Po-boy Views
By
Phil LaMancusa
The Wedding Carver
Or
Have Knives, Will Travel
Being retired from gainful employment has it’s advantages and it’s drawbacks. The main drawback is that, my fixed income (yes, I’m on one of them) is trying to extinguish my cavalier flame of living large and tipping big, and I hate that. It has a lot to do with the amount of money that I don’t have for extended periods bellied up to a bar or letting someone else cook for me at a fine dining establishment. And, it has to do with my inability to leave my hard living, freewheeling, ‘there’s plenty more where that came from’ personality behind with my hairline, waistline and twenty-twenty vision.
So, I’ve taken random employment; one of my gigs is cutting up dead animals at special event gatherings such as rehearsal, wedding and company awards functions.
Tonite, it’s a wedding with all the stops pulled out at one of my favorite French Quarter restaurants. I won’t mention names, but it’s a place that, I tell folks, can furnish anything you want and can afford. From an intimate private dinner for two, to twelve hundred of your closest friends, you can get anything that you’re willing to pay for. From piped in music to sixteen pieces of guitar slamming, horn playing rock your sockers. Ice sculptures that dispense martinis, flame throwing dessert stations, low, medium and high grades of alcohol. Do you want fire works? Second lines? Mystics and mind readers? Clowns? Would you like the friggin’ circus?
Do you want passed hors d’oeuvres, sit down dinners, buffets, oyster shuckers or a person or two to slice meat thinly, smile broadly and be ready to cut the cake when the time comes?
Tonite is a wedding with all of that. The band commands such a draw on the electrical output of the place that the air conditioning (after running at full capacity all day) is cut off. I’ve come to naming functions; this one is the ‘women in tight clothing and men with powerful credit cards’ types. But it will only be a more sophisticated version of the ‘ women with braided armpits and men with little dental work’ functions that I’ve worked elsewhere.
First to arrive, by a good forty-five minutes, is the parents of the bride. Madame explains that the groom is ‘allergic’ to alcohol and will be drinking ice tea, Red Bull and ginger ale. I wonder if that is a new concoction or his actual menu of choices. Then Mama checks out seating places for the elderly, is assuaged by the marketing manager and witnesses the arrival of the flowers, which to me look like they’ve just come from a funeral parlor.
Now the chandeliers are being lit, candles line the entranceway and the ‘thirty minutes before’ icing down of the liquids that require it. The party starts at six after the ceremony; passed appetizers until eight, food (including two carvers) in two rooms from six to nine, band starts at seven and stops at ten. There are two meetings with management and staff to co-ordinate the function. Extra furniture has been stored in rented trucks and, of course, nobody shows up until six twenty-five.
I am in the second room with a sixty pound haunch of beef, five-hundred volts of heat lamps and knives honed to deadly edges, my co-carver is in the next room with access to a half a dozen deep fried turkeys.
Here they come; a random husband (Jack) hits the bar for drinks for him-n-her, drops off hers (Jill) and heads back to the bar for another for himself…there’s gonna be a heartache tonite. Terminally thin women start with Cosmopolitans, Aunt Ruth and Uncle Maury want to know if there’s any coffee, the groom’s friends that never learned to dance or dress and the bride’s friends that did. Lawyers and Dentists in seersucker (Dentists have suede shoes). Doctors in white linen, older women in two piece suits, younger women in strapless whose breasts don’t quite fill up the cups and the requisite ‘Parachute Woman”. And me cutting dead cow.
A buddy of the groom has brought his own thirty two ounce cup that he wants filled with Jack and Diet, uh oh, and young Jack is on his sixth beer this hour. He’s telling a group of peers jokes that only he finds amusing, his peers are more amused by him and his condition. His wife has given up on him and has joined a coterie of the thin ones that won’t be having any dinner.
You can tell that the newlyweds have had a long relationship; she starts drinking and he fills his plate to capacity.
The door to the courtyard is on a spring strong enough to stop the charge of a water buffalo and some of my amusement will come from the imprisonment, between door and jamb, of young children, the frail and inevitably…the bride’s train.
The photographer hits the buffet about an hour and a half in; the band will hit us at break time. You can tell the band because they are either dressed better (or worse) than the guests and they’re not fooled by fillers like potatoes, jambalaya or fish. They hit the raw bar and the protein (not the pate though) and of course the alcohol. I just keep cutting.
The band takes a break for the toasts. Uncle Maury, who’s been yelling his conversation, winds up with “and the man hasn’t held a decent job in thirty YEARS!!!
Then, the testimonies: Teary eyed pair of young women: “Trish and us have been best friends since third grade and like we’ve never seen her looking soooo HAPPY!” The kid brother; “I brought them together…” The Father: I’m sure that they’ll be as happy as her Mother and I have been”---(right). The Buddy “I remember the night Keith came home and told me ‘I’ve met the woman that I’m going to marry”, The older brother “At least now he’ll have someone else to fight with!” And on and on.
Then the cake, throw the bouquet, that weighs twelve pounds, and every one second lines out except the six or eight that want to close down the bar. Too late, things are wrapped, stacked, put away, closed and already the crew is moving tables for tomorrow night’s functions. One room is having a sit down ‘Divorce Dinner’: 48 people, the other room has a wake with a replica of the deceased in potato saladpotato salad, no carving necessary. Say goodnight Gracie.
plamancusa@aol.com
Friday, August 15, 2008
Rocket Surgery in New Orleans
Po-boy Views by Phil LaMancusa
La Vie En Rose
Or
Glitter Above The Litter
It’s Sunday evening around six thirty and we’re winding things down at the shop to go cabaret, camp and carouse. Put the cash away, pack up the pups, gather our dinner fixin’s and polish off our ritual celebratory ‘end of the day’ Miller High Life. To hell with housework.
We live in a small village called The French Quarter in the Republic of New Orleans, a small third world country, in a remote part of the Western Hemisphere. It has been rather difficult recently to find solace, tranquility or serenity. We have been at war with the great and powerful United States for over a year; indeed, some of us have opposed them for decades. At times we even distrust officials in our local government. That quickly passes when we remind ourselves that control is an illusion and resistance is futile. What goes around simply does not come around, the meek shall not inherit the Earth and, in general, kindness is regarded as weakness.
So what’s a couple of Old Farts with barkin’ dogs and aging canines to do to replenish the soul? Where to, how to reboot our sagging ideals, rekindle our faith and have a grand time without excess anesthesia or hypnotism of the senses? I tell you, sometimes by the end of my work week (that’s Sunday to you out there that have had more than four days off since last October) I feel like Tyrone Slothrope trudging through post war Europe in his Pynchonian search for Rocket 00000, if you get my drift.
We shamble (our method of getting from point 1. to point B) through the dust; smoke, litter, amateur drunks and cosmic debris of this man made hell, up two blocks and over three. The joint is on the corner, with requisite pool table, televisions, thrumping music, Saturday night’s leftovers and Sunday’s fresh meat on the ground floor. A couple of guys are cooking burgers outside and drunks debate moot points while sloshing suds on their logic.
We enter the perpetual dimness and make our way to the stairway in the back, at this point we drop the leashes and the dogs go bounding up to where everybody knows their names. The bartender greets them and by the time we get our tired asses to the top of the stairs, they have taken up their stations.
There are two types that can qualify as legitimate bar flies in my world; there’s that one that occupies a barstool and is ever ready to hop up on a lap and the other one who is most at home stretched out on the floor. We have one of each of them; their names are Rosie and Ginger, and they’re ready to settle in for a good old time. This is their once a week treat, their special occasion, a holiday if you will. A visit with the boys on Sing-along Sunday.
The Sun has made it’s fiery journey across our fetid sky, still it’s not quite set and the place is already jumping. Well, not exactly jumping, more like a very active rhythmic exuberant shimmy. Many manly voices are raised in song, not just in song…many manly voices are raised in show tunes!!
I grab a place at the bar or our favorite table, Girlfriend goes up to the Piano to feed the kitty and say hey to the regulars. I request liquid refreshment from Joey the effervescent, effusive and super efficient mixologist. Tom is tickling the ivories, tickling and teasing and guiding and beguiling a cluster of patrons who are all here for one reason. Escape.
The décor is worn Victorian chic, with black and white photos of past Mardi Gras Queens and colorful present day Mardi Gras Queens in oils by Earl Herbert (bless him).
As I sit at the bar looking out to the balcony where groups of guys are at small tables chatting, the sun is splashing color on the buildings around us with stage set intensity. Tom is playing the theme from Tara, Ken is in full falsetto pitch and there’s a pair of patrons that, quite expertly, recite the script from Gone With The Wind verbatim.
Then into, I Will Follow Him, Mister Sandman, Some Enchanted Evening and The Man I Love. A woman elbows her way to the piano and yells at her date that he almost made her spill her liquor. The piano stops and at least four voices in unison yell “LIQUOR!!! LIQUOR!!! YOU BROUGHT HER---YOU LIQUOR!!! Screams of laughter. It’s that kind of night.
Yet this is no men’s club; albeit, redolent with man smells, you’re certain to see occasional women (some obviously on first dates) come to see how the other half lives and odd couples that have grown thick and happy with each other. AND, I personally know more than one woman there that doesn’t mind being called ‘Fag Hag’. (THERE! I said it in print!!!)
I was at my keyboard last week feeling Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered; listening to the Clang, Clang, Clang Of The Trolley feeling very Suddenly Seymour when I came upon a burning What’ll I Do? I emailed my very dear friend in San Francisco and asked if I should capitalize the words Gay Bar?
I was advised: “of course it should be capitalized AND underscored in red, pink, teal and taupe”.
So there it is. What works for me? It’s not rocket surgery. A few stolen hours where good friends meet to exchange pejorative banter, plan for next weeks Mascara Run and exchange fashion advice. To be sure, this is not your Mama’s piano bar, nor is it a Mitch Miller sing-a-long. It’s more camp than campfire and a place to be granted a little amnesia from the trials, tribulations and travails of daily life while we wait for our next evaporation this hurricane season. And hey, I just thought…you might not get to read this. We just never know where we’ll be when this is hot off the presses. I hope to God that we’re all still here and that you’re asking yourself what place I’m writing about and why I’m not telling you.
Well, I’m not telling you because it’s getting too crowded as it is and besides, you should already know. Send in the Clowns.
La Vie En Rose
Or
Glitter Above The Litter
It’s Sunday evening around six thirty and we’re winding things down at the shop to go cabaret, camp and carouse. Put the cash away, pack up the pups, gather our dinner fixin’s and polish off our ritual celebratory ‘end of the day’ Miller High Life. To hell with housework.
We live in a small village called The French Quarter in the Republic of New Orleans, a small third world country, in a remote part of the Western Hemisphere. It has been rather difficult recently to find solace, tranquility or serenity. We have been at war with the great and powerful United States for over a year; indeed, some of us have opposed them for decades. At times we even distrust officials in our local government. That quickly passes when we remind ourselves that control is an illusion and resistance is futile. What goes around simply does not come around, the meek shall not inherit the Earth and, in general, kindness is regarded as weakness.
So what’s a couple of Old Farts with barkin’ dogs and aging canines to do to replenish the soul? Where to, how to reboot our sagging ideals, rekindle our faith and have a grand time without excess anesthesia or hypnotism of the senses? I tell you, sometimes by the end of my work week (that’s Sunday to you out there that have had more than four days off since last October) I feel like Tyrone Slothrope trudging through post war Europe in his Pynchonian search for Rocket 00000, if you get my drift.
We shamble (our method of getting from point 1. to point B) through the dust; smoke, litter, amateur drunks and cosmic debris of this man made hell, up two blocks and over three. The joint is on the corner, with requisite pool table, televisions, thrumping music, Saturday night’s leftovers and Sunday’s fresh meat on the ground floor. A couple of guys are cooking burgers outside and drunks debate moot points while sloshing suds on their logic.
We enter the perpetual dimness and make our way to the stairway in the back, at this point we drop the leashes and the dogs go bounding up to where everybody knows their names. The bartender greets them and by the time we get our tired asses to the top of the stairs, they have taken up their stations.
There are two types that can qualify as legitimate bar flies in my world; there’s that one that occupies a barstool and is ever ready to hop up on a lap and the other one who is most at home stretched out on the floor. We have one of each of them; their names are Rosie and Ginger, and they’re ready to settle in for a good old time. This is their once a week treat, their special occasion, a holiday if you will. A visit with the boys on Sing-along Sunday.
The Sun has made it’s fiery journey across our fetid sky, still it’s not quite set and the place is already jumping. Well, not exactly jumping, more like a very active rhythmic exuberant shimmy. Many manly voices are raised in song, not just in song…many manly voices are raised in show tunes!!
I grab a place at the bar or our favorite table, Girlfriend goes up to the Piano to feed the kitty and say hey to the regulars. I request liquid refreshment from Joey the effervescent, effusive and super efficient mixologist. Tom is tickling the ivories, tickling and teasing and guiding and beguiling a cluster of patrons who are all here for one reason. Escape.
The décor is worn Victorian chic, with black and white photos of past Mardi Gras Queens and colorful present day Mardi Gras Queens in oils by Earl Herbert (bless him).
As I sit at the bar looking out to the balcony where groups of guys are at small tables chatting, the sun is splashing color on the buildings around us with stage set intensity. Tom is playing the theme from Tara, Ken is in full falsetto pitch and there’s a pair of patrons that, quite expertly, recite the script from Gone With The Wind verbatim.
Then into, I Will Follow Him, Mister Sandman, Some Enchanted Evening and The Man I Love. A woman elbows her way to the piano and yells at her date that he almost made her spill her liquor. The piano stops and at least four voices in unison yell “LIQUOR!!! LIQUOR!!! YOU BROUGHT HER---YOU LIQUOR!!! Screams of laughter. It’s that kind of night.
Yet this is no men’s club; albeit, redolent with man smells, you’re certain to see occasional women (some obviously on first dates) come to see how the other half lives and odd couples that have grown thick and happy with each other. AND, I personally know more than one woman there that doesn’t mind being called ‘Fag Hag’. (THERE! I said it in print!!!)
I was at my keyboard last week feeling Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered; listening to the Clang, Clang, Clang Of The Trolley feeling very Suddenly Seymour when I came upon a burning What’ll I Do? I emailed my very dear friend in San Francisco and asked if I should capitalize the words Gay Bar?
I was advised: “of course it should be capitalized AND underscored in red, pink, teal and taupe”.
So there it is. What works for me? It’s not rocket surgery. A few stolen hours where good friends meet to exchange pejorative banter, plan for next weeks Mascara Run and exchange fashion advice. To be sure, this is not your Mama’s piano bar, nor is it a Mitch Miller sing-a-long. It’s more camp than campfire and a place to be granted a little amnesia from the trials, tribulations and travails of daily life while we wait for our next evaporation this hurricane season. And hey, I just thought…you might not get to read this. We just never know where we’ll be when this is hot off the presses. I hope to God that we’re all still here and that you’re asking yourself what place I’m writing about and why I’m not telling you.
Well, I’m not telling you because it’s getting too crowded as it is and besides, you should already know. Send in the Clowns.
New Orleans Blues
Po-boy Views
By
Phil LaMancusa
Mba-kayere
Or
Rhapsody In Blue
Monday we got together for farewell cocktails with Robert, who has moved back to The City of Angels. Tuesday we met at Claire’s to wish Nita happy Birthday, she stayed for a few days after the storm and her cat made it, she’s staying for now. Thursday, Matt the cook, from down the block, came by to tell us that he’s going back to (don’t call it ‘Frisco) San Francisco. Friday at May Bailey’s we said goodbye to Bea, who is moving to New Mexico. Larry’s in from Saint Louis, but, he’s going back.
People that have moved back are moving away again, maybe this time for good. The first cook at Muriel’s is moving because he can’t find an affordable place for his family to live. It’s a damn shame.
Mba-kayere is a Sudanese word whispered in the dark, a mantra if you will. It is a survivor’s word of exhalation. When screaming Arabs waving scimitars are coming at you in your dreams; and hunchbacks, lepers, amputees and aliens of all descriptions have come out of their secret hiding spaces to watch the fun… When ‘no one speaks English and everything’s broken’… When you lose both chimneys, roofing siding, gutters and a big ass tree is occupying space on your upstairs front porch where you sat last night…
When the levees vomit into your city and “when the levees break…Mama you got to move”. When you’ve commandeered a car after six days and get the hell out of Dodge with seven critters and three nervous wrecks of human beings, you can rightfully say Mba-kayere---I am passed over.
But is being spared enough? People that I know are not/have not evacuated…they’ve evaporated. Do I know what it means to miss New Orleans?
I joke with people who don’t know or suddenly, without warning I start regurgitating my frustration and my rage. The sandbox has gotten smaller, but it’s still a sandbox.
Here’s what I tell people before they slowly back away --- I still need to lock my doors, my bike and my inner most feelings. What’s for dinner, even almost a year later, is what my local grocery store can get in. Not having a car is claustrophobic and I won’t be able to fully breathe until I have a way out of a place that I never before could conceive I would want to leave. I’m just now catching up on making my living space comfortable enough to live in, and it’s dangerous again to be out in the streets without a Sherman Tank.
I used to think that it was funny that, when you went into a restaurant and asked for the non-smoking section, the waiter removed the ashtray from the table and told you to sit down. Now I want to scream: “THIS IS NO JOKE!!”
This city is a logic vacuum. No matter what you may think or say that comes close to logic is swallowed into nothingness, like the dreams that you had where you were screaming and nothing comes out, where you’re running and your feet won’t move, where the Arabs with scimitars are breathing down your neck. And you suddenly woke up. And your dream faded into nothingness. And you wonder what it was that troubled your sleep, certainly it was nothing logical.
And just to speak into that vacuum let’s try these out; and you know this is no post K bandwagon that I’m jumping on. Those of you (both of you) that have been reading me for the last six years know that I’ve been saying things like this for years:
Why do we have murders, muggings and armed robberies and no one has considered gun control? Are we afraid that we’re gonna piss off some dirt bag that wants us to believe that there is any reason to own a working assault rifle?
I guess that maybe gun control is too logical, besides, it would take away from my right to own a gun so that I could defend myself against some dirt bag that wants to murder, mug or armed rob me. Now why didn’t I think of that?
Or how about this one: we can’t bring back over half of our citizens because there’s no place to live. That’s BS. There are plenty of places to live, but try to find one that you can afford and that becomes a different ball of wax. I know people that came back from evacuation to find their stuff on the street and their apartment rented to FEMA. I know people who’s rent was doubled and they were evicted and their space rented to a FEMA family, forcing them to go to FEMA to find a place to live. Here on Royal St. there was a business that was paying over $5,000.00 a month rent, they left because of the storm and the storm ruined their store. With the repairs not finished even into November, the land lord told them that he needed September, October and November’s rent and that come December to be prepared to pay rent of at least $7,000.00 Now with this type of activity abounding, does it sound too logical to consider some form of tenants rights or rent control? I guess so.
San Francisco has raised it’s minimum wage to $8.50 an hour. San Francisco is doing fine. We voted a couple of years ago to up ours by a buck (yes we did, we voted for it!) IT NEVER HAPPENED and we complain about our poverty level.
Well, our citizens are coming back, our children are tap dancing in the streets again, our hustlers are working their corners again and our populace complain about the garbage as they throw their trash and cigarette butts into our streets. And when you take this rhapsody as the pulse of our city maybe we deserve to flat line. I don’t think so. My porch light is always on to keep away the boogey men. My street is kept cleaned. I walk home at night praying that one of the statistics of street crime tomorrow won’t be me, and when I’m home, and when I wake up in the morning and when the weather report doesn’t mention a storm…. Mba-kayere.
By
Phil LaMancusa
Mba-kayere
Or
Rhapsody In Blue
Monday we got together for farewell cocktails with Robert, who has moved back to The City of Angels. Tuesday we met at Claire’s to wish Nita happy Birthday, she stayed for a few days after the storm and her cat made it, she’s staying for now. Thursday, Matt the cook, from down the block, came by to tell us that he’s going back to (don’t call it ‘Frisco) San Francisco. Friday at May Bailey’s we said goodbye to Bea, who is moving to New Mexico. Larry’s in from Saint Louis, but, he’s going back.
People that have moved back are moving away again, maybe this time for good. The first cook at Muriel’s is moving because he can’t find an affordable place for his family to live. It’s a damn shame.
Mba-kayere is a Sudanese word whispered in the dark, a mantra if you will. It is a survivor’s word of exhalation. When screaming Arabs waving scimitars are coming at you in your dreams; and hunchbacks, lepers, amputees and aliens of all descriptions have come out of their secret hiding spaces to watch the fun… When ‘no one speaks English and everything’s broken’… When you lose both chimneys, roofing siding, gutters and a big ass tree is occupying space on your upstairs front porch where you sat last night…
When the levees vomit into your city and “when the levees break…Mama you got to move”. When you’ve commandeered a car after six days and get the hell out of Dodge with seven critters and three nervous wrecks of human beings, you can rightfully say Mba-kayere---I am passed over.
But is being spared enough? People that I know are not/have not evacuated…they’ve evaporated. Do I know what it means to miss New Orleans?
I joke with people who don’t know or suddenly, without warning I start regurgitating my frustration and my rage. The sandbox has gotten smaller, but it’s still a sandbox.
Here’s what I tell people before they slowly back away --- I still need to lock my doors, my bike and my inner most feelings. What’s for dinner, even almost a year later, is what my local grocery store can get in. Not having a car is claustrophobic and I won’t be able to fully breathe until I have a way out of a place that I never before could conceive I would want to leave. I’m just now catching up on making my living space comfortable enough to live in, and it’s dangerous again to be out in the streets without a Sherman Tank.
I used to think that it was funny that, when you went into a restaurant and asked for the non-smoking section, the waiter removed the ashtray from the table and told you to sit down. Now I want to scream: “THIS IS NO JOKE!!”
This city is a logic vacuum. No matter what you may think or say that comes close to logic is swallowed into nothingness, like the dreams that you had where you were screaming and nothing comes out, where you’re running and your feet won’t move, where the Arabs with scimitars are breathing down your neck. And you suddenly woke up. And your dream faded into nothingness. And you wonder what it was that troubled your sleep, certainly it was nothing logical.
And just to speak into that vacuum let’s try these out; and you know this is no post K bandwagon that I’m jumping on. Those of you (both of you) that have been reading me for the last six years know that I’ve been saying things like this for years:
Why do we have murders, muggings and armed robberies and no one has considered gun control? Are we afraid that we’re gonna piss off some dirt bag that wants us to believe that there is any reason to own a working assault rifle?
I guess that maybe gun control is too logical, besides, it would take away from my right to own a gun so that I could defend myself against some dirt bag that wants to murder, mug or armed rob me. Now why didn’t I think of that?
Or how about this one: we can’t bring back over half of our citizens because there’s no place to live. That’s BS. There are plenty of places to live, but try to find one that you can afford and that becomes a different ball of wax. I know people that came back from evacuation to find their stuff on the street and their apartment rented to FEMA. I know people who’s rent was doubled and they were evicted and their space rented to a FEMA family, forcing them to go to FEMA to find a place to live. Here on Royal St. there was a business that was paying over $5,000.00 a month rent, they left because of the storm and the storm ruined their store. With the repairs not finished even into November, the land lord told them that he needed September, October and November’s rent and that come December to be prepared to pay rent of at least $7,000.00 Now with this type of activity abounding, does it sound too logical to consider some form of tenants rights or rent control? I guess so.
San Francisco has raised it’s minimum wage to $8.50 an hour. San Francisco is doing fine. We voted a couple of years ago to up ours by a buck (yes we did, we voted for it!) IT NEVER HAPPENED and we complain about our poverty level.
Well, our citizens are coming back, our children are tap dancing in the streets again, our hustlers are working their corners again and our populace complain about the garbage as they throw their trash and cigarette butts into our streets. And when you take this rhapsody as the pulse of our city maybe we deserve to flat line. I don’t think so. My porch light is always on to keep away the boogey men. My street is kept cleaned. I walk home at night praying that one of the statistics of street crime tomorrow won’t be me, and when I’m home, and when I wake up in the morning and when the weather report doesn’t mention a storm…. Mba-kayere.
Serving in New Orleans
Po-boy Views
By
Phil LaMancusa
Tray Jockeying
Or
The Art of Fine Dining Service
Okay, you’re back, your britches are hitched up and you’ve done your bit as a loyal employee and returned to your old job. Your boss was teary eyed and there were hugs and kisses and ‘I missed you’, and all that jazz. Six months or so later you realize that your job still sucks.
Not only does your job suck; but, you have contracted the Katrina walking whooping eye, nose, throat, lung peritogingavitis-expialidosis mystery infection, it’s hard to get your laundry done and there’s no place to park. What’s more, none of your friends or bartender/hairdressers are back, most of the fun shopping is gone and your insurance and your mortgage company stinks (don’t get me started on landlords).
Well, there’s good news on the horizon; do I have a job for you! Fine dining service!
Now before you put your popcorn down and go searching through the personals….STOP! Consider this: you can carry home, in your pocket, six hundred dollars (cash) and up per week and keep your clothes on, work when it’s busy and not work when it is slow, get fed without fuss, do not have to worry about your wardrobe, work with the most lovable lunatics and it’s you against the world!
Training is no problem. Talent is, and here’s what I mean: not everyone can be a good waiter; fewer still can be great. There are a lot of poor to mediocre waiters, but guess what? They’re a lot smarter than you are. They own houses, raise children, take vacations and enjoy cocktails on a regular basis. Waiters (bartenders and support staff) work in high stress, fast paced and physically demanding quarters akin to those professions that get to carry weapons or are able to dispense medications to unruly clients.
Being accepted into the profession has not much to do with experience, some of the worst waiters have the most experience and some of the best have little. It’s all in your attitude, and that’s what your interviewer will look for. Do you have attitude? Then forget it! You will not get far by flaunting your Laurels (or your Hardys) because the majority of interviewers have seen that all before.
Here’s the way in, the way about and the way around fine dining service. First of all: this is not about you. This is about your establishment (your house).
From the beginning you will be required to work when you are needed regardless of the day, the night, the holiday, the season or the other events that may be happening your life. You’ve got to agree to that immediately. Also, without question is to do things the way your house does them regardless of logic or reason. The way things are done are the way things are done. Rule of thumb: agree to everything and don’t talk back until you know who you’re talking to. Get the job by getting across that you don’t know, but have the ability to do, everything, can learn anything and don’t want ever to do anything but whatever you are required to do. Willingness counts! First… get the job.
Next (assuming that you’re in the door), comes your training. Usually after an indoctrination of some sort, you’ll be handed off to someone who is given the job of showing you the ropes. You’ll know them by how they roll their eyes at Heaven, inwardly asking "why me, Lord?” Listen to everything that they tell you, including the sentences that contain the disclaimer: “this is the way I do it”. Here’s why: if you try to take the reins away from your trainer, show that you think that you know it all, you will set yourself up to fail because you may get trained but you’ll never know the ropes, get the dirt or the lowdown. In short, you’ll be on the inside on your way out.
It is universal that anyone can bitch about their family’s dysfunctions, as happens on the job: but, a new person has got to earn the right to speak up/out until they’ve paid dues. Rushing that process is the fast track to exclusion. Not that anyone will do anything to hamper you; it’s just that you will miss out on all the information that can help you.
So, now you’re trained (and this is the cram course) and you’re on the floor. Now all you need to learn is how to get along with twenty other waiters, taking into consideration their various personality quirks, a dozen cooks that work hard, hot and fast with short tempers, deadly weapons and weird senses of humor, dishwashers and cleaners whose second language is discernibly not yours and management who are 95% older protective brother and 5% “shut the fuck up and do like I told you!” Remember rule #1: this is not about you.
Next the customers. Once becoming a server, you will never view yourself as a customer the same. Customers without restaurant experience (or experience in going to restaurants) may view a server as a sounding board, servant, confidant, tour guide, non entity, miracle worker, culinary expert and generally be able to answer, successfully, the question “why is my food taking so long?” The server may want to be a clairvoyant but generally is not, so the server has to be able to switch hats depending on the table. [It’s your job; it’s not about you]. Deal with the customers idiosyncrasies, get them fed, shine ‘em up, pat ‘em on the ass and get them out.{When in doubt get management involved.}
Oh, and love them with all your heart because that lovely couple from Des Moines that had Ice tea and left 10% (that you hate) will be balanced out by the self styled comedian with the $100.00 bottles of wine that leaves 20% (that you also hate).
What IS about you is the people that you get to work with; although, you may (from the owner to the cleaning lady) never share anything else in common in your life. At the end of a ‘balls to the wall’ Saturday night you know that ‘brothers in arms’ is a special feeling, it’s time for a drink and after all…it was only dinner.
By
Phil LaMancusa
Tray Jockeying
Or
The Art of Fine Dining Service
Okay, you’re back, your britches are hitched up and you’ve done your bit as a loyal employee and returned to your old job. Your boss was teary eyed and there were hugs and kisses and ‘I missed you’, and all that jazz. Six months or so later you realize that your job still sucks.
Not only does your job suck; but, you have contracted the Katrina walking whooping eye, nose, throat, lung peritogingavitis-expialidosis mystery infection, it’s hard to get your laundry done and there’s no place to park. What’s more, none of your friends or bartender/hairdressers are back, most of the fun shopping is gone and your insurance and your mortgage company stinks (don’t get me started on landlords).
Well, there’s good news on the horizon; do I have a job for you! Fine dining service!
Now before you put your popcorn down and go searching through the personals….STOP! Consider this: you can carry home, in your pocket, six hundred dollars (cash) and up per week and keep your clothes on, work when it’s busy and not work when it is slow, get fed without fuss, do not have to worry about your wardrobe, work with the most lovable lunatics and it’s you against the world!
Training is no problem. Talent is, and here’s what I mean: not everyone can be a good waiter; fewer still can be great. There are a lot of poor to mediocre waiters, but guess what? They’re a lot smarter than you are. They own houses, raise children, take vacations and enjoy cocktails on a regular basis. Waiters (bartenders and support staff) work in high stress, fast paced and physically demanding quarters akin to those professions that get to carry weapons or are able to dispense medications to unruly clients.
Being accepted into the profession has not much to do with experience, some of the worst waiters have the most experience and some of the best have little. It’s all in your attitude, and that’s what your interviewer will look for. Do you have attitude? Then forget it! You will not get far by flaunting your Laurels (or your Hardys) because the majority of interviewers have seen that all before.
Here’s the way in, the way about and the way around fine dining service. First of all: this is not about you. This is about your establishment (your house).
From the beginning you will be required to work when you are needed regardless of the day, the night, the holiday, the season or the other events that may be happening your life. You’ve got to agree to that immediately. Also, without question is to do things the way your house does them regardless of logic or reason. The way things are done are the way things are done. Rule of thumb: agree to everything and don’t talk back until you know who you’re talking to. Get the job by getting across that you don’t know, but have the ability to do, everything, can learn anything and don’t want ever to do anything but whatever you are required to do. Willingness counts! First… get the job.
Next (assuming that you’re in the door), comes your training. Usually after an indoctrination of some sort, you’ll be handed off to someone who is given the job of showing you the ropes. You’ll know them by how they roll their eyes at Heaven, inwardly asking "why me, Lord?” Listen to everything that they tell you, including the sentences that contain the disclaimer: “this is the way I do it”. Here’s why: if you try to take the reins away from your trainer, show that you think that you know it all, you will set yourself up to fail because you may get trained but you’ll never know the ropes, get the dirt or the lowdown. In short, you’ll be on the inside on your way out.
It is universal that anyone can bitch about their family’s dysfunctions, as happens on the job: but, a new person has got to earn the right to speak up/out until they’ve paid dues. Rushing that process is the fast track to exclusion. Not that anyone will do anything to hamper you; it’s just that you will miss out on all the information that can help you.
So, now you’re trained (and this is the cram course) and you’re on the floor. Now all you need to learn is how to get along with twenty other waiters, taking into consideration their various personality quirks, a dozen cooks that work hard, hot and fast with short tempers, deadly weapons and weird senses of humor, dishwashers and cleaners whose second language is discernibly not yours and management who are 95% older protective brother and 5% “shut the fuck up and do like I told you!” Remember rule #1: this is not about you.
Next the customers. Once becoming a server, you will never view yourself as a customer the same. Customers without restaurant experience (or experience in going to restaurants) may view a server as a sounding board, servant, confidant, tour guide, non entity, miracle worker, culinary expert and generally be able to answer, successfully, the question “why is my food taking so long?” The server may want to be a clairvoyant but generally is not, so the server has to be able to switch hats depending on the table. [It’s your job; it’s not about you]. Deal with the customers idiosyncrasies, get them fed, shine ‘em up, pat ‘em on the ass and get them out.{When in doubt get management involved.}
Oh, and love them with all your heart because that lovely couple from Des Moines that had Ice tea and left 10% (that you hate) will be balanced out by the self styled comedian with the $100.00 bottles of wine that leaves 20% (that you also hate).
What IS about you is the people that you get to work with; although, you may (from the owner to the cleaning lady) never share anything else in common in your life. At the end of a ‘balls to the wall’ Saturday night you know that ‘brothers in arms’ is a special feeling, it’s time for a drink and after all…it was only dinner.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Your Very Own Restaurant in New Orleans
Po Boy Views
By
Phil LaMancusa
Handmade Home Cookin’
Or
Eat This
Why does every friggin’ restaurant have a drawback? Why can’t they be perfect, like me? They are altogether either too fancy, too plain, out of the way, noisy, crowded, sloppy, expensive, uptight, elitist, surly or they just plain don’t know how to cook!!!
If you agree with that statement, then I’ve got perfect advice for you: open a restaurant of your own! Think of it, New Orleans is a food town, you have a perfect recipe, you know how to cook and you above all know what people want in a restaurant: they want a restaurant that has no drawbacks; the perfect restaurant. A neighborhood place, with great atmosphere, friendly service, reasonable prices, yummy food, clean restrooms and fun, fun, fun! Where everybody knows your name and they’re always glad you came…. Etc.etc.
Sound’s great, right? Sounds simple, huh? Sounds….hmmmmmm…… lucrative……. Yeahhhhhhhhhh!
Well. Sparky, just you pour yourself into a hot bubble bath, light the candles and some incense and turn the music down real low and let Uncle Phil tell you a horror story!!!!!!
Okay, it’s not that bad, first get yourself a restaurant consultant, say someone that’s been doing it for a couple of decades. May I suggest me? No kidding; AND, as a qualified consultant I will give you the best consulting you could ever get, it’s free, and the wisdom of the ages comes in one word: “DON’T!” Any qualified consultant will give you that advice and when you don’t take that advice then the consultant takes your money. How much money does a consultant take? A hundred twenty by the hour or seven fifty a day or twenty five hundred to three grand a month; but, if you’re going to be spending a hundred grand to quarter of a mil for your dream palace, that’s a drop in the bucket. Another way to go is to contract a tutorial for about five hundred for the day.
No? You’re not about that kind of money? Well, I tell you what. I’ll give it away free as long as my thousand words hold up. It doesn’t get cheaper than that.
The two most important words in the restaurant business are 1) location and 2) rent. In fact, you can repeat #1 three times for it’s proper effect: ‘location, location, location’.
#2 is how you will make your money because your rent determines how much money you need to make and that is this: you have to make twenty times your rent to stay in business. Period.
Next with your grand scheme comes tenet number one—identify your customer. Got it?
So now the situation can, in a perfect world, be thus: you have a wonderful location with a great rent and you’ve identified your customer base as people that really want what you have to offer and can reach you without too much inconvenience. Congratulations, this is very rarely the case.
Let’s start over. Location. Considering that you are a smart person you will try to find a location that was already a restaurant. All the hook ups, some of the fixtures and possibly a spare piece of equipment or two is already there. You didn’t stop to ask why the business before has left, but what the hell, it feels right. Okay, what’s the rent? Five grand? That means that you have to take in a hundred grand a month to survive, not a tough nut, but at the least it’s… challenging. How is it laid out?
In a perfect world the space has one third put aside for kitchen and one half for dining room. The rest of the space is for restrooms, office, storage, garbage, employee lockers and such, this is also rarely the case. Usually everything else (including the kitchen) is minimized to make room for what really pays the rent: the customer. Remember: you need to have fifteen customers in your base (at least) for every seat in your restaurant, and you’ll need ten to twenty square feet per customer for comfortable seating: this is also a rare case. You need room for servers to get past tables (fat chance). And you need plenty of room for the hostess stand (hahahahahaha). Now what about a bar? Uh oh.
After you’ve carved out a space for the bar and realized that you only need seven and a half square feet per person, naturally you come to the decision (and rightly so) to serve food at the bar. Smart move.
NOW you’re hooked up; all you need now is your dining room staff, kitchen monkeys and supplies and yooooouuuurrrrrrr Offff! Tee-rific, yes? Nah, you want the bad news too, right? Here’s Johnny!
With 5% for rent, 12% for liquor, 35% for food 32% staff (including management), you have what to work with? As an owner you have to keep up with the utilities, phone, insurance, cleaning crews, anti theft devices, office staff (including bookkeepers and CPAs), a lawyer on retainer, area maintenance and advertising. Do the math.
Here’s a little restaurant trivia. The owner kicks in .18-.23 cents per dollar paid for every hourly employee for things like unemployment insurance, workman’s compensation and even a contribution to social security. A $10.00 an hour literally costs the employer over $12.00 an hour. How many employees do you think that you’ll have? Again, do the math.
Sounds fun? It gets better. Here’s a little more before I run out of room. Rents in the area are up 46% since the storm the worker pool has shrunk 75% and insurance is out of the friggin’ roof. On top of that, you have to live with (or fight) a .075% waste factor in all areas. And just when you’re having a hard time watching a member of your staff ( that cost you $100-200. to train) on their cell phone, smoking a cigarette outside while your tables get sat and the tickets start piling up; BAM! --the ice machine goes on the fritz, the prep cook calls in too drunk to work, the toilet in the ladies room overflows and the bartender cuts himself while cutting lemon garnishes and has to go to the hospital.
Remember my first piece of advice? “DON’T!” And my second? In the meantime, try to find a place that rents for five grand a month and gimme a call. Cheers!
Reach me: plamancusa@aol.com
By
Phil LaMancusa
Handmade Home Cookin’
Or
Eat This
Why does every friggin’ restaurant have a drawback? Why can’t they be perfect, like me? They are altogether either too fancy, too plain, out of the way, noisy, crowded, sloppy, expensive, uptight, elitist, surly or they just plain don’t know how to cook!!!
If you agree with that statement, then I’ve got perfect advice for you: open a restaurant of your own! Think of it, New Orleans is a food town, you have a perfect recipe, you know how to cook and you above all know what people want in a restaurant: they want a restaurant that has no drawbacks; the perfect restaurant. A neighborhood place, with great atmosphere, friendly service, reasonable prices, yummy food, clean restrooms and fun, fun, fun! Where everybody knows your name and they’re always glad you came…. Etc.etc.
Sound’s great, right? Sounds simple, huh? Sounds….hmmmmmm…… lucrative……. Yeahhhhhhhhhh!
Well. Sparky, just you pour yourself into a hot bubble bath, light the candles and some incense and turn the music down real low and let Uncle Phil tell you a horror story!!!!!!
Okay, it’s not that bad, first get yourself a restaurant consultant, say someone that’s been doing it for a couple of decades. May I suggest me? No kidding; AND, as a qualified consultant I will give you the best consulting you could ever get, it’s free, and the wisdom of the ages comes in one word: “DON’T!” Any qualified consultant will give you that advice and when you don’t take that advice then the consultant takes your money. How much money does a consultant take? A hundred twenty by the hour or seven fifty a day or twenty five hundred to three grand a month; but, if you’re going to be spending a hundred grand to quarter of a mil for your dream palace, that’s a drop in the bucket. Another way to go is to contract a tutorial for about five hundred for the day.
No? You’re not about that kind of money? Well, I tell you what. I’ll give it away free as long as my thousand words hold up. It doesn’t get cheaper than that.
The two most important words in the restaurant business are 1) location and 2) rent. In fact, you can repeat #1 three times for it’s proper effect: ‘location, location, location’.
#2 is how you will make your money because your rent determines how much money you need to make and that is this: you have to make twenty times your rent to stay in business. Period.
Next with your grand scheme comes tenet number one—identify your customer. Got it?
So now the situation can, in a perfect world, be thus: you have a wonderful location with a great rent and you’ve identified your customer base as people that really want what you have to offer and can reach you without too much inconvenience. Congratulations, this is very rarely the case.
Let’s start over. Location. Considering that you are a smart person you will try to find a location that was already a restaurant. All the hook ups, some of the fixtures and possibly a spare piece of equipment or two is already there. You didn’t stop to ask why the business before has left, but what the hell, it feels right. Okay, what’s the rent? Five grand? That means that you have to take in a hundred grand a month to survive, not a tough nut, but at the least it’s… challenging. How is it laid out?
In a perfect world the space has one third put aside for kitchen and one half for dining room. The rest of the space is for restrooms, office, storage, garbage, employee lockers and such, this is also rarely the case. Usually everything else (including the kitchen) is minimized to make room for what really pays the rent: the customer. Remember: you need to have fifteen customers in your base (at least) for every seat in your restaurant, and you’ll need ten to twenty square feet per customer for comfortable seating: this is also a rare case. You need room for servers to get past tables (fat chance). And you need plenty of room for the hostess stand (hahahahahaha). Now what about a bar? Uh oh.
After you’ve carved out a space for the bar and realized that you only need seven and a half square feet per person, naturally you come to the decision (and rightly so) to serve food at the bar. Smart move.
NOW you’re hooked up; all you need now is your dining room staff, kitchen monkeys and supplies and yooooouuuurrrrrrr Offff! Tee-rific, yes? Nah, you want the bad news too, right? Here’s Johnny!
With 5% for rent, 12% for liquor, 35% for food 32% staff (including management), you have what to work with? As an owner you have to keep up with the utilities, phone, insurance, cleaning crews, anti theft devices, office staff (including bookkeepers and CPAs), a lawyer on retainer, area maintenance and advertising. Do the math.
Here’s a little restaurant trivia. The owner kicks in .18-.23 cents per dollar paid for every hourly employee for things like unemployment insurance, workman’s compensation and even a contribution to social security. A $10.00 an hour literally costs the employer over $12.00 an hour. How many employees do you think that you’ll have? Again, do the math.
Sounds fun? It gets better. Here’s a little more before I run out of room. Rents in the area are up 46% since the storm the worker pool has shrunk 75% and insurance is out of the friggin’ roof. On top of that, you have to live with (or fight) a .075% waste factor in all areas. And just when you’re having a hard time watching a member of your staff ( that cost you $100-200. to train) on their cell phone, smoking a cigarette outside while your tables get sat and the tickets start piling up; BAM! --the ice machine goes on the fritz, the prep cook calls in too drunk to work, the toilet in the ladies room overflows and the bartender cuts himself while cutting lemon garnishes and has to go to the hospital.
Remember my first piece of advice? “DON’T!” And my second? In the meantime, try to find a place that rents for five grand a month and gimme a call. Cheers!
Reach me: plamancusa@aol.com
September in New Orleans
Po-Boy Views
By
Phil LaMancusa
The Five Oh Four Blues
Or
What It Means
And so it’s September here in the Big Uneasy; where in every eco/social strata, we’re raised on the milk of human indulgence, and it’s still pretty iffy going.
The sign in the elevator says, “In case of an emergency, there is a bar in this hotel!” On the street, a man painted silver, a clown in full make up, and Uncle Louie standing frozen in mid stride garner nary passing looks from locals. You can walk through Sean Kelly’s bar, where Chuck Berry is blaring and into the back to buy tacos and burritos. The note on the shop says “Gone For Gumbo---Back In Ten”. You’re sure as hell not in Kansas Toto!
As you can guess, I did something. I took three days off and went to Fairhope, Alabama and when I returned I fell back in love with this fading starlet that I call home. Naturally, the first thing to greet me back was the smell. The second thing that I noticed was the lack of trash (of the non-organic kind).
The French Quarter takes up a lot more space than it used to, what with all the emptiness that still surrounds it; I figure that, proportionately, we’re about six times bigger. Unfortunately we’re not any smarter; and, compared to other mini-tropolises; we’re still dumber than a box of rocks, crazier than a shithouse rat and more vicious than a junkyard dog. And that’s at face value. Underneath this harsh exterior, we know, beats a heart of pure…greed, corruption, incompetence and foolish optimism that things will change for the better. Consider the French Quarter being itself The Last Madame; it kind of gets you right in the gut, dunnit?
No, I’m not going to bad mouth my city; there are plenty of others to do that for me. Yes, tourism still has us by the cojones and we rely on the kindness of strangers. While we’re trying to stay out of the spotlight, we still are in the crosshairs of everybody’s profile, if you know what I mean.
Perhaps that’s why we’re so dysfunctional: no organized crime? Too many criminals to organize. Advice to the drowning sailor? Be glad that you’re not on fire.
Filling a need? Plugging a hole? “My Mama’s so glad that I’m not on the dole (when the whip comes down)”.
New Orleans, Proud to Call / Stagger / Swim Home Oy Vey.
Consider time itself as a concept, a concept and a weapon. A weapon and a tool. A tool to keep us hopeful while reinforcing our impotence. Examples?: The state of Oregon, realizing the dangers of second hand smoke, is banning smoking in the work place, beginning January 2009 (!). The state of Louisiana, realizing that as we are the last state where it’s legal to fight fowls with fowls, is banning that barbaric sport August 2008(!). And speaking of fouls…Jefferson parish realizing that the Hispanics have insulted their streets with their mobile eating trailers have given them a vacating deadline ……TEN DAYS! Adios! Think about it.
We’re going to do something about global warming… by 2040? We’ll get recycling… when? A change will come… in which election?
We’re told that in a population where the everymen (you, me, us) are under the thumb of the minority that hold the purse strings (the rule makers), very few vote (why bother?). Also very few march, complain or resist. Very few protest, and very few know the difference between being an outlaw and being a criminal. Most of the population goes from the cradle to the grave making no difference at all, and in passing that heritage on to their children, perpetuate the morass.
Robert Stone wrote a book. Prime Green: Remembering The Sixties. Not that I really do, although physically I was there and in my prime. Actually I was here and in my prime.
Anyway, he talks about how he and some of his friends expatriated to Paris for a time in 1964 and how “we would feast our eyes on the beauty of the place, sipping wine, tripping on fond absurdities, and generally rejoicing in the good fortune that had placed us so wonderfully at the center of our childhood dreams.” He goes on to say that “life can be subsumed in magic, although the supply is not inexhaustible."
Ruthie The Duck Girl escaped from the nursing home yesterday some time and wound up outside Café Maspero where we promptly welcomed her and her stuffed animals to the bar. I think the home doesn’t realize that Ruthie is only seventy-three because she looks ninety. She still acts sixteen, inviting each of us in turn: “Ya like to dance?--- Lets dance!--- Cha Cha Cha!” She called us all “sugarplums”. No one under the age of fifty knew who she is and was. Anyway, we subsumed her and she gave us her magic. At the same time we were frantically trying to reach her keepers. She told me I was cute.
Our kitchen manager, John Wayne sent her in from the stoop by the kitchen door, Lana got her a beer (“Ya got a Buhwhyzzuh, Hon? Real cold, Hon, I like ‘em REAL cold!”) A couple of cops dropped by and reminisced about her on her roller skates, wearing a wedding dress with ducks following her, dashing madly about the Quarter asking for cigarettes (“and one fuh layduh, Hon”).
Marshall the artist manned the phone and surreptitiously we started the process of getting her home.
By the time that the nurse showed up Ruthie had an audience of admirers as well as the complete confoundedness of the younger generation that hadn’t a clue about the fame of the legendary ‘Ruthie the Duck Lady nee Girl’ despite their superior technology.
At one time Ruthie sold postcards of herself (“one fuh a quawdah, tree fuh a dollah”). Pretty enterprising for a kid that dropped out of school after completing kindergarten, eh?
Anyway, about an hour and a half after Ruthie’s gracing ourselves, the six foot two nurse arrived and gathered our yawning charge with a “C’mon Ruthie, you’ve been out long enough”, group hug, fade to black. I love this town.
Your assignment this month is to Google Ruthie, read The Jungle by Upton Sinclair and subsume as much magic as you can. Say good night Ruthie.
By
Phil LaMancusa
The Five Oh Four Blues
Or
What It Means
And so it’s September here in the Big Uneasy; where in every eco/social strata, we’re raised on the milk of human indulgence, and it’s still pretty iffy going.
The sign in the elevator says, “In case of an emergency, there is a bar in this hotel!” On the street, a man painted silver, a clown in full make up, and Uncle Louie standing frozen in mid stride garner nary passing looks from locals. You can walk through Sean Kelly’s bar, where Chuck Berry is blaring and into the back to buy tacos and burritos. The note on the shop says “Gone For Gumbo---Back In Ten”. You’re sure as hell not in Kansas Toto!
As you can guess, I did something. I took three days off and went to Fairhope, Alabama and when I returned I fell back in love with this fading starlet that I call home. Naturally, the first thing to greet me back was the smell. The second thing that I noticed was the lack of trash (of the non-organic kind).
The French Quarter takes up a lot more space than it used to, what with all the emptiness that still surrounds it; I figure that, proportionately, we’re about six times bigger. Unfortunately we’re not any smarter; and, compared to other mini-tropolises; we’re still dumber than a box of rocks, crazier than a shithouse rat and more vicious than a junkyard dog. And that’s at face value. Underneath this harsh exterior, we know, beats a heart of pure…greed, corruption, incompetence and foolish optimism that things will change for the better. Consider the French Quarter being itself The Last Madame; it kind of gets you right in the gut, dunnit?
No, I’m not going to bad mouth my city; there are plenty of others to do that for me. Yes, tourism still has us by the cojones and we rely on the kindness of strangers. While we’re trying to stay out of the spotlight, we still are in the crosshairs of everybody’s profile, if you know what I mean.
Perhaps that’s why we’re so dysfunctional: no organized crime? Too many criminals to organize. Advice to the drowning sailor? Be glad that you’re not on fire.
Filling a need? Plugging a hole? “My Mama’s so glad that I’m not on the dole (when the whip comes down)”.
New Orleans, Proud to Call / Stagger / Swim Home Oy Vey.
Consider time itself as a concept, a concept and a weapon. A weapon and a tool. A tool to keep us hopeful while reinforcing our impotence. Examples?: The state of Oregon, realizing the dangers of second hand smoke, is banning smoking in the work place, beginning January 2009 (!). The state of Louisiana, realizing that as we are the last state where it’s legal to fight fowls with fowls, is banning that barbaric sport August 2008(!). And speaking of fouls…Jefferson parish realizing that the Hispanics have insulted their streets with their mobile eating trailers have given them a vacating deadline ……TEN DAYS! Adios! Think about it.
We’re going to do something about global warming… by 2040? We’ll get recycling… when? A change will come… in which election?
We’re told that in a population where the everymen (you, me, us) are under the thumb of the minority that hold the purse strings (the rule makers), very few vote (why bother?). Also very few march, complain or resist. Very few protest, and very few know the difference between being an outlaw and being a criminal. Most of the population goes from the cradle to the grave making no difference at all, and in passing that heritage on to their children, perpetuate the morass.
Robert Stone wrote a book. Prime Green: Remembering The Sixties. Not that I really do, although physically I was there and in my prime. Actually I was here and in my prime.
Anyway, he talks about how he and some of his friends expatriated to Paris for a time in 1964 and how “we would feast our eyes on the beauty of the place, sipping wine, tripping on fond absurdities, and generally rejoicing in the good fortune that had placed us so wonderfully at the center of our childhood dreams.” He goes on to say that “life can be subsumed in magic, although the supply is not inexhaustible."
Ruthie The Duck Girl escaped from the nursing home yesterday some time and wound up outside Café Maspero where we promptly welcomed her and her stuffed animals to the bar. I think the home doesn’t realize that Ruthie is only seventy-three because she looks ninety. She still acts sixteen, inviting each of us in turn: “Ya like to dance?--- Lets dance!--- Cha Cha Cha!” She called us all “sugarplums”. No one under the age of fifty knew who she is and was. Anyway, we subsumed her and she gave us her magic. At the same time we were frantically trying to reach her keepers. She told me I was cute.
Our kitchen manager, John Wayne sent her in from the stoop by the kitchen door, Lana got her a beer (“Ya got a Buhwhyzzuh, Hon? Real cold, Hon, I like ‘em REAL cold!”) A couple of cops dropped by and reminisced about her on her roller skates, wearing a wedding dress with ducks following her, dashing madly about the Quarter asking for cigarettes (“and one fuh layduh, Hon”).
Marshall the artist manned the phone and surreptitiously we started the process of getting her home.
By the time that the nurse showed up Ruthie had an audience of admirers as well as the complete confoundedness of the younger generation that hadn’t a clue about the fame of the legendary ‘Ruthie the Duck Lady nee Girl’ despite their superior technology.
At one time Ruthie sold postcards of herself (“one fuh a quawdah, tree fuh a dollah”). Pretty enterprising for a kid that dropped out of school after completing kindergarten, eh?
Anyway, about an hour and a half after Ruthie’s gracing ourselves, the six foot two nurse arrived and gathered our yawning charge with a “C’mon Ruthie, you’ve been out long enough”, group hug, fade to black. I love this town.
Your assignment this month is to Google Ruthie, read The Jungle by Upton Sinclair and subsume as much magic as you can. Say good night Ruthie.
Getting Away From New Orleans
Po-boy Views
By
Phil LaMancusa
Family Reunion
Or
No Blood, No Foul
And so it was that my daughter delivered unto me a grand child. Naturally a girl of amazing beauty, grace and intelligence; at least as much as we can tell at four weeks of age, of this we have faith.
I did not go north for the birth; however, I did make it up to The Big Apple for that strangest of rituals: the baptism. Well, I think that it’s strange, oh me of little face, while others believe that Christening puts you on the inside track to the Pearly Gates. Go figger.
I flew in under the radar, as usual, on a Friday morning. I scooted out early evening on Monday. There was a lot of beer under the bridges in between. I was the shining example to New !@#$#%$^%&^ York of what a true New !@#$%$%^% Orleanian is. Complete with seersucker suit, bow tie (hand tied, of course) and snappy ‘penurious brim’ from Meyer (The Hatter).
As you know, I spent formative years in public housing on the government dole in lower Manhattan, one of five children of a first generation American woman through her course of three marriages (read: projects, welfare, broken home). Alas, never achieving the reflexes necessary to thrive in such an urban environment (read: skinny, shy, sensitive) I fled early on for warmer climes (read: I got the Qwert out as fast as I could). The rest of the family remains, sophisticated urbanites all (read: somebody might read this).
Although the rumors of the gentrification of my old hood are abundant, I found the same milieu in the still squalid zip code of my youth (read: the only slum left in New York!).
I took the shuttle in from the airport and on arriving at Penn. Station immediately sought out a Sabrett’s hot dog and a Nedick’s orange drink. I was able to navigate to my kid sister’s house in a place called Flushing to begin my sojourn, fluctuating my time between there and a place called New Rochelle for ceremonies and festivities. No one seems to know why it’s called Flushing and oddly enough there is no Old Rochelle that I’ve heard of. That doesn’t surprise me since the nurse at my last doctor’s visit couldn’t tell me what ’X ray’ was short for and/or if there was a W, Y or Z ray. There are things that are beyond the ken of mere mortals.
I spent some time getting reacquainted with my baby sister (now in her fifties) and her children, real and imagined. We spoke on diverse subjects; from the death of our mother (“I told the doctor to give her something for the pain”) to gay marriages (“who gives a fuck!”). We dished family member’s vices and virtues with gusto, relish and warmed over pizza.
My sister owns a house that is a block away from the cemetery where Louis Armstrong is buried. It seems that old ‘Satchel Mouf’ did not want his bones reposing in his birth city. A city that wouldn’t let him stay in a ‘whites only’ hotel or play with white musicians. Imagine that. I said hello for you, to Louie that is. He didn’t say anything back. I didn’t expect him to.
On Saturday, at my daughter’s, we prepared food for the apres ritual fete. Mother, daughter, grand daughter and doting husband dicing, slicing, marinating. Of course the baby was the center of attention, perfect as she is in every way.
At one point my ex had me hold the little darlin’ and made me repeat out loud those damning words “Grandfather…Grandfather…Grandfather”. What’s up with that? I don’t want to know.
Ah, New York. Where the women are strong, the men have all their own teeth and the children are above average in intelligence. Except in my old neighborhood.
Did I tell you that my brother drives a subway train? Here’s a story for you. My brother’s train was going under the Twin Towers on 9/11 and his supervisor radioed him to bypass the station. My brother not knowing what was going on happily complied and went speeding under the disaster. The next train, however, who’s driver had had contact with the outside world, did not. Going on the intercom and telling the passengers to stay aboard, he picked up the people on the station and made it out before the collapse.
Okay, that’s enough chatter for one column.
But, then, what is my choice but idle chatter? Shall I write about New Orleans yet again? Do you think that this is still The Big Easy? If you live here you know that, like a bad marriage (not my term), we endure day after day of putting on our game face while the walls of our hearts melt, and we chew our Cheerios with mendacious smiles and unquiet minds.
Here’s one for you. I watched a documentary on Public Television about how the military can erect and have fully functional in thirty six hours a hospital complete with operating rooms, convalescing wards and X ray facilities! Ask yourself…what’s up with New Orleans? Where’s our hospitals?
Naw, I’ll leave all that stuff to Chris Rose, his new book will be out any day now.
Of course you know that our columns are written with a six-week lead-time to publication; and, coming up on the two year anniversary of the ‘Thing’, here’s hoping. Here’s hoping that we make it through another storm season, that more of our neighbors are back, that we’re getting the help we need and that Paris Hilton is not too scarred from her time in the slammer.
Here’s hoping that we’re still in love, our powder’s dry, our streets are as safe as they are clean and we can rest easy.
New Orleans is an addiction. I hope I can always get my fix. My fix of gumbo. My fix of that first cold beer after a stroll through hot humid air. My fix of our oneness with each other.
And remember: it’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt.
By
Phil LaMancusa
Family Reunion
Or
No Blood, No Foul
And so it was that my daughter delivered unto me a grand child. Naturally a girl of amazing beauty, grace and intelligence; at least as much as we can tell at four weeks of age, of this we have faith.
I did not go north for the birth; however, I did make it up to The Big Apple for that strangest of rituals: the baptism. Well, I think that it’s strange, oh me of little face, while others believe that Christening puts you on the inside track to the Pearly Gates. Go figger.
I flew in under the radar, as usual, on a Friday morning. I scooted out early evening on Monday. There was a lot of beer under the bridges in between. I was the shining example to New !@#$#%$^%&^ York of what a true New !@#$%$%^% Orleanian is. Complete with seersucker suit, bow tie (hand tied, of course) and snappy ‘penurious brim’ from Meyer (The Hatter).
As you know, I spent formative years in public housing on the government dole in lower Manhattan, one of five children of a first generation American woman through her course of three marriages (read: projects, welfare, broken home). Alas, never achieving the reflexes necessary to thrive in such an urban environment (read: skinny, shy, sensitive) I fled early on for warmer climes (read: I got the Qwert out as fast as I could). The rest of the family remains, sophisticated urbanites all (read: somebody might read this).
Although the rumors of the gentrification of my old hood are abundant, I found the same milieu in the still squalid zip code of my youth (read: the only slum left in New York!).
I took the shuttle in from the airport and on arriving at Penn. Station immediately sought out a Sabrett’s hot dog and a Nedick’s orange drink. I was able to navigate to my kid sister’s house in a place called Flushing to begin my sojourn, fluctuating my time between there and a place called New Rochelle for ceremonies and festivities. No one seems to know why it’s called Flushing and oddly enough there is no Old Rochelle that I’ve heard of. That doesn’t surprise me since the nurse at my last doctor’s visit couldn’t tell me what ’X ray’ was short for and/or if there was a W, Y or Z ray. There are things that are beyond the ken of mere mortals.
I spent some time getting reacquainted with my baby sister (now in her fifties) and her children, real and imagined. We spoke on diverse subjects; from the death of our mother (“I told the doctor to give her something for the pain”) to gay marriages (“who gives a fuck!”). We dished family member’s vices and virtues with gusto, relish and warmed over pizza.
My sister owns a house that is a block away from the cemetery where Louis Armstrong is buried. It seems that old ‘Satchel Mouf’ did not want his bones reposing in his birth city. A city that wouldn’t let him stay in a ‘whites only’ hotel or play with white musicians. Imagine that. I said hello for you, to Louie that is. He didn’t say anything back. I didn’t expect him to.
On Saturday, at my daughter’s, we prepared food for the apres ritual fete. Mother, daughter, grand daughter and doting husband dicing, slicing, marinating. Of course the baby was the center of attention, perfect as she is in every way.
At one point my ex had me hold the little darlin’ and made me repeat out loud those damning words “Grandfather…Grandfather…Grandfather”. What’s up with that? I don’t want to know.
Ah, New York. Where the women are strong, the men have all their own teeth and the children are above average in intelligence. Except in my old neighborhood.
Did I tell you that my brother drives a subway train? Here’s a story for you. My brother’s train was going under the Twin Towers on 9/11 and his supervisor radioed him to bypass the station. My brother not knowing what was going on happily complied and went speeding under the disaster. The next train, however, who’s driver had had contact with the outside world, did not. Going on the intercom and telling the passengers to stay aboard, he picked up the people on the station and made it out before the collapse.
Okay, that’s enough chatter for one column.
But, then, what is my choice but idle chatter? Shall I write about New Orleans yet again? Do you think that this is still The Big Easy? If you live here you know that, like a bad marriage (not my term), we endure day after day of putting on our game face while the walls of our hearts melt, and we chew our Cheerios with mendacious smiles and unquiet minds.
Here’s one for you. I watched a documentary on Public Television about how the military can erect and have fully functional in thirty six hours a hospital complete with operating rooms, convalescing wards and X ray facilities! Ask yourself…what’s up with New Orleans? Where’s our hospitals?
Naw, I’ll leave all that stuff to Chris Rose, his new book will be out any day now.
Of course you know that our columns are written with a six-week lead-time to publication; and, coming up on the two year anniversary of the ‘Thing’, here’s hoping. Here’s hoping that we make it through another storm season, that more of our neighbors are back, that we’re getting the help we need and that Paris Hilton is not too scarred from her time in the slammer.
Here’s hoping that we’re still in love, our powder’s dry, our streets are as safe as they are clean and we can rest easy.
New Orleans is an addiction. I hope I can always get my fix. My fix of gumbo. My fix of that first cold beer after a stroll through hot humid air. My fix of our oneness with each other.
And remember: it’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt.
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