Bartender Geek

Okay, I was supposed to have done this earlier this week, but I finally finished it. If anyone wants to read it and critique it, I'd appreciate it. Please make any suggestions you have.
( The schpeil I just wrote )

Codeine, how I love you, how I love you,
My dear old codeine.
I'd give my lungs to be
Filled wth C-O-D-E-I-N-even know my
Cough is waiting for me ambushin' for me
If I'm out of codeine
The folks at the docs will see me no more
When I skip out on the ER

Codeine, Codeine, I'm coming down with something
Doctor, Doctor, I love the old folk's home.


Um, it's not my best work, and some of it is entirely nonsensical or just vaguely stream-of-concousness, but I'm not convinced that's inappropriate.

A psalm of the sickbed. The Nyquil is my shephard, I shall not cough.
It maketh me to line down in warm blankets, it leadeth me to the still waters of the toilet if I have to puke.
It restoreth my soul; it guideth me along straightish paths to the kitchen with only some wobbling and smashing into walls.
Yea, though I walk through the shadow of the valley of the Creeping Crud which is hitting, like, half the people on my friends list, I will fear no virus, for thou are with me; thy Tylenol and thy Benadryl, they comfort me.
Thou preparest a bed-tray before me in the presence of the virus (although I can't eat much on it); my Cup-O-Soup runneth over (I'll clean that up later.)
Surely goodness and health shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall get out of this frickin' house some time before Sunday when I have to teach Hebrew school.

(Actually, so far, I've not had nausea. Knock on wood.)

So, I'm totally not "in the closet" about being Jewish at work. I'm a function bartender, and when we function bartenders and waitstaff are talking and getting to know each other, one of the basic questions that we ask is, "So, what ELSE do you do?" 'Cause most of us have other jobs, or school, or something. A fair number of folks basically do waitstaff stuff, but twenty hours for this temp agency, and thirty hours for that hotel, and another ten or twenty hours made up of whatever they pick up.

(By the way, if you're a congresscritter who's bitching about having to work five days a week at, y'know, Congress, note that that adds up to sixty or seventy hours a week, and no benefits, like health care. Just think about that -- that's an entire class of Americans, and that's considered normal. Some of them make sure to take time off once a week to go to church. Many of them have children. Those children tend to have two parents who love them very much, and would be more involved with them and their schoolwork and stuff -- except BOTH parents are working -- one sixty or seventy hours a week, and one twenty to forty, with no benefits. At that, they can probably pay rent on a crappy apartment, deal with some emergencies, and get enough food for them and their children, but can't save for retirement or college for their kids, and can't really pay for health care. Just think about if that's what you want your country to be. But that's not the point of this. Sorry for getting diverted. It's just that it's IMPOSSIBLE to not be political when you deal with people. 'Cause, y'know, that's what "politics" means -- "people". There are lots of different opinions about how things could and should be changed, but the one thing that it's impossible to do is to have NO opinion when this is directly about your life, and the lives of your friends, family, and co-workers. Like, the main reason I'm against crackdowns on illegal immigrants? Because I have worked with them, and like them, and they're cool people, and great to work with, and I want them HERE in the USA, where I can work with them and where they make the country better. The political is always personal.)

Anyway, my point is that you have the conversations, about "what else do you do when you're not waiting tables/tending bar/whatever". Some folks are college students, some folks are parents and are the primary caregivers of their children, some folks have other jobs, some folks are college students and have children and have other jobs (they're the ones with the dark circles under their eyes that NEVER go away). Me, I tell folks that this is my main job, and I teach Hebrew school on Sundays. So everyone knows I'm Jewish. Which is cool.

So, today, I was hanging out in the kitchen of the MIT Sloan Center Faculty Club, and the dishwasher turns to me. He's, I guess, maybe forty, maybe fifty or so -- could be younger with a rough life, could be older and aged well, dunno. I think he's from Chile or somewhere in that area -- he looks like he's got a little Indian blood in him somewhere, as well as Hispanic, and there's something about his face that just says "Andes" to me. He speaks perfectly reasonable English, although his accent is thick enough that you have to listen.

So, he says, "Hey, Rabbi." I grin and say, "Yep?" "I got a joke, about a rabbi and a Catholic priest."

Turned out it was one I know, but it's one of my favorites, so I didn't have to fake a laugh.

You know the one. I'm going to tell it about the way he did. 'Cause I liked his delivery.

A rabbi and a priest are friends, and one day, they're talking. The priest says, "So, rabbi, your laws say you can't have pork, right?"
"Yes."
"Well, you ever, you know, once in a while, go and have some?"
(Here, he kind of looks around, over both shoulders like he's checking for anyone listening.)
"Well, yes, once in a while, nobody's around, I'm in another town, maybe I'll have some pork, some ham, something."
"It's good, yes?"
"Yes. Well, your rules say you can't, you know, have any business with a woman, right?"
"That's true, yes."
"So? Do you?"
(He looks around, just like before.)
"Well, every once in a while, maybe, yes."
"Better than ham, eh?"

Why do I like that joke so much?

Well, in this case, because it was a Latino/Indian Catholic telling it to an Anglo/European Jew, in the kitchen of a function hall, while we were killing time and working together. That's why.

So, there's a thread going on elseLJ about "The Happy Ending Shakespeare Company" -- how to make the Shakespearian tragedies end much quicker and happier.

http://toddalcott.livejournal.com/56566.html
http://toddalcott.livejournal.com/56865.html

Here's my attempt:

GLOUCESTER
Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this sun of York;
And all the clouds that lour'd upon our house
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.
Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths;
Our bruised arms hung up for monuments;
Our stern alarums changed to merry meetings,
Our dreadful marches to delightful measures.
Grim-visaged war hath smooth'd his wrinkled front;
And now, instead of mounting barded steeds
To fright the souls of fearful adversaries,
He capers nimbly in a lady's chamber
To the lascivious pleasing of a lute.
But I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks,
Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass;
I, that am rudely stamp'd, and want love's majesty
To strut before a wanton ambling nymph;
I, that am curtail'd of this fair proportion,
Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,
Deformed, unfinish'd, sent before my time
Into this breathing world, scarce half made up,
And that so lamely and unfashionable
That dogs bark at me as I halt by them;
Have been chosen by the producers
Of Extreme Makeover
To be refashioned according to the stamp
Of the common rabble's fashion sense.
'Though many may consider this cause mad
To find oneself remade into a clone
Of every pretty face which leers and struts
Across a carpet on fair Oscars' Night
Yet for my part I find I would
Rather have my twisted back set right.
My twisted mind I find will suffice
To make my fame in reality TV.
In these days I will now overmatch
Dog the Bounty Hunter and Richard Hatch.

So, the Competitive Enterprise Institute has come out with a 60-second television spot about how greenhouse gas emissions aren't important. It's called "CO2 -- We Call It Life", and is all about how you need carbon dioxide to live, and therefore it can't possibly be dangerous.

I'm looking forward to the other spots they will be producing soon, "You'll Die Without Water, So Shut The Fuck Up Already, New Orleans," and "Plants Grow Buried In Dirt: Why Mine Safety Standards Are Bad."

How the heck did a dead moth get into the fridge?

First, Lis was, unfortunately, wiped out, so didn't come with me. So I went to shul by myself. As Lis couldn't wear the costume I made for her, I wore it instead.

I took an old t-shirt, and drew on it the chemical structures of 3-methylbutyl acetate, octyl butrate, pentyl acetate, methypropyl butate, pentyl butyrate, and a couple other molecule chains of the same family, along with the general formula of

R - C=O
      |
     OR'

Which doesn't look good 'cause I don't know how to do the HTML pretty for chemical structures.

I wore a crown, and, for added verisimilitude, my Mad Scientists Local 42 logo lab coat.

Then I challenged people to guess which Purim character I was.

A good half-dozen or dozen people got it.
( Some pictures and more notes within )

So, last night, I was thinking -- I could make a fish chowder, but instead of having a cream base with chunks of potato, I could increase the amount of potatoes, and blend them into a smooth potato base with some cream. And, of course, if you're doing that, leeks would go in, 'cause leeks and potatoes go really well together in blended soups.

So, a fish chowder with a blended potato-leek base. It actually sounds good.

Then, maybe, you could serve it cold. I'd eat it.

But the only reason I came UP with this idea was for the name. Fichyssoise.

I wish I had a place that was appropriate to keep my trained hunting phoenixes. Phoenixen. Phoenicies. Whatever.

O for a Mews of fire. . .