Thursday, January 14, 2010

The only line that is true is the line your from

Bearing down on this loosely fitted date of departure.  In the next couple days I'll have a round trip ticket and my first weeks stay arranged.  Kind of a load off the back, in spite of all I've said about just wanting to rush over there with a plan trailing on my coattails its kind of nice to have a little firmness of action.  Its funny because I keep feeling like I'm embarking on a dream.  As in it literally is not real.  So whenever someone asks me something like, "oh what are you going to do with your dog?", or "are you going to pay your studio rent ahead?", or "what about your jobs?" it kind of snaps me back down to our terrestrial plane.  I hope that doesn't mean I'm enjoying the idea of this trip more so than the actual event.  Interesting though how we become enamored by ideas of things instead of the actual things themselves.  Take restaurants for example.  I've been working in restaurants since before I even had the legal rights to work (only by 3 months I'm not that hardcore).  What I've seen over this 12 year span of time is that restaurants are usually nothing like what their customers perceive them to be.  I mean sure, you walk in as a patron and see the decor, get some vibes from the hostess, sit down, have a meal, its good or bad, and you leave.  Presuming its somewhere you've been before, you're walking in with the idea that this place is good based on the food and maybe some personable employees who work there.  If any one customer actually knew the restaurant for what it is through and through, which is so far beyond just the microcosm of good vs bad food/service their minds would be launched off their skull like a clay piece in a skeet shooter.  I don't think their was anything left out or looked over between Bourdain and Pierre in their books about the inner workings of kitchens and restaurants, but just to give a recent example:  Walking into the service station (the waitstaff lounge) the other night and find myself in the throngs of a full blown conversation about the how why and practicality of "docking".  "Docking" if you are unfamiliar (which if you are this will be hilarious) is a sex act between two men in which one uncircumcised penis stretches its foreskin over another circumcised penis.  The etymology of the term is now obvious as it would clearly appear quite similar to some sort of ship-to-ship airlock situation, whether in a submersible or in space.  Maybe this seems like a digression but my point is this.  People eating in that restaurant at the time stuffing their face with their shit eating grins enjoying the lovely atmosphere or art fixtures have no idea of this utterly perverse and disgusting (aka hilarious) conversation going on at the same time.  So I guess my theory, going back to the start, is that if these same customers knew the restaurant they would know about such conversations and their understanding of the place as a whole would change.  This, however, will never happen, and employees of restaurants will forever be able to freely pass their time with the most colorful of vulgarities in all their wonderful and various forms, unbeknownst to their customers.

It gets old though.

I was in CVS a few days ago and saw this massive banner hanging over the register.  The exact wording of it escapes me now so in attempt to paraphrase it went something like, "Get Out and Start Living."  What a terrible banner to have up in a place like CVS.  I mean, its a great uplifting, seize the day-type thing to have, and I'm sure there are more than a few customers that see it since, well, I noticed it.  I don't even work at this place and its making me stir crazy just thinking about all the other places I do work at just while standing in line for cigarettes.  Its like daring your employees to go Jerry McGuire on your ass.  Fuck if I worked at CVS I probably would.  I have a hard enough time not doing it at some of the other places I work, and for no other reason than fuck I've been working in restaurants for 12 years I've had enough.  I guess in the end though its almost a good thing its there, the banner that is.  Every day those employees go in to work and every day they are dared to start a new life.  Kind of compelling if you ask me.  Also perhaps an extreme metaphorical stretch for a goddamn banner in a fucking CVS but hey, it was a 5 minute wait in line for cigarettes, I could play out a whole fucking three part miniseries in my head in that time.  So those who may scoff I challenge them to do the same.

If anyone is wondering about the title of this post its from a song by a band called Blind Pilot.  I think its maybe the most powerful verse I've heard from any of their songs.  So start drawing some lines people.  Not boundaries or borders.  The line is you.  

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