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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
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A new sort of mindless activity to find my Zen in: Sorting Buttons.
Collecting, some would argue hoarding, raw materials for mixed media projects is something of a passion. Saving up things, scraps, for better days when I'll find time to make something of them...
From work, corks. Thousands. Over a hundred pounds already, and try collecting a hundred pounds of corks. Osso Buco bones from the restaurant, Bottle caps from the nearby pub, cigarette duty stamps, atlases & bibles, these are the beginnings...
And buttons. Don't ask how I got started, only that I did, and a few bags grew into a few hundred and I have this idea that before I go to Alaska I'll do something with them. Something grand. And I've begun to sort them.
First - into colors. I'm still on the various shades of white - Mother of Pearl, White, other. I could get anal and sort according to size and shape, patterns, textures as well, but, well, this is just the beginning.
Snipping threads, sorting, snipping threads, sorting. The downstairs cat considers this our quality time. Me, it's just dull repetition, freedom from obvious thought, time for the subconscious to work it's magic...
There are no ideas for the buttons as of yet. I've seen what other people are doing, I have other ideas, just nothing that calls to me. The Osso Buco bones, I need more but that project is already done in my head. Sorry, dishwasher, it wasn't the immunity necklace I promised. The corks, well, they're versatile, I can use them for almost anything. Atlas's & Bibles, I need more, but I know what I'm doing there as well.
But the buttons, sorting, color, hue, maybe later on shape and size, I haven't a clue, only that they're terrific raw materials.
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 1917
On Friday the owner got his new luxury car. Very nice. But hopes that it might put him in a slightly better mood were dashed when G accidentally overcharged a table the owner was sitting with, end of night the owner screaming at G at the top of his lungs in the back, he's trying to be quiet but it's still audible throughout the restaurant.
Saturday the new car is in the parking lot, a new rock-chip in the windshield, the owner's still in a foul mood. Arrive, set up, staff are muted, on eggshells, he's going to blow.
And during dinner he calls a staff meeting - "I have some things I want to say" and from here it escalates...
"If you don't a fucking want this fucking job....and I fucking don't want to see this....looks like we're robbing the customers.....fucking losers fucking shit"
Lunch is done, no one is eating, and he's fucking off his nut. Still on about the night before, various other things, I've been exempted from the diatribe, specifically and named as blameless, this to prevent me from walking out, but everyone else is guilty of running the business into the ground, loud and then screaming, looking at everyone in turn, naming the worst of our customers and telling us that we should be bending over backwards, forwards for them.
When he's done he storms out of the room. Staff sit quietly. M, who arrived drunk with an early start on St. Patrick's day, turns to look at me with a small, wry smile on his face...
"You know, when you chew ice like that in my ear it's really annoying...." .
***
The owner isn't done by a long shot, he still rants and screams in various of the corners of the restaurant, finding staff and screaming at them, the night is long, customers overhear and ask if someone is being fired, another if I like my job.
***
I'm telling the nephew about how if you catch a leprechaun you should never let it go, they'll do anything to escape, but you must hold onto them until they show you where to find the pot of gold. I'm implying, vaguely, specifically, that it might be worthwhile to grab M and demand the whereabouts of his pot of gold, the resemblance is uncanny. The nephew isn't getting it, someone explains in Italian what a leprechaun is, he has his "a-ha" moment and then tells me - "I hit one once with my truck, a 600 euro fine, they're so short, small, I couldn't see...."
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 2501
The weekend passed, the owner's in a foul mood.
A menacing, non-speaking calm, he's not talking to anybody but the customers, this I can bear. It's better than the outbursts and tantrums.
It breaks on Monday. G, helping him with the car, breaks a tiny piece off a weathered ancient plastic level in the radiator, and the owner flips. Completely. Off his nut, one-hundred percent derailed, outside it's a beautiful spring evening and I'm hoping that perhaps tonight will be the night.
The night passes. Not tonight.
Tuesday he seems to have gotten it out of his system, but spends long hours with regulars in the back room - "trouble at home" I hear him confiding, and while we all guessed it must be bad if he's confessing.
Generally his approach is to accost the customers with pictures of his beloved wife and children, all and sundry get treated to stories of how wonderful she is, this alone for me has always been a cause for suspicion. It's reaction formation, the same underlying psychological process that sees whores describing their great romantic ideals, every rogue protesting his honor, it's the mechanism wherein the owner is denying that this marriage, like the others before it, is in deep trouble.
Of course it's in deep trouble, so seldom is he ever home, and he finds every possible excuse to stay late at the restaurant, talking with customers who would have on their own long since left. It's in trouble because he's never there, because of his temper, because - quite possibly, of the abundant cameras with which his wife can watch him watching us, there are so many reasons it's in trouble I can't think of a single reason it wouldn't be. Well, one, but that gold card and unlimited shopping can only have so much appeal, probably it's been exhausted and she's looking for more.
The nephew, nothing new there of note, on a lunch break he went home to discover his condo surrounded by a SWAT team, they were there for a neighbor, he filmed it, later regretting he didn't ask them to get his picture taken with them.
And M, not drunk but forever with the rheumy eyes of a bad hangover, I've plans to dress him up as a leprechaun for St. Patrick's day. He'd be a perfect leprechaun.
Days pass...
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
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Now the boy has finished his Kamp Krusty 3 day "Leadership Training Course". And it was pretty much what you'd expect, standard cult-indoctrination techniques, being shouted at, broken down, every free moment of every day filled with challenging "assignments" and "leadership" exercises, short sleeping patterns (5 hours a night), metrics that change from the beginning of the camp to the end, which culminates in the children accomplishing such great feats as breaking boards and such, (the boards weakened first in an oven), emotional and tear-jerking moments where they read their "love letters" from their parents...
If I was any other parent I'd be damned concerned, most of the exercises meaningless brainwashing techniques, unrelated in any meaningful way to the task at hand, the only reason in this instance I'd overlook it is that the boy is astute enough to see through most of it, describing it as being of "limited value" - which is probably fair. All life experience is of value. But he states that a lot of the other pupils rated it highly, thought it was a "life changing" experience, which worries me. And the other parents are the ones that are so indoctrinated and uninvolved they won't question it...
And so the madness continues.
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
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Saturday night and we're - the staff - once again at the dire NE Local.
Even G's tired of it, wants to find a new hangout, place to go, he's along tonight because there's plans - vague, unsubstantiated, to meet up with the old salad girl and party. He has fond memories of these party nights.
The bar, it's mostly empty, the nephew upon first arriving pays his dues into the VLT machine, $20.00 gone to no good effect.
Then G gives it a try, surprising, G doesn't usually gamble, his money goes quick as well.
Our food arrives.
And while they're eating a small, older man arrives, Mole-man from the Simpsons, there's a resemblance, he's casing the machine that G and the Nephew just quit.
You can see the plot, the outcome before it happens...
He puts in $20.00. And I warn the Nephew and G that they've "primed" the machine for him, sure enough, thick glasses, messy homeless dress, in ten minutes he cashes out $250.00.
He doesn't give up, he "plays" the game, stops the reels, makes strange passes on the machine, I'm watching, awed, beginning to think he might know what he's doing. He pumps another $60.00 in to the machine, cashes out again over $200.00. G and the Nephew, they're in agony, they quit too soon, I'm thinking he's some sort of idiot savant, he can see the inner flow of code, odds, probability, I'm beginning to believe in his strange powers, ask the waitress - "does he consistently win?" I ask her...
"No one consistently wins on the VLT's" she assures me, and I'm not sure I'm reassured.
Mole-man is done, eating now with his friends the smallest portion of his winnings.