Archive for December 6th, 2009
"He's failing"
On Sunday mornings, most of us volunteer cleaning houses for people too sick to do a really good job of this themselves. This is work our friend Lionel used to do every week (truth be told, on Saturdays AND Sundays every week, because Lionel was an amazing, amazing guy we were honored beyond words to know), and since he passed away this summer we’ve taken up.
What’s really interesting about doing this is that we are getting to know a lot of people we never would have met otherwise, not just because they are much older than us, but because of their illnesses (mostly AIDS-related), they don’t go out in Boystown and have no real interaction with the social circles we swim in.
100% of these people are Liberal Democrats because, as we’ve explained, LGBTQ voters blind-support Democrats because we are all extensively taught Republicans are evil. Few of us ever question this.
In some of these houses, when we first doing this service, we noticed Dr. Utopia propaganda items here and there in apartments. One guy had a ticket from the big Grant Park Election Night revival meeting taped to his mirror; another one had a little paper Dr. Utopia doll that must have came with some sort of campaign flyer (it was very clever actually…a little origami thing that reminds us of the little things you used to be able to make from the back of a Cap’n Crunch box in the 80s…it sits on a bookshelf, with its legs dangling). Here and there, people had magnets and buttons and such.
We never talk politics with these people. We just show up, clean their apartments, sometimes run their grocery errands and such, and in a few cases read to them (always fun stuff, and more often than not the local gay papers so they can get a scoop on what’s going on in the community).
Very quietly, we noticed the Dr. Utopia garbage disappearing, and not really being replaced with anything (as in, that little doll on the shelf is gone, and was not replaced with a new little doll, like a Santa for Christmas…so it’s not that room had to be made for something, but more like the person just didn’t want that Utopian doll up there anymore).
Today, out of the blue, totally unprompted by us, one of the people we clean for said, “I heard he’s down to 48 today. He’s failing”.
Seeing as how a lot of the conversations in these apartments revolve around AIDS, we were horrified for a moment, thinking the person was talking about a friend with AIDS “down to 48 (pounds)…whose (health was) failing”.
“He’s such a liar, Mr. Big Promises. I am still waiting for my hope and change, whatever the Hell that was supposed to be. Seems like the same crap as always, but at least Bush didn’t have people breaking into the White House. If those clowns can’t run a dinner, that explains how they are screwing up the country”.
Only in the gay community would the Salahi party crashers resonate the way it has, apparently. You have to remember that many of us are party planners by trade, or work somehow in the realm of events, catering, showbiz, fashion, etc. We live for, and make our livings on, private events.
People who have owned restaurants or worked in them for years pick up mistakes in dinner service you would never notice, and instantly downgrade the opinion we had of whomever committed the blunder. You might not care that you didn’t have an intermezzo spoon for your palate cleanser, but you better believe Mary next to you with his man-purse and condescending glare DOES.
Every day more people wake up to the reality that Dr. Utopia is not who he pretended to be in the campaign. Surprising things, seemingly little things, each day chip more and more people from his fold. That’s why he’s down to 48% approval now…with his ratings in everything but black sectors guaranteed to drop further than that by 2012. He will, of course, always have 90%+ approval in the black community, because blacks race-vote and will never dream of turning on “their” president (as we hear him described on the trains and buses of Chicago frequently by Southsiders).
When gay men in their 50s, liberal firebrands, totally unpromptedly say “He’s failing”, it’s a big deal, folks.
It’s not said in a way that’s easily described, either. It’s more than a declarative statement…just noting how badly this administration is performing. It’s said in a way we’d associate with someone a person pushed for a job he’s drowning in. Like, the man whose apartment we cleaned today, used to run a choir. We imagine him putting his favorite little twink up for the lead part, and then being embarrassed the tweaker kept messing up, despite all the hope and expectation put into him. “He’s failing” is an observation made conscious of the looks everyone in the choir is giving the director for making such a bad choice. “He’s failing…and I’m partly responsible for believing he had what it took in the first place, so I feel stupid now”.
Republicans should continue to find ways to stoke this sense of disappointment and embarrassment…in subtle ways that never beat anyone over the head.
That’s the key.
In the choir example, if members had berated the twink, the Director would have defended the kid vociferously…because admitting you are wrong is anathema in the LGBTQ community. Admitting you were wrong about a MAN, any man, is UNHEARD OF. Instead, the choir needs to focus on the songs being sung…and how things aren’t going as promised…and how the Director needs to decide what needs to be done to get things back on track. Is the lead soloist the right person for the part? Could the choir perform better with someone else? The Director needs to come to those questions, and answer them, by himself.
As always, these are our little anecdotal stories from Chicago…these are the things we notice in the course of our days here. We aren’t saying any of this can be extrapolated across the country…but in these little isolated islands of opinion out there, in these strangers’ homes, we’re hearing things that surprise us each and every day.
Things that should have the White House very, very concerned…because this is their base. And if the base doesn’t feel it is worth the trouble to head out and vote in 2010 and 2012 (just like the Republican base didn’t want to vote for McCain last year), Dr. Utopia could find the role of POTUS recast but soon.
Palin 2012 needs cute Alaskan-themed mascots
When we get ideas for the Palin 2012 campaign, we’re going to write them up here with the hopes someone in the Palinverse reads them. They’ll be collected on our new “Strategy Page” in the toolbar above, per the request of some of you out there. We used to send emails to the Hillary Clinton for President campaign and to the McCain/Palin 2008 campaign: some were used, some weren’t, but we sleep well at night knowing we did everything we could to stop Dr. Utopia from becoming president.
Our main goal is to ensure this man does not get a second term — and the greatest campaign tool he has at his ready disposal is the American Mainstream Media, which will work 24/7/365 to re-elect him.
For Palin to be successful, she needs to create a brand that sweeps the nation with interesting visual imagery, the way Dr. Utopia’s 2008 campaign successfully sucked so many Kool-Aid slurpers into his cult of personality.
Today’s idea for Team Sarah is to develop Olympics-grade mascots in an Alaskan theme for Palin’s campaign. These characters will be animals found in Alaska, so visually Palin’s march towards Washington can be envisioned easily as a stamped of moose, deer, wolves, eagles, killer whales, fox, bears, etc. headed towards the capital to save America from socialism.
We got the idea for Paln 2012 from the Salt Lake Olympics mascots (and, also from thinking about the old Shirt Tales cartoon in the 80s):
Salt Lake used a rabbit, a fox, and a bear. The bear’s name was Coal, which made us think of energy independence, with power and copper also making us think of harvesting our natural resources in this country too.
For Palin, we’d like to see four mascots emerge to symbolize four components of her campaign (which we know is still being formed). The four animals could have personalities that cover whatever policy point Palin is making…and could have animal attributes that fit them. So far, the animals we’d pick for her would be:
(A) Moose: reminds voters of Teddy Roosevelt, does not travel in herds, goes solo and turns up in unexpected places, is ROGUE
(B) Bear: Momma Grizzly time, strong on defense, tough as nails, do not mess with this Alaskan…also sending a message to Russia that this American cousin to their own bear means business
(c) Husky: Determination, endurance, able to go the distance, loyal, industrious, full of energy, hard-working, works well with others as a team
(d) Eagle: Flying above the nation, it can look down and see everything his country has to offer, can spot all the natural resources out there, has an eagle-eyed vision to laser focus on a goal and direct efforts towards that…also happens to be the symbol of the country
Here is where the Palin mascots could be deployed effectively in the ways the Olympics uses their own mascots:
(A) Merchandise sales: to outraise Dr. Utopia in 2012, and to CRUSH her primary opponents like Pawlenty and Romney, Palin could use her Alaskan mascots to sell plush stuffed animals, baby clothes, children’s books, tee shirts, posters, key chains, etc. With four different animals, people could collect all four versions of the same item, with different animals on them.
(B) Costumes: Can you imagine how ADORABLE sweet little Trig will look in snuggly little Moose, Bear, Husky, and Eagle costumes? Can you imagine how cute Palin supporters’ babies will be in pictures if everywhere Palin goes there’s some little kid on the loose dressed up like a tiny moose? ADORABLE. This is such a natural to appeal to families with. It also makes campaign visuals, and people love dressing up in costumes (even ones who don’t admit it). We’d love to wear Palin 2012 campaign moose antlers at events.
(C) If Palin uses the mascots to tie into policy matters, it explains things easily to people who otherwise have trouble following campaign platforms. But, if they can say: “Oh, Palin has that moose, and that means she’s going to do things differently and be rogue. She’s got that bear, and that stands for strong on defense. She’s got the husky, and that makes me think of the Iditarod and how tough Alaskans are and how they work together to GET STUFF DONE. And that eagle flying around makes me think of natural resources it must see from above”. What an advantage this could have, with each policy page themed with Palin’s cartoon mascots. The media will hate them, of course, but regular people can’t help but remember them…and remember Palin’s platform as a result.
Really, these would be a giant trap for the media. They’ll make fun of the mascots, but if Palin creates endearing personalities for these characters, and brings them to life with all of her ideas, the public could fall in love with the moose, the bear, the husky, and the eagle…and the media would face the same backlash it would attacking something like Mickey Mouse.
These mascots have the potential to capture public attention in ways Romney, Pawlenty, Crist, Huntsman, or other would-be nominees could.
Alaska itself is a campaign imagery miracle: the greens, the blues, the forests, the mountains, the animals…they all conjure such great things in the public imagination. They are exotic, but not in a bad way, because they are exotic, frontier America.
We just need great names for the characters, some great designs, and great policy points to tie them to, and we think they could be a very effective Palin campaign tool…that she could actually start using immediately, particularly if people started making little cozy outfits for their children to wear when they go meet Palin at book signings.
Someone get this idea to the Governor.
Tell her a group of guys in Chicago are going to keep giving her every idea we can think of, including stuff we wish we could go back and do in 2007 and 2008 for Hillary Clinton.
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UPDATE: Thanks for all the suggestions. Here’s what we’re going to run with:
Rogue = the moose (female, young and strong with adventurous spirit)
Mac = the eagle (male, older animal, has seen it all and traveled a lot)
Big Mamma = the bear (female, loves hockey, tough as nails, is a mother you don’t want to trifle with)
Digger = the husky (male, young, hip, smart, sharp)
For the longest time, we debated on “Denali” for the dog, which is Palin’s Secret Service code word (Hillary Clinton’s is Evergreen). We believe Todd Palin’s code word is actually “Digger”, which is kind of cool. When we think of the name, we think of energy independence, and an athletic, fun-loving, sharp outdoorsy dog, which is the spirit of the character we wanted to create.
Our good friend Panda (who is a Gaysian, and not an actual panda), claims he knows all about animals (especially exotic ones) and tells us he can help with this project (“Because I know all about animals, and you gusy think just because I’m loud I don’t know stuff. Well, I do know stuff, and the stuff I know I just say loud”).
We have a few ideas how to have some fun with this. In the meantime, help us think of character and personality traits for the animals, whom we are calling “The Palin Pals”.
Sarah Palin's Hilarious Gridiron Dinner Speech
Via Greta, here’s the full text of Sarah Palin’s Gridiron Dinner speech. It is HILARIOUS.
Our favorite part? Mentioning that in an alternate universe where Palin is now VP instead, Joe Biden’s on the road promoting his new book, “Going Rogaine”.
We add: “And all of five people have bought it. And their last names are all “Biden”".
Funny, funny stuff:
Good evening. It’s great to be in Washington and I am loving the weather.
I braved the elements and went out for a jog! Or, as Newsweek calls it, a cover-shoot.
It’s a privilege to be here tonight at the Washington DC Barnes & Noble.
Tonight, I’ll be reading excerpts from my new book.
Perhaps you’ve heard of it?
“Going Rogue”
Yukon wasn’t sure if I’d go with that title and somebody suggested I follow the East Coast selfhelp
trend and go with, “How To Look Like A Million Bucks…For Only 150 Grand.”
Todd liked, “The Audacity of North Slope.”
Hey, I considered not having a title at all.
I’ve said it before, but you Beltway types just don’t seem to get it. You don’t need a title to
make an impact.
But anyway, let’s get started.
I’ll begin my first reading on Page 209.
It was pitch black when we touched down in Arizona late on August 27, 2008. The next
morning we drove to John McCain’s ranch in Sedona. John was waiting on the porch. Before he
can say a word, I tell him,
I’m quoting now.
I know why I’m here, and I’m ready. But, I’m worried.
The cost of credit protection for the largest U.S. banks is rising precipitously. Have you given
any thought to the run on the entities in the parallel banking system? Do you realize the
vulnerability created when these institutions borrow short term in liquid markets to invest long
term in illiquid assets?
John said, “you betcha!”
I thought, “you betcha?”
Who talks that way?
Well, sometimes you just have to trust your instincts.
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When you don’t, you end up in places like this.
Who would have guessed that I’d be palling around with this group?
At least now I can put a face to all the newspapers I read.
It is good to be here and in front of this audience of leading journalists and intellectuals. Or, as I
call it, a death panel.
To be honest, I had some serious reservations about coming to visit your cozy little club. The
Gridiron still hasn’t offered membership to anyone from my hometown paper in Wasilla, the
Matanuska-Susitna Valley Frontiersman.
And my dad thought it was just a plain bad idea to leave the book tour for some football game.
He might have a point!
I’ve been touring this great, great land of ours over the last few weeks. I have to say, the view is
much better from inside the bus, than under it!
But really, I am thrilled to be with you. And I’d like to thank the Gridiron for the invitation and
Dick Cooper for his introduction.
To paraphrase John F. Kennedy, this has to be the most extraordinary collection of people who
have gathered to viciously attack me since the last corporate gathering at CBS.
Despite what you have read, or more likely, despite what you have written, I do feel a real bond
with all of you. I studied journalism, earned a communications degree and for a time only
wanted to be a journalist. I was even a television sportscaster back home.
I’m guessing some of you probably got your start the exact same way… once there was
television.
Let me get back to the book.
I know that many of you are still upset because I wouldn’t play that silly Washington game. You
know, the one where all of you read a book in its entirety, from the first page of the index to the
last.
But think about it, because you actually had to read the whole book in the vein hope of finding
your name, you now know all about Denali, mom, dad, ungulate eyeballs, slaying salmon on the
Nushagak and Ugashik near Alegnigak, where we make AGOOTAK and moose chili!
You’re welcome.
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Still, I want to do something very special for this audience of Washington elite. So, I’ll read
from the index–which I chose not to include in the hardback.
Would you believe me if I said I didn’t include it because we wanted to save trees?
Under A we have…
Alaska, media not understanding. Pages 1-432.
Under B…
Biased media. Pages 1-432
And under C…
Conservative media. See acknowledgments.
I’ll stop there.
I know this can be a long night, and as I understand it, we’re going to break with a Gridiron
tradition. Normally, the Democrat speaker would deliver a speech after me. But instead, John
McCain’s campaign staff asked if they could use that time for a rebuttal.
A lot has been made of a few campaign relationships. The closeness. The warm fuzzy feelings.
John and I both agree all those staffers should just move past it. It’s history.
Let’s just say, if I ever need a bald campaign manager, it appears all I’m left with is James
Carville.
I don’t want to say that I’ve burned a bridge, but I know all about cancelling a bridge to
nowhere.
That Democrat speaker I referred to is, of course, the one-and-only Barney Frank.
And I’m the controversial one?
Barney, the nation owes you and the government a debt. A huge, historic, unbelievable debt.
But, it’s good to be here with you, Mr. Chairman.
Because by Chairman, I don’t just mean the House Financial Services Committee. As far as I
can tell, Barney’s also the Chair of AIG, CITI, and the Bank of America.
I don’t want to say that the U.S. Government is taking over the role of the private sector, but I
have to admit, on the flight here, thumbing through a magazine and looking at a photo of
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President Obama with the President of China, the person next to me pointed at it and said, “Hu’s
a communist.”
I thought they were asking a question.
Still, when I see this administration in action, I can’t help think of what might have been.
I could be the Vice President overseeing the signing of bailout checks. And Joe Biden would be
on the road, selling his new book, Going Rogaine.
Speaking of books….
Did I mention mine?
“Going Rogue”
Makes a great stocking stuffer. Available now at a bookstore near you.
Hey, I have to pay for my campaign vetting bill somehow.
Really, the response has been great. So I’ll close by reading a final passage.
Page 403:
I’ve been asked a lot lately, “Where are you going next?’
Good question!
Wherever I go I know that, as with anyone in the public eye, I’ll continue to have my share of
disagreements with those in the media. Maybe even more than my share. It will come as no
surprise that I don’t think I was always treated fairly, or equally.
But despite that, I respect the media very much. It’s important. A free press allows for vigorous
debate! And that debate is absolutely vital for our democracy.
So as hard as it can sometimes be, we must all look past personal grievances. We must move
beyond petty politics. And we must allow these incredibly talented and hard-working women
and men to ask the hard questions and hold us, and our government, accountable.
Because their mission is as true as the sun rising over the Talkeetna and Susitna Mountains.
Okay – so none of that is actually in the book. Not a word.
But I do believe it!
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And I believe we live in a beautiful country blessed with so many different people who want the
best for their children, families and for our great nation. I’m so proud to be an American.
And that is what I’ll be talking about when I travel to, really where I’m headed.
No better place than here to announce where I’m going. I’m going to Iowa!
I’ll be there tomorrow from noon to 3:00 pm at the Barnes & Noble on Sergeant Road in Sioux
City.
Come early. Long lines are expected.
Thank you everyone. God Bless the U.S.A!
Heart attack of the day: Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame closing
We have always insisted “spit takes” in cartoons and shows like Three’s Company are sloppy, unimaginative, unrealistic writing and that they never, ever happen in real life.
Great Merciful Zeus, we were wrong about that one, because we were reading in Caribou today on Broadway (CariBoyz, for those in the Boystown know) and someone at another table said, “The Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland is closing”, and hot apple cider and various kinds of chocolate mocha somethings or another went flying into the air from the three of us sitting in those comfy leather chairs by the fire (side note: each of us ostensibly were reading “Going Rogue”, though we were actually reading other books (having finished GR), but keep putting the GR dust jacket on whatever we’re carrying around so that people keep seeing it being read in public).
Our hearts literally stopped, and we realized how much we will always love Cleveland, our Tara, though we’ll never live there again.
If we hear somebody’s messing with Cleveland…or something bad is happening in Cleveland, we morph into hyper-protective mode.
Like that scene at the end of the last Harry Potter book, where Professor McGonnagal tells all the spirits, paintings, statues, ghosts, and other magical things in Hogwarts to rise up and “Defend. Our. School!”. Everything that can run, comes a’runnin’…the rest just starts flying through the air to do what they can to help.
So, hearing a random coffee house patron say Cleveland’s relatively sole tourist attraction “was closing” made the lot of us slip right into, “Oh, Hell to the no, what can we do to help save this?” mode.
A quick peek online and we saw the crisis was averted…it’s the ANNEX they stupidly built in New York last year that’s closing, not the Rock Hall itself. The Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame makes about five million a year, and though it’s not like people are beating a path to Cleveland to see it, it’s not in any jeopardy.
The Annex was a stupid idea to begin with: a SoHo excuse for New Yorkers to never come to Cleveland, instead just looking at a few of the artifacts in New York (where all the Hall of Fame concerts are held, at the Waldorf=Astoria, because New Yorkers don’t want to come to Cleveland for that either).
Two of us here were some of the school children who practiced our penmanship and English composition by writing a letter a day to the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame Foundation in the early 80s, at the behest of Cleveland’s Mayor Mike White and our local media, to convince the committee to award the Hall to Cleveland. EVERYONE we knew wrote letter, sent post cards, and rallied to get that Hall of Fame in our hometown.
Our claim to the Hall was tenuous (because DJ Alan Freed first said the words “Rock n’ Roll” while broadcasting from Cleveland), but man alive, our determination and all those letters won the day.
We realize how much that whole campaign shaped us — and in retrospect, it was our first dip into activism, with the nuns at our grade school walking the aisles making sure all the students were doing a good job to help win one for our home team.
As long as we live, we will come to Cleveland’s defense when it needs it — even if we don’t always agree with the place and are not, even in the slightest, accepted by anyone there because we are gay. One of the greatest dilemmas in our lives right now is whether or not to come out and talk about Cleveland winning the Gay Games for 2014.
Those games will bring a lot of money to a city that desperately needs it — but Cleveland is as welcoming to gays as Birmingham, Alabama is. And there is about as much fun, LGBTQ things to do there, too. We don’t think, culturally and emotionally, that Cleveland should host these games. They have the hotels, the roads, the stadiums, the restaurant space, etc. But they don’t have the heart. “Faggot”, “sissy”, “queer”, and all the other nasty names for gays are tossed around as casually in Cleveland today as they were in 1950. “You ain’t gay, is you?” is said with the same tone and unique Cleveland grammar as “You ain’t a cannibal, is you?”
As we say around here a lot: wish we were kidding; wish we were exaggerating — but we are not.
We want to raise our concerns about Cleveland’s Gay Games so that, maybe, some education can be done for Clevelanders so the 2014 Games won’t be a disaster. There are four years to prepare for this…the length of time immature freshman mature into graduating seniors.
So, we hope tolerance, manners, and class can be taught in that time to people who spit the word “FAG!” out rapid-fire with the best Fred Phelps impersonation you’ll ever see north of the Mason-Dixon.
We’re glad there was no Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame related disaster back home today…but we still don’t know how, exactly, to help avert the disaster coming in four years that no one else is talking about: and that’s what happens when tens of thousands of gay dudes and athletic lesbians descend upon an unprepared (culturally and emotionally) Northeast Ohio.
Question of the Day: Would bad service from one server ever make you stop going to a restaurant you love?
Sometimes, serendipity is a cruel and malicious thing.
The other day, we told you more about the bizarre “Nationality Expertism” obsession here in Chicago, where strangers will come up to you and say, “What’s your ethnicity?” with all the authority, persistance, and interrogation of a patent-leather covered goosestepper in Stuttgart, circa 1936. It is jarring, probing, and, we strongly feel, offensive. Only in Chicago have we ever experienced anything remotely like this (thank Hera).
Well, wouldn’t you know, we told you the story of a cute French teacher named Jim who lost any shot with our friend Sebastian by pulling “Nationality Expert” schtick with him, and then last night we were having dinner in one of our favorite restaurants in Boystown (on Halsted, at Buckingham, for those that want a clue) and the waiter, right as he dropped the check for Sebastian to sign, looked as his name on his credit card and started the “What’s your ethnicity” garbage with him. ”What kind of name is that? And your last name is Gray? That’s not your real last name. You look too ethnic for that. What’s your ethnicity. You look like some kind of a Greek or a Turk.”
Panda, in rare form, cut this clown off and said, “His ethnicity is the guy who going to be tipping you in a second, that’s what his ethnicity is. GOODBYE NOW, your job here is done.”
Sebastian, as always, told this jackass he is American, his name is American, and American is his ethnicity. And then Bast did what he always does when someone embarrasses him like this in public, he tried his level best to pretend it didn’t happen, but the night was ruined. We could tell he had no fun the rest of the evening and couldn’t wait to go home.
That little stunt by the waiter took the air out of everyone’s sails.
What’s difficult about this is that we love the restaurant we were in — so much so that we won’t name it here because we don’t want this little family owned place to get any bad press. One of us eats there at least once a week, and the only waiter we’ve ever had a problem with is the Nationality Expert. Everyone else is great.
But, we just know Sebastian won’t ever set foot in there again. The waiter was loud, and unlike in a bar where these Nationality Expert confrontations are generally unnoticed by the public at large, having that interrogation take place in a quiet restaurant full of people with nothing better to do than eavesdrop (especially since the way this place is set up, with the booths curved by the windows in the front, it’s IDEAL for eavesdropping) made it all the worse.
All of us wanted Sebastian to stiff this punk on his tip for that, and leave him a penny and a note on the credit card receipt that said “ATTENTION MANAGER: BAD SERVICE”, but he wouldn’t do it. He tipped 20% like always because he used to wait tables and still picks up bartending and catering shifts to make extra money, so he will never stiff a server. Even ones that embarrass him and spoil the night with “Nationality Expert” garbage.
Some of you out there don’t understand why any of this rattles us the way it does, but Sebastian in particular is really affected by it. He looks a little like Jake Gyllenhaal, but with dark eyes as well as dark hair and features — so, not the Amberzombie, apple pie model of “American”. Easy Halloween costumes for him are Superman, James Bond, or Dracula. Traveling in Europe or South America, people often come up to him and start talking in whatever language they speak in that country, as he can blend in so well with whatever people want him to be.
So, 95% of this “Nationality Expert” garbage is leveled at him. When the lot of us go out, they zero in on him, interrupt conversations, yank him to the side and start in on this. After five years of this going on in Chicago, he’s getting tired of it, especially when the “Nationality Expert” makes a big scene of it like the waiter did last night.
The consensus here is that Sebastian shouldn’t have tipped the waiter, and should have said something to the manager about what the waiter did. Instead, Sebastian tipped like normal but got out his notepad and wrote the waiter a little note to tell him what he did was offensive, that the waiter should not be commenting on people’s weight, ethnicity, money, and other things that are none of his business, and that the waiter should remember that people he insults — even if that insult is unintentional — are the ones leaving his tip in the end. Remember, the “Nationality Expert” garbage happened BEFORE Sebastian had even totaled things up and left the tip.
“Look, guys, he’s an ass. You know I hate this crap. But, I haven’t had a permanent job for over a year and a half now. I am working all sorts of crazy funemployment gigs, bartending parties, you name it. It’s tough out there. This kid is stupid and must need the money, so I’m not going to stiff him. 20% is what I tip. Period. He did a good job serving the table right up until the end when he opened his mouth and I am not going to take his tip away for that. So I am going to leave him one of my notes to explain why he is wrong and terrible, like the notes I used to have to leave David where you’d all say I was treating him like a child. So, this child will get a lesson to read, but will get his tip too. Now, let’s not talk about this anymore because I really needed this night out and I don’t want it to be ruined.”
But, honestly, it was ruined. And when he says he needed that night out, he means it (trust us on that without getting into too much, but the guy’s had one of the worst years ever and we’re all worried about him…if anyone didn’t need “Nationality Expert” garbage hurled at him all the time, it’s Bast).
Today, we are wondering what the rest of you would do in the situation.
If you love the restaurant, do you hold one bad server against them?
Do you write a letter or call the owner and talk about this, or do you just stop going back?
Would you have given the waiter the tip, or would you have punished him for the remarks and “Nationality Expert” interrogation?
How would you have responded?
Your insights on this are always very interesting and, honestly, very helpful, so we appreciate any comments you may leave.
Sunday Open Thread: December 6th, 2009
What’s on your mind this Sunday?
Here are a few interesting reads:
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For starters, how stupid are the Code Pink people? That’s a rhetorical question, because we all know the answer to that. Those people are NUTS. In Indiana, during the primaries, one of us here got into a screaming match with them in the line to enter a Hillary Clinton campaign event in Hammond. The Code Pink liars were walking around passing out Concern Troll literature to the Hillary supporters — trying to get them to back Dr. Utopia instead. They were the most shameless lies about Hillary’s positions, making Dr. Utopia seem like some sort of Lightbringing god from the Fifth Dimension who came to save the world from war, hunger, suffering, you name it. Crazy. We followed these people for a good twenty minutes until the event opened, loudly contradicting all the lies they were telling. They didn’t like that one bit, and weren’t used to being challenged.
We do not use this word often, but Code Pink members are scum. They are the absolute dregs in the political process. Worse than even ACORN.
Just scum.
So, it’s hilarious to us, after all they did in the primaries and general election for Dr. Utopia, that they have now turned against him and are directing their special shade of crazy at the White House:
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Via Ace of Spades, here’s a MUST READ for today on Climategate, over at Climate Sceptic. It’s an article that shows the enormous flaws in the Anthropogenic Global Warming Cult’s logic, as revealed in those leaked emails at the heart of Climategate. Essentially, what these “scientists” have been doing is taking bad data, mixing it with proven data, and adding enough bad data of their own creation to generate the end results they wanted before they started the experiment.
The difficult thing about Climategate is that it involves science, which makes many people out there fall asleep. Their eyes glaze over when talking about numbers. The Climate Change Cult has benefitted greatly from this.
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Just a quick note on the movie “The Blind Side”, starring Sandra Bullock (with a nice appearance by Kathy Bates). If you haven’t seen this yet, please do. We don’t go to many movies anymore, but someone told us we HAD to see this one. And, wow, it’s good. This is a story about a rich woman who sees a big black kid walking in the rain and realizes he has no home to go to. She takes him in, and eventually adopts him into her family, even hiring a tutor to get his grades up, set him on the course to college, and get him on the football team. That kid’s now NFL Baltimore Ravens player Michael Ohere. The football parts of the movie make our eyes glaze over as we’ve never been able to watch that game without being bored to tears, but it’s honestly the best role Bullock has ever had…and she is an actress who treats people well, appreciates how fortunate she is in life, and uses her role in Hollywood not to get on political soap boxes but to do a lot of good. Sandra Bullock really is America’s sweetheart, and The Blind Side, trust us, is a movie worth paying to see in theaters.
There aren’t many of those these days, but if you see The Blind Side, you will enjoy it, we’re sure.
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