A Different Planet for Bartenders

Alan Catlin

Perceptions:

Maybe I shouldn't have answered, what must have felt like an innocent question to my fellow passenger on the bus.

It was really none of her business anyway what I was listening to in the first place.

That's why you bring headphones, a walkman and your cassettes in the first place: so you zone out inside your own particular space and let the human condition do its worst all around you on its own.

But there was something in the dull glint in her eye, something between grinning idiot and world class bore that made me do it.

Besides it was almost time to flip over the tape anyway and the answer was sure to get a reaction

"The recorded poems of Sylvia Plath. There's something in how her inflection changes from preppie prima donna on the verge of a great academic career that no one else will ever touch, to tormented soul, lost in a wilderness of bad dreams, that speaks to me where I live. The closer she gets to sticking her head in the oven, while her husband, the laureate Ted, is away, screwing some other neurotic co-ed, who would do the same oven thing to him years later, only this time with her unborn child inside, instead of them sleeping in the next room while mommy sucked on the gas."

It wasn't exactly the kind of response she had in mind.

I guess.

Too bad, while she was changing seats she missed all the fun going on outside.

Philosophy:

I know bartenders aren't supposed to be educated.                                                                                         They're supposed to know everything but not to be educated, it's one of those essential contradictions you get used to after awhile.

Sometimes you can even have fun with it but usually in subtle ways not many other people appreciate.

Not that it really matters.                                                                                                                                         Still, sometimes you have to involve other people in the game of life you are playing with a stacked deck.

Like the subtle joy of a thing well done only you can appreciate, there are refinements in this life, some involving an even more subtle form of cheating, that can be rewarding in ways it                                              is almost impossible to explain.

                       It helps if you are in charge of the                                                                                                                                Rules and The Game.

The Open Door Policy
             Of course, if you leave the door propped open, as you should do summer evenings to let                                 out the carcinogenic clouds of cigarette smoke the prehistoric smoke eaters do nothing to                                                                                                    dispel.                                                                                                              The whole idea of an open door policy is to do business with as large a general clientele                                                                                                   as possible.

          That's what it's all about.
          Doing Business
          but some people's idea of doing business varies greatly from other people's.
          And some of the people that pass for clientele can only be described as what the dogs                                         of

hell dragged in on their way home to the banks of the River Styx

Feelings:

I have them the same as other people do, except mine have been altered a bit by perceptions.

And a lifelong habit of observing the divina comedia from a specialized vantage point.

Have come to see the whole dim process of human interaction as a kind of living movie you have to alter the dialogue and shift scenes of in your mind as the situation develop.

Sometimes this produced a particular kind of psycho drama.                                                                                But it sure does liven things up when you are on the verge of a complete kind of stark raving mad state of boredom                                                                                                                                                                                      or your sensibilities have becomes so jaded and over-sensitized that just about any weird thrill outside of the ordinary days and nights of random weirdness can provide, and you'll do anything to press the magic buttons to make it happen.

Blues:

After awhile, you feel as if you can write a whole series of in-depth monologues of the lost souls of the human condition acting their outpatient roles in the largest spontaneous school of drama yet.

That all the soliloquies you've heard and make up on the spot, are just something buried in Ophelia's waterlogged brain                                                                                                                                                                    dead and buried as last week's heliotrope bouquet:                                                                                                  Rue is for the heart
          White roses are for the beloved
          Nettles are for the skin                                                                                                                                                   or third base if you were a Yankee fan in the late 70's and early 80's.
          That was the kind of observation that made you the kind of evil presence people made the                      sign of the cross behind your back as if they thought you couldn't see them doing it in the strategically placed backbar mirrors and weren't altering the chemistry of the alcohol they were about to drink in ways that would be less than pleasant.

Never piss off someone who is going to make something you are about to put inside your body is about the only rule to live by I would call absolute.

Imaging:

Usually, I don't bother to dispel the notion that bartenders all live up to the standard deviations people expect of them:
          that we are all lying, cheating, thieving, carnal animals, who live only to get drunk,                                       play cards, bet the horses and get laid with anything female old enough to grant permission.

In fact, cultivating that image has many advantages that can be used to your advantage when all the normal rules of communication and interaction break down.

It is the breaking of the mold that makes all the days and months and years perceived as                            being a human scumbag with the rote intelligence of a bag of warm manure, worthwhile

Alan Catlin has been publishing since the '70s. His many books include the recently released American Odyssey from Future Cycle Press. He worked in the service industry, at his unchosen profession, for thirty four years. He could have been an English teacher but a normal person would have done that. He is from Planet Earth.

← Previous

Back to contents