From the Mailbox: “Dear Ed, I’ve been reading your bartender column for over four years now. I’ve always wondered, is bartending as exciting and fun as it seems? Does it pay well? If so, how do I get a job?”
Dan/La Jolla, CA
Yes Dan, it is as fun and exciting as it seems. A world where peppy bouncy party girls burst out of their tank-tops like a microwave popcorn accident and where time flies faster than a clock on the Concorde -- but there is a flip side. Bartending is also a dirty stinking grind. It takes a certain type of person to be a bartender. The question is, Dan, are you the right person?
There will be adjustments you know; a turbulent transformation of lifestyle and worldview. For instance, when you are a bartender your social life is the bar. You go out to bars when you’re not working. Your friends and acquaintances are primarily other bartenders, waitresses, and ever-boozers. And you all become this enormous, deranged, dysfunctional family: Your co-workers are alcoholics; your customers are alcoholics; your lovers are alcoholics; you are an alcoholic (that’s why you want the job right, to be just a little closer to all those shiny pretty bottles?)
How can this not mangle your worldview? You live inside a black comedy and all you can hope for is that you aren’t the punch line. The job is to poison your customers and it’s just so wrong it’s funny. Funnier still because you adore it -- despite the fact that the happy peppy party girl is puking in the bathroom because of what you served her.
Oh yes, bartending pays well. Oh sweet farts of Christ – you can make crazy monies. You just wish there was some sort of future in it . . .
. . . So you dream of owning your own bar one day – a fabulous bar; where drinks are cheap as chicken spit; where happy bouncy peppy party girls arrive in droves; where patrons spontaneously erupt into theme song; and where the jukebox is filled with all the Sabbath, Zep, Public Enemy, and Johnny Cash you can get your clammy hands on. And best part about your jukebox?:
No.
More.
Creed.
Creed is verboten. Oh Bliss! In fact Dan, your night club is a place to seek asylum from the Creed onslaught outside -- where Creed songs just seem to rain from the sky. And in the absence of Creed, all the happy jumpy peppy party pretty girls will finally discover Mr. Johnny Cash, and he will drape his song around them like a long black coat, and they will hear what it means to sing with emotion -- without being a pompous asshole -- and the bouncy party girls will stand semi-circle around the jukebox, hold hands, sing and sway, and tear off their tank tops, draping tongues over nipples and . . . er, uh . . . anyway, there’s no future in bartending.
So you want to be a bartender, eh Dan? Please note then, people are going to see you differently. I’ve heard it said, “If a man and his reputation were walking down the street, they would not recognize each other.”
If a bartender saw his reputation walking down the street, he would duck into an alley and hide. Because a bartender’s reputation will always kick a bartender’s ass.
Mavericks, and ever-boozers, and college kids will regard you as noble or Knightly -- a sentinel of some magnificent Brewtopia. Yet, adults – the kind with families and careers -- acknowledge you with pity or contempt.
Of course, you are none of these.
Your father regards you as some sort of pinko subversive. Your mother wants you to grow up and give her a grandchild goddammit. Your sister will interrogate all your girlfriends. And your brother will try to steal your shifts.
As for your sex life, Yes Dan, oh yes there is plenty of sex. Sometimes even with actual women – sometimes beautiful women who you think of as divine – that they were accidentally discarded from Heaven when God was throwing out all his Creed CD’s.
Yes there is sex Dan. But after time, you notice a trend. You notice the only women with whom you sleep are women you meet in bars. Though you know there is something wrong with that, you are not quite sure what it is.
So Dan, are you the right type of person? Here are some simple questions that will help you decide. 1) Do you like people, but wish you could go through life with three feet of wood between you and them? 2) Can you look into a person’s eyes longer than they can look into yours? 3) Can you tell a joke? Can you take one? There is nothing in this universe more foul than a jaded, humorless bartender with a delusion of authority. 4) Do you prefer the night? 5) Do you drink with dignity? (Sloppy drunks need not apply). 6) Is your skin callous enough?; your chin sturdy enough?: Is your back broad and are your feet hurting enough? Hey Dan, are you man enough to be our man?