Tom Waits MxMo

Jesus. What to say? I've been listening to Tom Waits non-stop since Andrew posted this month's theme. Here's where I'll start: usually these posts come from the 1022 South blog, but given my relationship to Tom Waits I'm not very comfortable posting them on the biz blog.

Go here to see what Andrew has to say about this month. After that, if you don't own any Tom Waits, beg, borrow or steal any number of albums (I recommend you start with Rain Dogs).

Here's my Tom Waits story. I spent my formative years becoming friends with the asshole (in the best possible way) Jason Quackenbush (J to his friends...)over at Wet Asphalt. He proselytized about many things over the years including Tom Waits, Sun City Girls, David Bowie, and The Cure, Line 6 amps, David Foster Wallace and Anthony Burgess. Before I go any further, I should note that I think this guy is brilliant. I'm sure he's not the smartest person I've ever met, but he's definitely top 5. He's eccentric, occasionally mean but usually very charming, and fixates on strange things probably for the sake of fixating on strange things. I listened to Tom Waits once or twice on his recommendation, it didn't grab and I figured it was another one of his...fixations.

When Andrew posted this months theme, I immediately thought of J. I started listening to Rain Dogs and was immediately sucked in. What I previously mocked as sea chanties or circus music all of the sudden resonated with me. Ya, I know...

So, the reason I write about J is that my memories of him and Tom Waits are all centered around a six month period when I lived in a bat-shit crazy house in the woods across the "bay" from Evergreen State College. The house was all wrong angles and doorways slightly askew or just a little too small. It was nestled in an area of dense greenbelt, I guess you could say (Most would say woods as it was kinda rural). J used to drive down from Sea-Tac (his apartment there is a Tom Waits story in and of itself) and spend the weekend. We would proceed to eat, smoke, or drink all of the drugs I had stock piled, then we would sit in the dark on the edge of the woods and smoke cigarettes and drink beers all night. We were young, felt invincible, and lord knows we were full of piss and vinegar. This challenge made me think of those many, many nights.

Without further ado, here are the god-damned cocktails:

Gun Street Girl
1.5 oz Rittenhouse 100 proof rye
.75 oz Dolin Italian vermouth
2 bar spoons maraschino liqueur
3 dashes cardamom tincture
3 dashes grains of paradise tincture
Combine ingredients over ice, stir, then strain into chilled coupe. Finish with fancy cherry.

This is a riff on the HR 1022. I'm much happier about this one...





And because I can't submit just one cocktail...

Tango Till They're Sore
1 oz Leblon cachaca
.75 oz yerba mate infusion*
.5 oz Licor 43
.5 oz lime juice
serrano pepper
cayenne pepper

Slice a smallish serrano wheel, drop into bottom of mixing glass, and press once with muddler. Combine remaining ingredients, give a vigorous, sexy shake, then double strain into chilled coupe. Top with shake of cayenne.

* 1 cup of yerba mate per 750 ml of 151 NGA. Let rest for 8-10 hours, then double strain.

Something about this month's theme has left me a bit sad. Still, it was fun...

1022's website

Ya, so it's finally up but of course it's not finished. That's all me. Check it out here.

Exhaustion

I posted before that I am pestered, harassed, hounded by the powers-that-be about the bar not turning a tidy profit in the first year. I don't need to proselytize about the failure rate for restaurants or small businesses in general. The fact that we have broken even in the first year is a success. Now, we are turning away people on the weekends. Business over the last couple of months has increased by something like 25%. Still, it's not making enough to bring cash into those particular powers. What money we do make gets rolled back into the coffers.

Before I talk about whatever their next step is going to be, indulge me a moment and play the world's smallest violin. There is no drinking culture in Tacoma. The Swiss, Top, and Magoo's kind of sum it up. And you know what, I'll throw places like Tempest in there as well. Get there first with the most. Drink until you're blind, don't be belligerent and they will keep serving you. It's not about what you're drinking, it's about getting it in you, getting fucked up. Here we come trying to change that. If you read this blog, then you know me and you know what we are trying to do. Slow down the process, bring people together, treat each other with respect, promote active, conscientious consumption as much as it is possible. Not to sound too much like a crazy lady, but if you do it right, then the money will take care of itself.

And now here we are. I believe I have done right. I have made compromises, but I sleep well at night (at least regarding how I run a business). I treat and pay my staff well, I preach great service and facilitating the guests experience, and I also promote continuous knowledge and professional growth.

And where here is that the powers-that-be are upset with how the business is run, specifically marketing. What they want is the bar the way it is but run and marketed like the Swiss or Jazzbones or the Westend. They want two-for-one specials, free peanuts and pretzels, and, I don't know, Bud Lite. What I do know they want is more signage. More lights outside. I think they want neon in the windows. They want it marketed like a nightclub or a pizza joint and run like a craft cocktail bar. Or maybe run like a nightclub or pizza joint, I don't know. I suspect all that they really care about is money.

That is so depressing.

The Shifter

People ask me all the time, what do I drink? The honest answer is everything. As much as I like not serving Bud Lite, I enjoy a cold Rainier, Oly, PBR, or High Life. And as much as I nudge and wink at people who scoff at shots, I do them. With probably alarming regularity. Probably more than I drink anything artisanal.
So, here's what I'm drinking tonight: starting with Liquore Strega and a luke-warm, half-full Henry Weinhard's private reserve. Why am I drinking a crappy beer in such a condition? Because I paid for it and it's the last one. One of my roommates, ahem: K, drank the rest. And also, frankly, because I don't care. I'm not squeamish about beer and I spend enough time in "flavor country" that I don't need my beer to be a taste explosion in my mouth. Besides pop-rocks, I probably need few things exploding in my mouth...
I'm drinking the Strega straight because it's tasty. And I'm tired. Yeah, I could break out the bar gear and whip up a tasty cocktail, but then I get to do dishes. And my shoulder is already sore from whipping up tasty cocktails for 6 hours. And I'm tired. And, finally, I like to taste, feel, experience, whatever I am drinking. For instance, up next is a glass of Wild Turkey 101. I want to feel that. The burn, the lurch, the physicality of it. Not always, but at 3 am when I am just off after negotiating screaming, shuffling, intoxicated masses and life's rich pageantry that constantly presents itself in Hilltop, I want a shot and a beer and I want to feel it.
To circuitously get the meat of the question, here's what I drink: sidecars, sazeracs, and negronis. I seriously love these cocktails when done right. They all help me get a lay of the land. I never order any of the aforementioned cocktails in bars that don't stock the ingredients. Once I've established that the bar has the necessary ingredients, I'll order the appropriate cocktail, each of which is a fantastic measure of the kind of bar you are in. Sidecars, sazeracs, and negronis are all classic cocktails with origins that tickle the tongue of any raconteur. In my humble opinion, these are the types of drinks that bartenders love to make. Simple recipes that need to be executed with care to create cocktails that stop conversations. Cocktails that dance across the palette and challenge bartenders to come up with something better. These are the drinks that are personal classics. You could throw in Old Fashions or martinis, but really, why? Only to be disappointed...?
Anyway, here's me after a long night. I don't actually have black eyes, but I might as well. I'm dog-tired and not wanting to mix much of anything at this point. That's why it's shots and beers...

ED. This is reposted as I'm taking down the more personal items from the 1022 South blog.

Dear Hearts

With a big sigh I must write that I'm moving my more "personal" aspects of the 1022 blog here. With that said, holy shit here we go (I don't speak for 1022 or any organization or persons otherwise associated with me, btw), so I cut my barback loose early tonight(around midnight). Of course a total shit-show made a grande appearance. It was kind of awesome in its douchey-ness; a group of 6 mas o menos middle aged women who were getting housed at Tempest came in just before last call. Now, I have to say (again) that I don't want to run that place. I don't want to be people's last stop on their way home when they've already had too much. It's not good for the community and it's not good for me. I can't live with that.

So. We take inebriation seriously. Back to the lecture at hand, these women ( I originally wrote something else...)rolled in with that air of privilege that I've come to expect from the Gig Harbor/UP set. The bar filled up in a matter of minutes and I ended up cutting off one of their party because, well, she seemed really drunk. I half-believed they all were, but for the most part they were holding their shit together. As it turns out, the one with two lazy eyes and a wobble while she sits had only two drinks (I'm a bit...skeptical), and the entire table worked themselves into a fit because I would not serve her. Then, one of he "sober" women returned her cocktail because it apparently wasn't enough like a "lavender martini" that one of my other bartenders had made at some indeterminate point. At this point she conveyed how offended she was that I cut-off one of her party. She expressed something about understanding because she was a small business owner but...whatever. I made it clear that I was just doing my job; an explanation that didn't satisfied her.

To step back for a moment, when she returned her drink and groused about her friend that I wouldn't serve, it was close to 1:30 in the morning. Just so this context is crystal-fucking-clear.

Long story short, I had my ass handed to me tonight and what was an otherwise fun night was kinda, no really, pissed on by some really dumb, old white women. Their expectations when they came in were...discouraging.

Ugh, of course a great week and weekend had to go this way. Again, ugh.

Clarification

I probably need to stop writing in any sort of public forum after work and a few cocktails. I'm going concisely explain what's going on and what I am looking at going forward.

As I think I made clear in the previous post (even if it was the only thing...)that I bluffed my way into my job. I was not qualified. Period. Since getting the keys, I've worked diligently to feel qualified and I feel like I'm finally there.

What I also tried to articulate in the last post was that in the process of pitching my business proposal, I offered what I believed to be a conservatively optimistic estimate of sales figures. The numbers that I worked with were from the Monsoon Room after it had been open a year and well established. While the expenses are about what I thought, the sales have been significantly less. This has led the owner's to become impatient. How impatient? I don't know. I don't know if I'm too up in my head or if I'm seeing some ominous signs for my future at the bar.

Jared was hit by a drunk driver. This bears repeating. Another friend we think was drugged at the bar. Try as we might, drunk driving and date rape are situations that we can't avoid. And, quite the contrary, we facilitate or abet this kind of behavior in the sale of alcohol. It is, as I mentioned, an occupational hazard. I think these are hazards we all strive to avoid, but after doing our due diligence, we avoid looking at the obvious: We send strangers, friends, and family away with maybe one too many drinks virtually every night.

I've mentioned many times how much I work. I knew going in that it was going to be something that required most of my attention, but I really had no idea what I was in for. I don't do anything else. All of my creativity and mental energy goes into the bar. If I'm not working on new product or trying to find more efficient ways to get things done, then I am negotiating personalities or state/local bureaucracies. I get home or have a free day, I am out of gas. I sit on the couch and watch television. Not only is my life passing me by, I'm doing very little with that I am experiencing. Too much of it is lost to a drunken haze in the middle of the night.

Finally, if you're reading this then you probably know me pretty well. You know that I wrestled with how to best apply my resources to make my community, if not the world, a better place. I vacillated between going back to school and opening a bar/restaurant for quite sometime before the 1022 fell in my lap. I justified it in a number of ways, not the least of which was that having a spot for people to come together and enjoy each other's company while enjoying unique cocktails would be a good thing for Tacoma and Hilltop. I still believe that this is the case. I still believe that 1022 in it's current incarnation is good for the neighborhood. I am truly proud of not only the space and my staff, but also of the cocktails and culture of drinking that we promote.

Now that caveats are dispensed with, a 600 sq. ft. craft cocktail lounge in Hilltop (or probably anywhere) is not the lever with which I will move the world. What is this lever? I don't know. I have serious doubts about it involving children. Regardless of whether or not that is where I end up, I need to go back to school. I need to take math classes, a few science classes, then go from there. It has been my intention for a while to go back to school to initially study chemistry, which would dovetail nicely with what I do now if I chose to stay in the field or would lead nicely into an environmental science degree.

I suspect things are going to change very soon.

If I only could make a deal with god...

Well, here I am again. Nine months ago I was given the keys to 1022 and I gave a long, drunken, rambling account of how that came to be. Now I sit here in the middle of the night ready to give another drunken, rambling account, but this time it's in the shadow of the gallows, so to speak.

To make 1022 happen, I pitched an idea to the owners. In addition to the idea, they asked about numbers. They were clear and articulate that they have invested enough in projects that only break even, that they are ready to make money. And, yes, they have money. Enough to invest in projects...

So, I was pretty sure the project could make money. A little bit, at least. I had crunched the numbers and I thought...What I thought was really pretty irrelevant. Let's look at some facts for a moment, just for review:
- I "ran" the Moo for almost a year, but I really didn't do more than negotiate personalities, make sure the doors opened (and closed) everyday, and placed liquor orders from pre-existing par sheets.
- I wrote recipes and collaborated on a menu or two.
- I was reliable, worked busy shifts, and built up a clientele.

What I really did was be a lead bartender. I didn't do a whole lot more than that. Not because I didn't want to, but because that's all that she gave me for whatever reason. I realistically probably wasn't ready for more than that.

Fast-forward a year or so and I'm standing in front of the owner's of the building and the soon-to-be owners of the 1022 space and I'm bluffing, shucking, and jiving. I'm never dishonest, but I speak with more confidence about everything than is justified; I'm barely a bartender having worked very little high volume and a bit of "craft," if that's what you call what we did at the Moo. I present the numbers from the slower months when the Moo was up-and-going and present them as what we can do. I'd thought I'd factored in the Great Recession with my operating costs, I didn't figure that less people would show up...So, obviously they were into it, they gave me keys and money and here we are.

And here we are. And where we are is that I've felt that shadow of me bluffing myself into a position that I never had any right to be in. I didn't know enough about booze or service or the logistics of running a business to be given the keys to a place. Looking back in it now, it seems laughable. At that point in January, I knew as much about renovating, construction, and the daily grind of running a bar as I knew about elephant proctology. I didn't know how to work a power tool when I agreed to remake the place, much less a number of tools. I didn't know how to manage people, labor (hours worked plus about 20% on top to the government), liquor costs, where to source product, how to deal with vendors, what to do when...You get the idea. I had no idea. The most prominent signifier that I had no idea was that I was clueless about the extent of my ignorance. If I knew then what I know now, I wouldn't have had the balls to bluff. I would've probably still tried (because I'm that kinda guy), but I would've shot my own dick off. It would have failed. Completely.

And now today I find myself staring down the barrel of that grand bluff to make 1022 happen. I told the owners that it could make money quickly. It hasn't. We break even every month. It's a bit disconcerting how close the numbers come. Since we've opened the bar has paid for itself and that's it. We cover operating costs and whatever arises, but no more. We paid for the patio, we pay for whatever, but at the end of the day, it breaks even. It's uncanny...and it's also not good enough. They, the owners, love the bar and are proud of it. They respect the work I've put in to make it happen. At the end of the day, they count beans and 1022 has none. This leaves me, after spending 7 months working an average of 60 hours a week, looking over my shoulder. Breaking even in a brutal economy in a fickle market isn't good enough, the bar needs to make money. If it doesn't, I think I'll either be lop-offed at the head or cut off at the knees. Either way it's an unfortunate truth that leaves me less invested than I was yesterday.

I feel like I should have a picture of my Bitburger and glass of Strega for this last disclosure, but right now I'm far too lazy and tired to get out my camera. Janice's death and Jared's (what do I call it? Devastating injury? Catastrophic? Accident?)...injury has me putting things in perspective. And let's do that for a moment. I designed and orchestrate a great bar. In any market, it's a pretty amazing bar. It does craft and it does homey, neighborhood flavor. It is both elegant and comfortable. It is something that I will be proud of for the rest of my life. And, at the end of the day, it's a bar in a working class neighborhood. We serve booze to people and make them feel good. We create a space where people can come together and in the best of all possible worlds they have a human moment. But, we also have over-service and drunk drivers as an occupational hazard – and for those keeping score, Jared was hit by a drunk driver.

And now I am digressing a fair bit, but I have to wonder about levers and fulcrums. Is this my best place to stand? Is this my best lever? Is this my best fulcrum? Is this the best application of the gifts and privilege afforded to me? To create a place where people come together where the outcome is intoxication and the occasional drunk driving? The occasional date rape? Not to be too melodramatic, but these are the realistic stakes that we work with every night.

I think I've answered my own questions.

I'm without a title

I bartend Monday nights now, which, not-so-coincidentally, is Industry night. So every Monday night all of my tips are going to a local charity. Everyone should come in for fancy cocktails, and all of you service industry cats who are coming in and getting hooked up, your cash is going to a good place...

For October, I'm giving all of my Monday night tips to the local YWCA. Given current events, I think that this is a great place to start.

Show up for a cocktail, throw some coins in the coffers. Drink for a good cause this time.

And thanks to Nate for returning the volley. This medium is important. Don't walk away now...

Customer service

I think about proper etiquette quite a bit. Those that know me know that I'm a sucker for social graces. These are the common courtesies that you give to people. Your greet them. You thank them. You are generally polite. It's been said about me (quite a bit...) that I'm not very nice, but I am very polite. Maybe this is why I've found myself where I am at professionally...

What I am interested in is the common courtesy due to the guests and the bartender in a bar. I had a moment this evening where I failed at my job. A young lady and her friend came in just as I was starting to get busy. Orders for craft cocktails are starting to stack up as we are making exchanging pleasantries. One on the the drink orders coming in, I politely asked for their ID's (people can name-drop common acquaintances or remark about how many times I've seen their ID's before, I don't care. It's my job. And. And! When the LCB did their sting at 1022 South, the young man looked just like all of the rest of you who are younger than a Joy Division album.) So, she gave me a bit of grief about carding her again and this and that while drinks are piling up. I'm trying to be be polite, talk to them about the bar, and figure out the most efficient way to build all of these drinks. Then after she finally shows her ID, which for her was a heartbeat but seemed like an hour, she started describing the “martini' that she wanted.

“Um...vodka. We want vodka martinis.”

No big deal. Throw some vodka martinis in the queue and I'll bang those out as soon as I can. But, I have to ask.

“How do you like those martinis?” Continue drink orders backlogging.

“Oh, well, do you have basil back there?”

Here is where I failed as a bartender. The gears in my head seized and I became that asshole. My response was totally inappropriate.

“No, I don't have any basil (anymore). So, you don't want a martini, you want a cocktail in a martini glass?”

Hem and haw, gibber jaw and nonsense ending with, “No, we want martinis.”

So, instead of being gracious and whipping something up, I obfuscated their order as my rail began to fill with drink orders. Not intentionally, mind you, I really wanted to figure out what they were looking for. I want every drink that I pass across the bar to amaze and/or mystify (it is Tacoma...) all of my guests. I want everyone to say something to the effect of, “This is my new favorite drink,” or for them to stop mid-conversation and ask me what they are drinking. Before you think I am insane, I've talked to cooks who work in open kitchens who've echoed the same sentiment. All of this being said, I'm not intentionally being an obnoxious prick when I was equivocating over what a martini is or is not. Finally, they agreed to try the special of the night (substituting vodka for tequila).

5. el Jimador reposado

1 orange juice

.5 raw ginger simple syrup

2 dashes kava kava

2 dashes Regan's orange bitters

1 serrano wheel

dash of cayenne

Shake and strain into cocktail glass half rimmed with Himalayan sea salt.

Real basic but with enough “stuff” going on to keep a casual drinker interested. By the time they agreed to this drink I was in the weeds. They had irritated me, so they weren't getting bumped forward in the queue, so they had to wait. It took probably 15 minutes to dig myself out after they finally decided. As I set up to make their drinks, after letting them know that they were next, the lady looks at her watch and they leave.

That's it. They walk out. The worst part is that I don't blame them.

Now, let's be clear. The type of thing we do, sometimes cocktails take a bit. I believe that artisanal work takes time. However, if I'd been more gracious initially, then they would've been less likely to leave. They were obnoxious, but I screwed up.

So, here we are. Next time they come in their first round is on me. Luckily, this time there's a mutual acquaintance so I can get in touch.

Caveats and rubrics out of the way, let's talk about customer etiquette for a moment. I don't want to get into the broader scope of how you comport yourself in public, how you treat people in the service industry, or any of that at the moment. I just want to talk about proper etiquette when dealing with servers and bartenders.

Get off your cell phone. Or go outside. Prepare to not be served if you're being that guy or gal. A friend once told me story about when she was working and an Italian restaurant in Seattle. She went to the table with multiple guests repeatedly and one girl wouldn't get off her cell phone. Eventually my friend took everyone's order but her as she continued to jibber jabber away. Finally, after the orders were put in, she got off her phone and became indignant. She asked when she could order. My friend cloyingly replied that she thought that the guest was going to call her order in.

We are not objects, sexual or otherwise. Don't treat us like such. I hear about how female servers and bartenders are treated and I am ashamed. You don't talk to me that way. You don't talk to my staff that way in front of me. Aren't you a little embarrassed? If not, then you should be.

Speaking of objects, while we are in the service industry, we are also in a trade. Be polite. Recognize us as we come to the table. We only want to facilitate your experience. We don't want attention for the sake of itself. We want you to have a good experience. It's difficult for us to do that when you won't acknowledge us.

If we are busy, then, trust me, we're sorry. The joint may not look busy to you, but we may have someone two tables over arguing about what a martini or a puttanesca is. If we are not gracious and respectful (this includes not making excuses for tardy service), then be angry. But if we are, cut us some slack. Please. Trust me, we'll make it worth your while.

The experience of going out is reciprocal. We take care of each other and it is predicated upon us being polite and facilitating your experience. In return, we simply ask that you be polite.

(Apologies for the cross-post at the 1022 blog)

Jesus

I have to stop. Or I have to slow down. Or I need someone or something to mitigate this. I am sitting here at 4 am obsessing about the industry. I've spent hours reading about how people make their bitters. I think about doing concept menus based on Velvet Underground records. I obsess about concepts and perfection in a world where I know, I know, it is unattainable. I'm half in the bag reading other people's resumes. I work a slow week and it clocks in around 60 hours. I eat, sleep, and breathe it. I am afraid that I am Ahab. What then?

Ah, music...

O dear Siren, I haven't heard your call in quite sometime. I stopped thinking about music before I stopped playing having been burned and hollowed by years of playing. I was exhausted; I had nothing left. I started playing not to become a rockstar, to play arenas and get blowjobs from groupies, but to play small venues with a devoted group of people who were into the punk rock, DIY thing that had me driving to Canada to watch Botch and Harkonen play in a cafe in the nineties. So I did what I did between Carmenzito and The Assailant and I haven't looked back (very much) since. Until this weekend.

It started at work when a couple of old Tacoma musicians sitting at the rail were geeking out about music. It started with one of the going on about how the music on MJ's Thriller was so fantastic. He was playing air drums while singing the guitar parts with (to be honest) a puerile exuberance. His friend humored him until it was his turn to geek out about Helmet's AmRep records. Eavesdropping on their drunken euphoria sent me spinning off into a Neverland where I started playing music again in a heavy, indie, noise-type band that was some hybrid of early Helmet and Jesus Lizard. The feeling lingered until the end of the night when a young kid who'd seen the assailant came in. We ended up talking music with the conversation coming around to the old Paradox (U-District, not Tacoma...) and The Edge of Quarrel movie. I went home sad and nostalgic that night...

So, tonight, Independence Day, I ended the social part of the evening talking for an hour or two in the kitchen with Liza's new bf, a nu-metal guy who vaguely understands DIY and hardcore/punk, but has toured and knows what it means to play loud music then get old. The night ended with K putting on 20 from Colera and Liza and her bf indulging us for about 1/2 the song. Nevertheless, I teared up as I thought about how it was the last song I ever played live. So, I'll try to avoid the semi-turgid prose and give you a few snapshots:

I honestly don't remember this show. We played so many at Camp Nowhere and eventually they were all packed to the rafters and some sort of nuts. It was so hot and close, these were the types of shows that got me into this. Maybe we influenced somebody there like Botch did at the Velvet Elvis did for me. It was what I wanted shows to be like. This pic kinda sums up the goofy, crazy energy that was at every show.
I want to say the funny thing about this pic is...but really there's so much. I'm drunk on a balcony in an apartment in the center of Paris in between the Iranian and Chinese embassies explaining to Rye where the bruise and knot on my head came from (basement show in the Latin Quarter where, packed to the rafters, Nate's drumset keeps moving and I held it in place as people spilled over me the entire set. At one point Jon cracked me in the skull with his head stock.) That same night in that same spot Ryan broke down crying because he was so happy. He couldn't believe that he was on tour and had just played an amazing show in Paris. All of these cute French girls crowded around to comfort him because they couldn't understand why he was crying...

Our last tour was rough. We did mas o menos 5 weeks with Elphaba around the country. As bad as it was (it's the only tour that does not shine in the flattering glow of memory), there were still great moments. We played an awesome show in Detroit, but really we played the same whether it was 10 kids freaking out or ninety. This pic kinda sums that up for me. It was a long day and not a lot of people, but I remember it because it seemed so quintessential...

I've talked about this show a lot this weekend. I didn't want to play it as I've always stubbornly resisted bar shows. I gave in to Ryan and Casey and I'm glad I did. It was the Akimbo record release show and one of our last. It was everything that I wanted out of shows. The place was packed, everyone had fun, and frankly, it reminded me of Europe.

I sit here now with a glass of bourbon reminiscing bittersweetly about it all. About how much has changed. How I work differently now. How my friends are half a world away or they work for me. About how I balance a checkbook and plan vacations. About how I worry about the future, my health, and my relationship. The Assailant was the apex of my youth where I didn't give a shit; I would quit any job or leave anything to play music, tour, to do it. Now, I work 60 hours a week running a business. Now I try to save money not to tour, but for the simple fact that I feel like I ought to have money in the bank. I don't write, I don't make music. All of my creative energy pours into the business and its management. My mental energy is drained by managing talented but willful personalities. I bring the same monomania to business that I brought to music, but with much different results. Ultimately, I am constantly exhausted and unsatisfied.

tentwentytwo south

As a few you know, I've been working sometime on a new bar. It's been part political wrangling, part salesmanship, and frankly, a good portion of luck (of course, I assert that you mas o menos make your own luck...). I've had and continue to have a crisis of conscience about running/owning a bar. My thinking is this: bars/pubs/lounges are good for communities when they promote people coming together, talking, and enjoying each other's company. When the bar promotes getting drunk or watching television or fucking in the bathroom, it's not good for the community; which is to say that one can do any of the above things and have a great night, but if it's the establishment's goal that the patrons do them, then something is wrong. What's happened is that I have the opportunity to build an establishment in my neighborhood that will be here when I'm gone, that can be a fixture, a place where people come together and enjoy and imbibe.

The quick and dirty on the background is that I worked for Laura at The Monsoon Room for a long time. I ended up managing, which is when I started to become the face of the place. Almost a year in, Laura made it mandatory that I go to a group therapy session with her. It was everything that I hate about crystal-sucking, dream-catching nonsense. I processed for a day, then wrote a resignation letter where I stepped down as manager, but I stayed on as lead bartender. Things continued to be weird until Laura hired the wife of the man who assaulted K. I asked her not to only because I didn't want him around the bar. She refused stating that it was business. I quit that night.

While I managed I worked mas o menos 60 hours a week. Part of the reason that I did this was that Laura covered for me while I went on three (four?) tours, two of them as long as six weeks. The other reason was that I felt I was gaining valuable knowledge, that if I wanted to be in this business, then this was an opportunity to learn what succeeds and what fails. I did it, I learned a lot, and when it was no longer cost effective, I walked away.

I should describe my time there to put this in context. The quick and dirty is that I made more money then I ever have. I was tipped in drugs and girls offered to blow me in the bathroom. I know it sounds melodramatic, but I felt like a rock star. It was ridiculous, but I got caught up in it. I drank for virtually free, I made a lot of money, and people treated me, well, let's say strangely because I was the bartender.

After I left I was angry with Laura for what I perceived to be her throwing me under the bus. I felt like she wanted me out, but she was too much of a coward. Looking back on it, that was probably the case. The woman she hired that led to me leaving quickly washed out like most of her hires. Maybe she wanted me out because I was becoming identified too much with her business (she didn't bartend at all), or maybe because she didn't like me (I think she tried, but we never really clicked - moreover, I think that we never actually liked each other), or maybe it was ultimately a business decision and nothing more. What matters is that I was gone and I wanted to see her fail. I kept an eye on her business, I watched what she did and how business increased and decreased until a year later I was working elsewhere and thinking about getting out entirely (grad school, teaching, farming, et al) when I received a phone call from a friend asking me if I would run the place if she lost it. Then another person asked me. Then another. Here's how it happened (I know I shouldn't air other's laundry, but I feel that this ties into my story as well, so here we go...):

Laura replaced me with a nice guy who had never before worked in the industry (see and beverage, hospitality). If I recall correctly, he was driving a forklift at the time. He does a good job all things considered, but the place begins to spiral out of control. For most of this time (and when I was running the show), Laura refused to bartend, to work in her own bar, despite the fact that labor was killing us. Eventually she did go back to work, but the damage done. It all came to a head when the guy who replaced me was caught serving minors. The LCB pulled the bar's records, found them to be not in order, and promptly shut it down. While this will sound like merely a clerical oversight, it is indicative of a systemic problem with how that business was run. Laura broke ties with her original business partner three or four months after opening. She then changed the name of the LLC that owned the bar. A year or so later she went fishing for another investor (her original business partner financed the entire bar), which is where my friend came in. I drank the Kool-Aid and now he's out roughly 40,000. In the process of all of these wheelings and dealings, she never transferred the liquor license over to the new LLC. We had stayed of the LCB's radar up until that point, and I honestly think it would've been a clerical/admin thing had they not been caught serving minors. It didn't matter in the end, they shut her down. Without a source of income, she eventually (I think she might always have been...) was behind in rent. It so turns out that her landlord(s) are my current boss(es). They asked me if they kicked her out if I would go in and make a craft cocktail bar. I agreed and they gave her a pay or vacate; she didn't pay and signed over the entire bar for back rent. Now, maybe my current boss(es) would've done it anyway, but I suspect that knowing they had someone to turn around the space fast influenced their finally getting tough with her.

Alors, here I am. The point of this really, really long preamble is that I am going to document the experience of opening a bar. I have the skeleton in place and she walked away from virtually everything, so I don't need to buy a lot of bar tools. What I have to do is some renovating so it doesn't look like the same space and I need to write a menu, hire a staff, and make it run. This is what I'm going to document here.