topping off my glass while calling me stud. As James fills my glass for the millionth time, Paulo in his Latino gay accent says, “I heard that princesss is taking Thankssssgiving off, ha, nice working with you babe.” He then gives me a hug and a playful peck on the cheek.
It’s morning now. I just woke up with the taste of last night in my cotton mouthed-face, on the couch of a living room that I can’t recall, alone in yesterday’s cloths. My shirt is on the ground for some reason and covered in the smell of puke. I think I’m in the apartment from the night before. There is that powdered sugar plate which is now empty on the coffee table in front of me, next to a bullet looking thing that kind of looks like one of those magnifying glasses used to look at jewels. I am hugging my favorite black hoodie like it’s a lover and have some strange cat, who has set up shop on my thigh. I have no recollection of how I came to be here shirtless, alone and on some strange couch. I left shirtless in my hoody with the taste of vomit and moth-balls in my mouth. On my way to the bus, being in San Francisco’s wonderful Lower Haight, I stop by Walgreens to get the usual hangover treatment of pepto, gatoraid and mints. While eclectic, I hear this isn’t always the best part of town. This particular part of the Lower Haight area happens to currently be peppered with cracked out homeless people and recovering hippies that took one too many doses. These people are the hippies who haven’t sold out, end up in corporate America or as Whole Foods junkies.
Once inside, the maze of aisles again, I am reminded of the night’s events with one burp. That burps makes me realize that I am, a still astonishingly drunk chemistry lab, ready to explode everywhere. Once I have the Wallgreens version of Gatorade, in hand, peptobizmuf, mints and random crap that I find near the register, I am ready to get going. As I get to the register the clerk looks me straight in the eyes. It’s as though she is looking into my soul. It’s freaking me out. She looked like she has seen a ghost. She mutters, the amount I owe and then says in a stern tone “Ya’ll best be safe out there. Take care of yourself.” I don’t get what she was talking about, pop open the drink in hand and ran to approaching bus right outside.
Once I walk into my apartment, my mother calls that instant. Being a good boy, I answer because I am like many gay men, a self-admitted momma’s boy. She asks me about the upcoming holiday plans and I then confirmed that I am coming. By the third step into the apartment I can feel a grumbling in my gut. I burp and tell my mom I have to go, hang up on her and run straight to the bathroom. I puke all over the bathtub because that is the first thing I see when entering the bathroom. I turn around the sink and begin to wash my face, brush the sins off and put a clean taste in my mouth. As I looked in the mirror, I realized how fucked up I look. My eyes are met with purplish-bags and my cheeks are pale and flushed at the same time. My skin has this off grayish hew. Within seconds of seeing this horrid vision that I am trying to wash away, I feel the grumble again and end up hugging the toilet bowl as though it’s a long lover and puking.
This morning, being is more brutal than any I have seen since the 9th grade. It’s like I’m fourteen years old all over again. I am more hungover than I was the first time I got drunk enough to puke all over the Denny’s bathroom. Like that faithful New Years eve, last night I drank every alcoholic type of beverage within site to show I could roll. Unlike that New Year’s I did not professing my love to my best friend who would later be my girlfriend and then become my best fag hag and smoke 10 cigarettes in 1 sitting because I could. So much has changed, yet so little. Like then, I am just a small fish in a big pond, learning to be me in just another coming of age story.
It’s three weeks before Thanksgiving and I want to go visit my mother who has just moved to the lovely state of Texas, a place I really know nothing about. I am from San Diego, which seems to be a very different place. All I do know is that Texas is a red state. For this reason alone, I have no interest in the place and I imagine my family to be of the only Jews who are calling that state home.
I write down my request in letter-form to the boss, which I am told to set in his mailbox because there really isn’t anyone to talk to about this. The odd thing is that I have been there 6 months already and have yet to really meet or see the owner Phil since I got this job. He is like Charlie from “Charlie’s Angels,” only to be known via telephone conversation, through other coworkers or through notes he mysteriously leaves on our time cards. In the note I nicely ask for Thanksgiving off and tell him that I will though be available for other holidays. Then, as I am writing my time off request, there is Aaron a few feet behind me staring at himself through a mirror we have perched above the time clock. He is putting on his usual Spackle routine of eye cream, powder and a sheer gloss. Aaron’s routine of getting ready for work is much like that of a show girl’s in the old movies, powder and a mirror with a lot of lights. He then glances over my shoulder to see what I am writing. I hate when people glance over my shoulder it makes me as uneasy as when you’re driving and notice a cop behind you, and even though your doing nothing wrong, you feel like you’re going to get busted for something. Aaron proceeds to fill me in and explains that“daddy” may not like me taking off on a major holiday. Aaron then explains how I could easily get fired for the request alone because I am inconveniencing him. Another possible outcome apparently is that he could simply make it hard for me later, with bad shifts or no shifts. The way he warns me, it comes off so unreal, as though my life is now destined to be under the thumb and of Phil who will guide my future’s fate. The way people describe Phil is almost as though he is the god father. The amount that my coworkers fear Phil’s wrath is immeasurable and hard to put into words. He has this power over many of us that I just can’t figure out.
A week later, on a Sunday night I had finish working happy hour and decide to then stay out for one drink. One thing about working in a bar is the second you are off the clock, everyone wants to get u loaded. Keeping this in mind, one drink soon turns to shot, after shot, random drink, after random drink. I was about an hour and a half into my night, I am happily trashed when I bumped into a group of my coworkers who are seemingly equally obliterated. Since they find me at our bar, we all decide that it’s Jagger Bomb time. Whoever thought up the idea of Jagger bombs, should be shot. It’s a almost as evil a concoction as a Long Island Iced Tea. It’s at this point when I know I’m going to be sick from this, but decide to keep going because I’m young and stupid. Soon we are off. This is where my night normally ends. Tonight this is where my night just begins. We hop from bar to bar. They all start to blend together and really after a while all the drinks taste the same. The one thing I can remember is that it’s like going out with celebrities. These guys get us the best drinks, set our group in the best locations and always tip like money was toilet paper. I have never seen money used so frivolously. I am someone raised by immigrants who actually came to the U.S. as refugees, spending money so casually like it’s nothing astonishes me.
By the end of the night/the beginning of the morning, our group has thinned out. We end up at someone’s house, I’m not exactly sure who’s, maybe Johnny’s. Whoever’s home it is, he has and entire bar set up in their kitchen. In my drunken stooper I can’t tell how and when we had left the bar and how we are now at someone’s at-home bar. This is the first time I have ever been smashed with these guys. It’s odd to be this fucked up with co-workers around. Is this standard? By this point I am so drunk that I can’t exactly remember how long I have been in this person’s apartment.
I find myself staring at this beautiful, blue tequila bottle and listening to some random dude chatting into my ear who’s name escapes me. Is I am staring at the bottle, I can see my horrid reflection in it. It’s at the point in the night when your own reflection begins to look scary. It’s like I am in a trance, “snap out of it girl, I got some frosted flakes!” He passes me this plate that looks like it’s covered with powdered sugar. I am not known for passing up stuff with powdered sugar. I am not really sure what’s going on so I take my finger to the plate of powder then wipe it on my tongue and gums. This isn’t the kind of sugar I am used to. I pass the plate on. Aaron then says, “look boys touch of the gums, like a pro.” My entire mouth is numb, the sensation is uncomfortable while euphoric at the same time. I feel like a mess inside, yet I for some reason can’t stop smiling. I watch as they pass around this magical hors d'oeuvres. They keep passing around a bowl, while James played bartender and puts on some pop music selections off of his ipod. I can’t tell how long I have been there, although I feel really chipper now. James keeps topping off my glass while calling me stud. As James fills my glass for the millionth time, Paulo in his Latino gay accent says, “I heard that princesss is taking Thankssssgiving off, ha, nice working with you babe.” He then gives me a hug and a playful peck on the cheek.
It’s morning now. I just woke up with the taste of last night in my cotton mouthed-face, on the couch of a living room that I can’t recall, alone in yesterday’s cloths. My shirt is on the ground for some reason and covered in the smell of puke. I think I’m in the apartment from the night before. There is that powdered sugar plate which is now empty on the coffee table in front of me, next to a bullet looking thing that kind of looks like one of those magnifying glasses used to look at jewels. I am hugging my favorite black hoodie like it’s a lover and have some strange cat, who has set up shop on my thigh. I have no recollection of how I came to be here shirtless, alone and on some strange couch. I left shirtless in my hoody with the taste of vomit and moth-balls in my mouth. On my way to the bus, being in San Francisco’s wonderful Lower Haight, I stop by Walgreens to get the usual hangover treatment of pepto, gatoraid and mints. While eclectic, I hear this isn’t always the best part of town. This particular part of the Lower Haight area happens to currently be peppered with cracked out homeless people and recovering hippies that took one too many doses. These people are the hippies who haven’t sold out, end up in corporate America or as Whole Foods junkies.
Once inside, the maze of aisles again, I am reminded of the night’s events with one burp. That burps makes me realize that I am, a still astonishingly drunk chemistry lab, ready to explode everywhere. Once I have the Wallgreens version of Gatorade, in hand, peptobizmuf, mints and random crap that I find near the register, I am ready to get going. As I get to the register the clerk looks me straight in the eyes. It’s as though she is looking into my soul. It’s freaking me out. She looked like she has seen a ghost. She mutters, the amount I owe and then says in a stern tone “Ya’ll best be safe out there. Take care of yourself.” I don’t get what she was talking about, pop open the drink in hand and ran to approaching bus right outside.
Once I walk into my apartment, my mother calls that instant. Being a good boy, I answer because I am like many gay men, a self-admitted momma’s boy. She asks me about the upcoming holiday plans and I then confirmed that I am coming. By the third step into the apartment I can feel a grumbling in my gut. I burp and tell my mom I have to go, hang up on her and run straight to the bathroom. I puke all over the bathtub because that is the first thing I see when entering the bathroom. I turn around the sink and begin to wash my face, brush the sins off and put a clean taste in my mouth. As I looked in the mirror, I realized how fucked up I look. My eyes are met with purplish-bags and my cheeks are pale and flushed at the same time. My skin has this off grayish hew. Within seconds of seeing this horrid vision that I am trying to wash away, I feel the grumble again and end up hugging the toilet bowl as though it’s a long lover and puking.
This morning, being is more brutal than any I have seen since the 9th grade. It’s like I’m fourteen years old all over again. I am more hungover than I was the first time I got drunk enough to puke all over the Denny’s bathroom. Like that faithful New Years eve, last night I drank every alcoholic type of beverage within site to show I could roll. Unlike that New Year’s I did not professing my love to my best friend who would later be my girlfriend and then become my best fag hag and smoke 10 cigarettes in 1 sitting because I could. So much has changed, yet so little. Like then, I am just a small fish in a big pond, learning to be me in just another coming of age story.
This Is Effed Up, Texas!
This Is Effed Up, Texas!
Texas makes no sense... You can't buy certain kinds of porn there, but you can make your children watch porn? Makes no sense...
Texas makes no sense... You can't buy certain kinds of porn there, but you can make your children watch porn? Makes no sense...
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