Bartending vs. Serving: Taste and compare.

How to get the job

–Bartender: Apply for management

–Server: Apply for bartender

Social status

-Bartender: Impresses friends under 30

–Server: Impresses guests over 30

Work status

-Bartender: Token

–Server: Token

Nickname

–Bartender: Joe Genius

–Server: Steve

Kicks

–Bartender: Adidas Dual Threat

–Server: Dr. Scholl ‘s Work with cushion heel

Socks

–Bartender: Thick

–Server: Thicker

Walking

–Bartender: Side-to-side like zone defense in basketball

-Server: Heel to toe race walking

Terra firma

–Bartender: Perforated rubber mat

–Server: Stone floor

Pants

Bartender: Tactical cargo shorts

-Server: Polyester dress slacks

Top

–Bartender: Muscle, theme and promo T’s

–Server: Company issued

Hair care products

–Bartender: TRESemmes spray gel

–Server: Water

Hydration

–Bartender: Iced tea with club soda and 4 lime wedges

–Server: Iced tea with club soda and 4 lime wedges

Nutrition

–Bartender: 16 oz. milk with CVS whey protein

–Server: 16 oz. milk with CVS whey protein

CVS

–Bartender: Across the street

–Server: Around the corner

Local attraction

–Bartender: Fenway Park

–Server: Theater District plays and shows

Sports metaphor

–Bartender: Bar/MLB, dance club/NFL

–Server: NBA

Weight

–Bartender: 176ish

–Server: 168ish

Aches and pains

–Bartender: Broken fingers, bruised knees

–Server: Callused insteps, sore arches

Job security

–Bartender: “Job security of an ice cube.”

–Server: Always understaffed so relatively secure for servers with 5+ shift availability

Sex

–Bartender: Yes

–Server: Overhear 2nd. dates and date nights chit-chat at tables

Music

–Bartender: Every genre imaginable

–Server: J. Trap; 45 minute loop

Career move

–Bartender: Management

–Server: Bartender

Income

–Bartender: $$$ now

–Server: Next day deposit to debit card

Guest payments

–Bartender: $$$ now

–Server: $$$, credit cards, Up n Go via phone, credit cards

Guests’ bad habits

–Bartender: “Make it strong.”

–Server: “Is there a charge for extra meat?”

Co-worker bad habits

–Bartender: Barback sitting down playing Candy Crush while you stock beer

–Server: Servers sitting down texting while you stock ice

Alcohol

–Bartender: Lots

–Server: Specialty cocktails

Food

–Bartender: $1 Honey cashews from vending machine

–Server: Pan-Asian cuisine with entrees up to $36

Management style

–Bartender: Personal and direct from G.M. and Asst. Mgr.

–Server: Corporate from as many as 4 managers

Future?

–Bartender: 2+ years ago in the rear view mirror

–Server: Bring on 2023

2021 CHANGE: 10 Signs of Aging

1) One is 441 years of age in dog years.

2) Thelma Allera’s passing on December 16, 2020 , my aunt who is my Mom’s first cousin, means that all of my older relatives are no longer of this world.

3) “Steve knows all of that old time music. Was Eminem a thing right away?”

4) One remembers when security were bouncers and servers were waiters/waitresses.

5) One’s higher tolerance for pain is something of a compensation for decreased mobility.

6) Some things change, some don’t. 42 years and 3 months of ovo-lacto veggieism!

7) One’s after work ritual is not recreational substance use or romantic mishaps but the filing down of foot calluses.

8) One’s pride in being able to perform manual labor is both morally justifiable and useful on a practical level.

9) One’s lips do not move when one is talking to oneself.

10) “A man has gotta know his limitations.”

BASEBALL: Red Sox vs. White Sox 8, Red Sox 6, Post-game wrap-up

POST-GAME WRAP-UP TOP TEN

1) 75 degrees and 52% humidity is just about perfect.

 

2) Eduardo Rodriguez was one of the few bright spots in last year’s last place debacle and seemed to be on his game but Todd Frazier’s 6th. inning HR put the Chi Sox ahead.

 

3)  David Oritz was thrown out at home by Adam Eaton in the 2nd. inning on a short hit to center by Travis Shaw.  Eaton played the hit well coming in rapidly and throwing accurately to Chi Sox catcher Dioneer Navarro who easily tagged out Big Papi.  As we all know Papi is having an amazing season so far but:

a) He is 40.

b) He is at least 230 lbs.

c) The replay is not recommended for small children unaccompanied by adults.

 3rd. base coach Brian Butterfield made an inexplicable decision to play for 1 run in the 2nd. inning with the Bo Sox down only 1-0 at home.   

 

4)  1 bag of dry roasted peanuts from a vendor =$5.50. 2  Coca-Cola Zero(s) at $5.25 a whack.  I opted for the Coca-Cola Zero rather than Diet Coke for the slightly acidic aftertaste which cleanses the palate.

 

5) $499 for a 1st. base box seat so you can text and take selfies.  Am I the only one who thinks this is just wrong?  Please advise.

 

6)  Former Yankee and PED offender of 2014 Melky Cabrera now sports a beard sans mustache which gives him a vaguely Amish countenance.  Is there an Amish community in the Dominican Republic or is Melky merely attempting to conceal the Shaquille Onealesque double chin sprouting from his 5’10” 210 lb. physique?  You make the call.

 

7) Sandy Leon was picked off 3rd. in the bottom of the 4th where Brian Butterfield directs traffic.  Ortiz is sent, then erased, Leon is picked off…hmmm…

 

8) “Everybody Wang Chung Tonight” was among the cavalcade of music cranked out by the Fenway sound system as is protocol  for all sporting events.  Fortunately,  Josh Kantor’s organ stylings bring back fond boyhood memories of Jane Jacobs at Shea Stadium playing “3 Blind Mice” whenever an umpire’s call was disputed.  The lovely analog tones echo in the grandstand and encourage enough conversation so that folks actually look at the game and each other rather than peering into their phone with earbuds surgically attached. 

 

9)  Peter Gammons bobblehead doll?

 

10)  Koji Uehara served up home runs to Melky Cabrera and Matt Lawrie along with a screaming double hit by Dioneer Navarro before being mercifully relieved by Heath Hembree.  “Relief” is truly the correct word.  Koji is one of my favorites.  Tending bar for the 6th. game of the 2013 World Series while a packed room chanted “Koji, Koji,” is one of my all-time sports memories and you have to love a man who has chosen the 1999 techno mega-hit “Sandstorm” by Darude as his entrance music but…Uehara is 41 and his 88 mph. “fastball” just might not be what it once was.  Just saying…

 

 

 

 

 

RAMONES: 44 YEARS AGO

…44 years ago, August 30, 1975; later tonight…

…I saw the Ramones for the very 1st. time at C.B.G.B’s.  I was inspired to visit the Bowery by James Wolcott’s article in the VILLAGE VOICE, “The Conservatism of the New Rock,” which detailed the aesthetics of minimalism that made up the template of punk.

(Mr. Wolcott’s book LUCKING OUT provides a narrative to the music and art scenes of N.Y.C. 74-80.  A very worthwhile read and a reminder of a time when artistic aspiration rather than “reality” moved minds).

My appetite for deliberately abrasive art had been whetted by Antonio Artaud’s writings and musings on the ‘Theater of Cruelty,’ and a FILM FORUM article on FREEBIE AND THE BEAN, both of  which uplifted alienation into an art form and considered neutrality the only artistic vice.

I took the L.I.R.R. into Penn Station to brave the Bowery clad in black polyester pants, at least they weren’t bell-bottoms, and my old All America Camp counselor-in-training t-shirt which I thought/hoped would be an appropriate celebration/denial of whatever-the-heck-happened to happen.

“Are you 18?”

“Yup.”

I entered a dump that looked not unlike the Royale(Roy-Al) which resided across Main St. from my hometown Port Washington, N.Y. railroad station.  The only “decor” that caught my eye was a life-size poster of John Lennon clad in a black leather jacket with a toilet seat around his neck.

(This picture can be found on THE BEATLES: LIVE AT THE STAR CLUB, HAMBURG, GERMANY, an album that is a true template of punk).

Joe Cool was the 1st. band.  My only recollection of them is of a bunch of dorky guys in suit jackets and Cons.

The 2nd. band was Milk n’ Cookies who were the 2nd. C.B.G.B’s band to record a single after Patti Smith’s “Piss Factory.”

 ” 10 girls, 20 girls…I want more,” seemed to be the only lyrics yelped by Milk n’ Cookies’ diminutive lead singer Ian North whose tuneless enthusiasm reminded me of…me singing in the shower.

(“More Girls” can be found by entering ‘Milk n’ Cookies’ on Wikipedia).

Hmmm…

After a 20 minute set there was between set music with “Hippy, Hippy, Shake,” by the Swingin’ Blue Jeans, and “All Day and All of the Night,” by the Kinks, both of which everyone seemed to know all of the words of and were featured on BRITISH ROCK’S GREATEST HITS PART II which was in the Port Washington Public Library courtesy of Mark Bates.  Gee, I had thought that I was the only person who knew these songs.

Hmmm…

“Stepping Stone,” by Paul Revere and the Raiders?  I thought that I was the only one roused by this disparagement of social mobility.  I was amazed and amused.

Hmmm…

…The Ramones took the stage…

 “…1,2,3,4…”

Neither I or anything that I would ever comprehend up to and including this very moment would ever be the same.

This is as true at this very moment writing as it was 44 years ago.

Happy Birthday, Mom! 9/17/1925

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!

 Doris Gallanter, my mother, would be 89 today if she was still with us.

Last week, September 10, I sent an email to my brother, exter and nieces reminding them of her birthday and my warm thoughts upon her birthday.  My recollection was precipitated by the playing of the CD VIVALDI: THE FOUR SEASONS as performed by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Seiji Ozawa with Joseph Silverstein as lead violinist.

But…September 17th, NOT the 10th. was Mom’s birthday as my brother, Peter and niece Amy quickly pointed out.  It took me a moment, and a consultation with my analog era Daily Reminder to realize that I had been mistaken…or not?

Classical music was one of Mom’s passions.  WQXR and WNCN frequently flowed from the clock radio perched precariously on our refrigerator.  (To be sure News Radio 88 got its due and WABC’s Dan Ingram’s authoritative baritone got their time as well.  I grew up in a loud household!).

THE FOUR SEASONS was one of my Mom’s favorites as even my Dad recognized as when he bought a new LP of the classic to lend melody to their strained relationship.  I had the good fortune of being the unwitting recipient of classical culture.

Classical music is not something that I am intimately familiar with.  However, THE FLOUR SEASONS, along with Ravel’s BOLERO, Beethoven’s 5TH. SYMPHONY and Khachaturian’s SABER DANCE is something almost as familiar as BLITZKRIEG BOP .

I have more music than I can listen to.  LPs, CDs and even cassettes fill my studio apartment even after having purged my collection years ago upon moving from a 1 bedroom to a studio.  I still listen to terrestrial radio and Internet streaming radio, (57 Chevy is the mostest) claim the hammer and anvil while YouTube, (I hear you Golden Earring and Lenny Tristiano) also has its place in my bandwidth.

Daily I pull something from my collection and give it my ears.  On September 10th, I pulled out THE FOUR SEASONS on CD. 

This CD was purchased by me when I bought Mom a portable CD player in 1999(?).

I remember her smile as she pressed ‘Play’.

“I see that it is the Boston Symphony Orchestra,” she said.

“You don’t miss a thing,” I replied.

Oft times my attempts at humor went for naught but on this occasion we both smiled.

Upon her passing I kept THE FOUR SEASONS for myself as both memory and music.

On September 10th, 2014 I inserted THE FOUR SEASONS into my boom box and melody and memory flooded over me.  The current was so strong that I felt compelled to email the family to let them know that I recalled the import of the date.

The lilting excitement of “La primavera(Spring)”, the hyper mania of “L ‘Estate(Summer)”, the descending melody of L “Autunno(Autumn)” and the somber hibernation of “L ‘Inverno(Winter)” evoked my Mom even as the date of her birthday was my misapprehension.

Peter and Amy corrected my misapprehension…

…but is it really a misapprehension when the chord between music and Mom is so strong?

…My mind was mistaken…

…My heart…perhaps…not…

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!