Drunken, Dangerous Liasons

I've been busy with the LGBTQ film festival in Austin, aGLIFF23, so I haven't had much time for blogging. So far, everything we've shown has been well received. It's important to me because I was part of the programming team this year. The theater we've been showing them at is called Alamo Drafthouse. They started here in Austin and have a handful of other locations but they have completely spoiled me for seeing movies anywhere else. They have chefs and very good food, with beer, wine, soda, coffee service (and even hard liquor at the one downtown) and very comfortable seats. Imagine waiting tables in a movie theater? Wow.

So, my mind's been on movies and I remembered when my friend Jill and I used to work the breakfast shift together at a downtown hotel, grab a cab, stop by the liquor store and go to the movies with a bottle of Southern Comfort hidden in Jill's backpack. Jill was usually supposed to work in the cocktail lounge at night (she pulled a lot of splits) but she'd inevitably call in sick. We'd get huge cokes at the movie and split a bottle between us, so we were smashed by the time the movie was over, and she was in no condition to be working.

Two times stand out for me in particular from our drunken matinees. One was the time we set an empty bottle on the floor and it rolled all the way down the theater under the seats on the sloping cement ... faster and faster ... man, that was loud! The other time was at the same theater (our favorite). The Cooper was built in 1962 for Cinerama and had smoking lounges on the sides so you could have a cigarette and watch the movie at the same time.

(It has since been torn down to make way for a Border's or Barnes and Noble -I can't remember- such a shame.) Anyway, Jill and I both smoked. Especially when we drank. So we were sitting on the side bench watching "Dangerous Liasons" at 2 in the afternoon, guzzling Big Gulps of Southern Comfort and Coke and puffing away, when I got up to put the empty bottle in the trash can nearby. I'd been sitting in the middle of the bench and Jill was on the end so as soon as I stood the bench flipped and dumped her on the floor. I immediately joined her there, because my knees won't hold me when I'm laughing that hard. There were only about ten people in the movie at that hour, but apparently, "Dangerous Liasons" is not the kind of film most people find funny, so we never did have the nerve to go back to the main part of the theater. We set the bench back upright, finished our drinks, and left before anyone could kick us out.

Cluck

Just like clothing fashions, there are foods that are wildly popular in restaurants for a brief span of time and then virtually forgotten in a couple of years. Blackened redfish became such a trend in the 1980s that the redfish was in danger of becoming extinct. Sale of redfish is banned in most states in the U.S. even today. Except for making an entire species disappear, I don't see any harm in people getting excited about trying something different. I admit, it could suck if I happened to be working in a restaurant that hadn't caught the new wave of interest quite yet, and it's amazing how nasty some customers can become over even simple things like not finding focaccia bread on the menu in a pancake house, or herbal tea in a bar.

The trends that I remember best were the salad dressings, and I think of them almost as eras in my life as in, "The Catalina Era" or "The Honey Mustard Era". There were also honey-lime, balsamic vinaigrette, creamy peppercorn and caesar and probably a few others I've blocked out. If the restaurant I was working in didn't have one of these during its reign of popularity, everything was "just ruined" for some diners, and no amount of fresh baked rolls or assorted crackers could console them. Thank God I was too young to wait tables when ranch first came on the scene - the heroin of all salad dressings. I would hate to ever have to tell someone, "We don't serve ranch dressing." Can you imagine the tears?

I mentioned that the trends didn't bug me when I was waiting tables, but as a banquet waiter, I suffered dearly. When one kind of food makes it to superstardom, it becomes the main course of at least half of all banquets being served. That means there is easily a 50% chance that it will become the employee meal of banquet waiters working that season - every freaking day of the season. It's hard enough to deal with all the chicken (it's usually the cheapest thing on the banquet menu so it gets ordered a lot) but when you're eating chicken prepared the exact same way day in and day out, it becomes like prison food. Herb Chicken with Summer Squash Vegetable Medley and Roasted Baby New Potatoes had a run rivaling The Sound of Music on Broadway. I got to where I could barely serve it, let alone eat it. During the Herb Chicken Years, I even nearly ended a relationship before it had a chance to begin because my date made "this new recipe for herb chicken" as a surprise for me the first time I went over to his house. Looking back, I can see why his feelings might have been hurt when I said, "You KNOW I work in banquets! How could you DO this to me?" Chicken is an entirely different food to people with office jobs.

Fun With Cops

I'm a little stressed right now. I've got a traffic ticket I'm fighting tomorrow in court - no lawyer, just me - for supposedly "following too closely." It's the cop's word against mine, but that doesn't mean I'll win. I'd just feel even worse if I didn't at least stand up for myself. I know that, because I've been on the side of just being a victim with the cops.

Several years ago in Denver, I was working at a downtown restaurant, driving two other waiters home after our shift ended, when I needed to detour around one of the big festivals that was in the process of being set up on the streets. Unfamiliar with the area, I inadvertently turned the wrong way down a one way street. It turned out to be a one way street for one block only, but that block was smack dab in front of the police station. A few seconds later, I saw flashing lights behind me and pulled over. The officer had me and one of my passengers get out of the car while he and his partner frisked us. In my case, the officer put both of his hands in the front pockets of my uniform pants at the same time and groped me, and then grabbed my cash tips for the night and asked, "What is this?" The other waiter said he was also groped. It was a disgusting and humiliating experience, but there was no way to prove it. Still, I've been angry about that for years and I always wish I'd at least stood up for myself in court instead of just paying the fine. I might lose my case tomorrow, but at least I won't be a wimp.

The Body Slammer

It was 28 years ago that I met The Body Slammer. We worked together at a pancake house; she was on the day shift and I worked nights. Every once in a while our shifts would overlap and those were some of the best times I had at that restaurant. I loved to hear her laugh - she's got kind of a husky voice and she can really cut up. She knew I loved Tammy Wynette, and she would strike a pose at the end of the service station and sing just the one line, "Staaaand by your maaaan!" and then crack up. She used to tell me stories about the older day waitresses that would have me in stitches, too, like when one of them was walking out of the service area and didn't see the buscart that was blocking the entrance. The cart was about waist high, and stopped the waitress, but it didn't stop the tray of cheeseburgers she was carrying and it went sailing out into the dining room - packed for lunch hour - like a flying saucer. Another time, one waitress we both liked was waiting on the founder of the restaurant with the board of directors. He'd ordered the fried chicken special for lunch and told her, "Carol, this chicken is cold." She said, "Just like a picnic!" and the board spent 20 minutes trying to decide if she was a great waitress because she had a quick and cheerful comeback, or if she was a smart-alec and needed to be written up.

The Body Slammer is a year older than I, but we did go out drinking a little before I was actually supposed to. When I turned 21, she went with me to The London House, a popular nightclub at the time that had three different sections: A disco, a big band dance floor (with an actual live big band), and a lounge. We got drunk as skunks, and stumbled our way back up Colorado Boulevard to our apartments when the bar closed, laughing all the way. Back then, we used to drink pretty often but not always together because of our different shifts. When I could, I'd join her at La Plaza for two-for-one happy hour, and if she worked a graveyard shift, she might come out with the rest of the wait staff to open the bar at Coco's. They could start serving liquor at 7:00 a.m. (maybe it was 8:00) and one Sunday (still Saturday night for us) I had way too many Manhattans there. There's just nothing quite like being drunk when the church crowd starts coming in. I had to work that night - Lord, I was hungover - and the cooks all knew it. When I'd go back in the service area to pick up an order, they'd ring their bell, bang on pans and wrap their arms around each other's shoulders singing, "Staaaand by your Manhattan!"


I just got in touch with The Body Slammer again through Facebook. It's been a long time since we've seen each other, and I'm glad we're going to be able to catch up. She moved back to North Dakota, married, raised kids and divorced, and I moved to Texas (and didn't do much of anything except get old). We haven't talked on the phone yet - different schedules and all - but we're fixing to. Her friendship meant so much to me when I was just getting on my feet in that big city, and yet I never did find out how she got that nickname.

Wayne

I worked at a few different Village Inn Pancake House restaurants in Denver, where the chain is based. (One night I worked at three of them, starting at 5 in the afternoon and ending at 7 in the morning.) There were so many in town that were corporate owned, so I was still working for the same company and there was no need to reapply. It was just agreed that whichever chain "borrowed" you after you went over 40 hours would pay the overtime.

After about six months of working at my first Village Inn, I transferred to another that was, at the time, the busiest one in the nation. I was scheduled either swing or graveyard shift, and there was a host there that I thought was dreamy. Only just beginning to wonder if I was gay, I didn't completely understand the crush I had on Wayne, but ... oh, my. He was Latino, kinda little (but he had the biggest hair that was feathered back and he wore huge platform shoes, so that made us about the same height) and I loved his crushed velvet jackets and pencil thin mustache. He was also about five years older than me, so he seemed very mature. I was only 20 at the time.

One night, Wayne and I went out drinking at a couple of the popular discos. After we had gotten a little drunk, he wanted to go to a strip bar on Broadway called Nathan's. I'd never been in one. Technically, I wasn't old enough to be in any bar in Denver unless it was a beer joint, 'cos 18 was only drinking age for 3.2 beer at the time and for liquor you had to be 21, but I looked old for my age. I didn't own a car, so we took Wayne's, an early 70s Monte Carlo (or maybe a Cutlass) with a couple of the windows busted out in back that Wayne had covered with clear heavy plastic and duct tape. The car had character.

Nathan's was a real dive with expensive watered down drinks, and the strippers danced completely nude. These were middle-aged women, mostly, and I remember them being a little on the chunky side. They would get quarters from the customers to put in the juke box and walk around on a couple of the pool tables to songs like "Ta Ra Ra Boom De Ay" or "There is a Tavern in the Town" with about the most bored expression on their face possible. Wayne was really into it. He kept buying drinks for the women, and before I knew it we had two or three of them sitting at or on our table. When the bar closed, we decided to go for breakfast at a popular cafe I would end up working at myself a few years later, but on the way there the cops pulled us over. I'd never been stopped by the police, so it was pretty scary for me. They had us get out of the car, they frisked us, and they started searching under the seats and in the seat cushions. That's when they asked me for my driver's license.

"Why do you want my driver's license? I wasn't driving?"

"Yeah, but you're the one with the knife!"

I was shocked to see the knife in their hand, mostly because I knew it was stolen.

"Wayne! What are you doing with a Village Inn steak knife?!"

Turns out, Wayne had used the knife to cut out the windows for his car and had stashed it under the front passenger seat. It would barely cut hamburger, but it was over five inches long, so the cops were calling this a concealed weapon. I started laughing when I heard Wayne's explanation, they figured out I wasn't dangerous, and we got away with just a warning. Times were different, and today I'm sure it would have been a DUI for him and some kind of ticket for me for being a minor and intoxicated in public. Maybe even a charge of terrorism for the knife.

That was the only time I went out with Wayne. I was still a long ways from discovering I liked men, and I think Wayne was straight anyway, but he sure could wear the heck out of those platform shoes.