| THIS IS A READ-ONLY ARCHIVE FROM THE SORABJI.COM MESSAGE BOARDS (1995-2016). |
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| By Sorabji on Thursday, February 19, 1998 - 11:44 pm: |
things go well for a while, but then they go to the trash. then they go well again. and you have to ask yourself, where do i go when there seems to be nowhere to go? who do i talk to when i run out of phone numbers? tonight, after someone asked me exactly these very questions, i discovered the answer. i go out to eat. i go to swanky sit-down $40/dinner/person restaurants and i bank the success of the evening on what conversation and soon-thereafter i have with the waitress. assuming i even get a waitress. but the point is, i go to restaurants and bars and delis in every one of these boroughs looking for waitresses and bartenders who will talk to me beyond the quasi-mystified "you want mustard *and* mayonnaise on that sandwich??" stage. it works, some nights, because the conversation is forced, and demonstratively intimate, so they listen to my nonsense whether they mean to or not. this is why i am drawn to waitresses. we *have* to talk. she has to talk to me. we *will* communicate by the end of the night. tonight, though, i went down the street to the big-shot mexican restaurant grand opening. banners, flags, blaring hispanic music. cheap burritos. thing is, this place was *really* mexican. no one there spoke a breath of english. i walked in to the bar part of the place and got the look-over from a dozen bar-stooled women smoking the nasty cigarette and squealing amongst themselves the instant i left the room (or so i let myself believe). among a baker's dozen people sitting at the bar and a half-dozen waitresses and cooks it looked like i was the only person-with-a-penis in the whole goddam place. and i was clearly the only person there who spoke english at all. so, when i asked for a Heineken i had to understand that the waitress who said "Eineka" meant Heineken. the night flailed on. i ate, and god the food was fabulous. i mean really, the sort of thing that makes me wonder why i don't eat out every goddam night. it razed the indifference from my mind and made me reconsider eating as a thing to think about doing at least once or twice a day but, well, let's forget the food. the waitress did not seem even to look at me as she fake-scribbled into her little receipt-notepad thing. at the end of the dinner i told her, exactly three (3) times each: "i would like this food to go." "I would like to take the food home." "can i have this food to take home with me?" she nodded vigorously, smiled like a banshee, then threw my fabulous food into the dishwasher. it made me sad. that dinner alone cost me $24, and i ate little of it there thinking i would take it home. it's these little sorry-ass goddam trifling things that put you over the edge. so i went out and bought an 18-pack of budweiser, and here i am. none of this has done anything to answer the inextinguishable questions my sad-sack self asks itself on nights like this. i'm going to have to try the bronx tomorrow night. this borough is dried up already. |
| By SHAFT John Shaft on Friday, February 20, 1998 - 12:48 pm: |
That just reinforces my whole hummer of a bummed out theory. Remember in the Hunter S. Thompson parody by National Lampoon. He was going to do a story about Los Angeles. He said he did some Rainbow Mind Gobblers ("if only I could get my hands on some uncut Siamese Tiger Balls") and was driving and typing at the same time. (he was getting paid by the word) in a rented Grey Belvedere! He got his angle though. AT the end he said. .. "I hate everything about L.A., the slobbering ocean. . . , the stupid smiles on everyones faces. . . ." You had to be there. I'd love to send the tape of it. Maybe the Bronx will be righteous. . . |
| By I Prefer To Keep This One Anonymous - But You Know Who I Am on Friday, February 20, 1998 - 01:41 pm: |
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| By Jefe on Saturday, April 11, 1998 - 12:16 am: |
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