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Pot and what it’s done to me - and for me

I am a pot smoker. This demographic in our society is an ever-growing number, as more and more people try - and admit to trying - pot in a recreational sense. It is a group that consists of, but is not limited to, Doctors, Lawyers, Scientists, Teachers, Corporate Executives, Religous leaders, Police Officers (although usually not for long), Chefs, Delivery Drivers, Landscapers, Anthropologists, and just about every other job you can imagine. Its members are young and old, of all races and both genders. Pot use is everywhere, and it has been for quite some time. And yet, here in America, thousands of people are arrested and convicted of marijuana-related offences every year.

The first time I heard about weed was in elementary school. We knew what it was, we thought we knew what it did, but we didn’t care. It was something the older kids talked about, something we figured we would one day experience when we were “old enough”, in the words of the stereotypical uncle or neighbor you knew smoked but wouldn’t smoke with you. Good call, Uncle Neighbor, 6th graders are far too young to be fooling around with stuff even full grown adults have some trouble with. But nevertheless, the seed of knowledge was planted, and the next time I heard about it was from the D.A.R.E. folks. Volunteers (and sometimes conscripts) in this program went to schools filled with young wide eyed kids and talked about the bad, bad things that happened to people who tried drugs. The scary-story tactic was wasted on this cynical youngster. By that time I’d seen worse stuff on Law and Order. But D.A.R.E. (Drugs Are Really Expensive, I believe is the full name) did provide some education on the subject, even if it was completely one-sided and oversold.

Now, I’ll be the first to say that my years of weed use have had an adverse effect on my memory, but I feel fairly certain I remember a good portion of the presentation. They showed some inane educational video, the kind with child actors that spewed overenthusiasm into their roles. They spent a few minutes talkig about the hard drugs, namely coke, crack, meth, and heroin. They then jumped to the dangers of alcohol, and spent a few minutes discussing the ins and outs of underage drinking. (“You can’t buy alcohol if you’re underage, unless you have a friend who’s over age, or a fake i.d., or get to know Joe behind the counter of the 14th St. Rite-Aid. Cool dude.”) Then, the main event, Marijuana.

I now believe they intensified the focus on weed, and as a result, made it clear to us in our child logic that this was what our parents and teachers and pimply little D.A.R.E. sponsers truly feared. Pot, grass, weed, mary jane, left-handed tobacco… the list of names alone drew our interest. When they passed around the small baggie with a small amount of pot (about a gram of the sorriest looking shake I can remember seeing), it took whole minutes for the sample to get back up front to the D.A.R.E. spokesperson, who carefully inspected its contents (after all, that’s her last bowl and nothing wears a girl out like being stared at by a bunch of kids asking questions about drugs for an hour.) They spent the rest of the presentation describing weed, some of its effects, and how it sapped your motivation (true), memory (true), indeed your very soul, and handed it all gift-wrapped to satan. (Jury’s still out on that last one.) Again, however, the lesson we took away from it was this: This stuff is cool! The older kids talk about it, which means it can be found around here, the teachers are really concerned, which means it’s going to effect our schoolwork and their paycheck, and my parents basically clam up and say the same thing those stupid D.A.R.E. people said when I ask them about it.

It was still a couple of years before I actually tried it. I was in 9th grade, and my new best friend had tried it before and loved it. We scrounged up some somehow (the first time either of us picked a lock), skipped school, and smoked a retarded amount of pot, something like 3 joints a piece in the space of an hour. I’ll spare you the rest of the obligatory “First-time-I-smoked” story, suffice it to say I realized it was awesome and immediately started thinking of ways to get more of it.

My sophomore year in high school was basically me expressing my teenage rebellious angst against the cruel tyranny of the educational system. My grades were atrocious, except in the few classes where the teachers really gave a shit and made learning fun. (These were also the pot-smoking teachers, I’d wager.) I made it clear I didn’t give a shit to everyone - my friends, my uncool teachers, the principle in particular, and my now-separated parents. I’m not making excuses here, but I was a fifteen year old boy who was now being raised almost exclusively by my visually-impaired mother, with minimal input from a father I made it a point to dislike. My friends were my family, and my friends were just as into skipping school, smoking pot, and skateboarding as I was. Needless to say, it all added up into a cynical little bastard with all the restless, rebellious angst of a 90’s-generation teenager who, also, was pretty damn smart for his age, if he might say so himself. But then again, I was also pretty gothic at this point in my life, so perhaps I wasn’t the prodigy I thought I was.

In the first of karma’s P.M.S. mood swings, one day while walking into school I was “randomly selected” for a search of my person and belongings. This was post 9/11, so Pittsburgh Public Schools had sprung for new security precautions. I had pot on me, but I didn’t know it. It was in a binder I was holding for a friend (This is probably where your sense of doubt sets in, something along the lines of “likely story, kid.” I can understand that. That little voice is wrong, and probably the beginning stages of schizophrenia). This “friend” turned out to be the guy who set me up and then ratted on me, in an attempt to keep me away from his cow of a girlfriend who had a crush on me. (Again, that sense of doubt, while plausible, is wrong. If this kid has grown a pair of testicles by now he’d tell you the same thing, unless of course he’s still a scared little bitch. I know which way I’m betting.)

Long story short, I was immediately and unceremoniously expelled from Pittsburgh Public Schools. Despite my appeal, and the fact that the weed was in the other kid’s binder with his name literally all over it, the schools have a no-tolerance policy, which basically means if you’re caught with it, it’s yours. Doesn’t matter if you’re wearing your brother’s jacket, or you just found it in the hallway and was about to turn it in, or if some vindictive little prepubescent Romeo set you up. For a while I thought I was free of stupid busy work and tests I could ace before the material was even presented. But eventually I wound up in what they call “Alternative School”, and is actually where they send kids to start them on their careers as criminals. The teachers were even more worn down than in the public schools, and most of their students were kids expelled for repeated violence, excessive absences, or drug-related stuff. I shit you not, out of 500-odd kids in this school, I was one of less than a hundred that were there for reasons besides threatening greivous bodily harm to fellow students or faculty. Or maybe that was the minority demographic, and everybody said that to keep the other kids from beating them up and taking their shoes. Same principal as telling your cellmate you’re in for murder when you really skipped out on taxes.

After about a month in that hellhole, I made the decision to start skipping school again. What the hell, it worked before, right? Well, my saint of a mother (who collected at least 40% of her grey hairs in this time period) wasn’t about to let me drop out and become a nothing. She moved me to Lexington, plopped me into Lafayette high school, and we pretty much started the cycle over again. I dicked around and managed to fail Sophomore year (again), while skipping and smoking with my new friends, quite a few of whom were neighbors as well. Eventually, I was on the brink of a second expulsion, and were it not for the aid of a few dedicated teachers who saw that I was intelligent and refused to give up (again, 99.9% positive these teachers smoke(d) the ganja), I would have begun an endless cycle. As it was, their selfless vouching for me got me into a different alternative school, one where the students weren’t prone to random outbreaks of violence. This one was staffed by the same type of tired souls I had seen before, but the difference was that you had to maintain a job to attend (a whopping 20 hrs a week, minimum), all the classes were done on the PC, and every time you passed a class, it was an A. I finished 2 years of English in two weeks, thanks to the standerdized tests at the end of the course. If you thought you knew the material, at any point you could take the test. If you passed, good job, here’s an A. It’s called credit recovery, and for me and many others, it was a godsend. I actually graduated on time with my class, despite being two years of passing grades behind everyone else.

Fast forward two years. I’m done with high school, working a shit job in a crappy Kroger grocery store, and still smoking pot. Not making much cash, though. The realization had set in sometime in late 2005ish that I could make a pretty penny flipping weed to my friends, so I subsidized my meager Kroger earnings with selling pot. For a couple years, shit was great. I always had pot, always had cash, spent more time hanging with my friends than any other activity… life was good. Granted at this point in my life, I was involved in a fair bit more than just pot, but we’ll skip the “Gateway Drug” argument for another time.

Yes, life was good - except when it wasn’t. The fact of the matter was that I was associating with criminals to make money. Some of these colorful characters weren’t too impressed by the 19 year old pot dealer, and there were several instances of being taken advantage of by the more street-oriented of my peers. I never had a gun pulled on me, however, or pulled one on anybody else. It’s not like I was moving serious weight. An ounce here or there, maybe more if the fish were biting. Enough to make me live comfortably by 19-year-old standards, but not enough to appear on the cop’s radar unless I was extremely unlucky. Which of course, sometimes I am.

The second ironic drop-kick from that crazy bitch Karma came later. After the paranoia of being arrested and the exasperation of the all-night phone calls, the drives across town to discover my customer had vanished or “forgotten” his cash, the friends begging for more discounts when I was already hooking them up… after a couple of years of buildup, I decided it wasn’t worth it. I quit dealing, moved out of the shady neighborhood (read: ghetto, Lexington-style), and lost a few dozen phone numbers. By this point I had been hired at a bar, and was making comperable money to dealing pot without the side risks, so I didn’t really feel the loss of income. My best friend, his then-girlfriend and I decided to move in together.

Nine days after my 20th birthday, we moved in to our new apartment. We had decided we were going to have some friends over for a housewarming party. As such parties go, everybody (about 6 others) had their own bag of weed they brought with them to contribute to the festivities. The sole person there that was over 21 brought a 30-pack of bud light, as well, so we were all set to have a good time. We had just begun the lengthy process of rolling a blunt for every person there when we heard a knock on the door.

We were expecting one more friend to show up. I had spoken to him on the phone, and he was on his way. This is why I wasn’t bothered by the fact that the peephole was being blocked or obstructed by someone. I assumed it was my buddy screwing around, and opened the door to discover two police officers standing in the hall. I’ll attempt to relay how everything happened as closely as I can remember. It’s all factual, in any event, I’m just not sure about all the dialogue.

Cop 1: We had a noise complaint here. Music’s too loud.

Me: Really? Well, we just moved in, our speakers aren’t even unpacked. We have some company over, but we’ll be sure to -

Cop 2: (Brushes past me into my apt.)

Me: Whoa, you need a warrant to come in here -

Cop 2: We have Probable Cause. We can smell weed in the hallway.

Take a moment here, folks. First off, remember that phrase - “Probable Cause”. Cops can use this as carte blanche for abusing civil rights. Probable cause can be anything, and it’ll always be the cop’s word against yours in court. Remember that unless they have a search warrant, they have no right to search you or any part of your property unless you tell them it’s ok.  Secondly, recall that we were in-process of rolling the inaugural blunts for the initiation of our new pad. We had yet to spark anything in there but a half-dozen cigarettes. Third, take into consideration that there were 11 other units in this apartment building. 3 floors, four units a floor. Even if cops could smell weed in the hallway, it would be impossible to pinpoint it to my unit, considering we hadn’t smoked yet. Even at the most pessimistic estimate, it’s a 50-50 chance it’s the one directly across the three-foot-wide hallway. A reasonable estimate might say that there were as many as six apartments such a smell could come from. (the 3 others on my floor, mine, and the apartments directly above and below mine.) An optimistic estimate would say it could easily be any of the apartments that smell like weed, more than likely there’s more than one blazing at any given time. Fourth and finally, notice the complete lack of interest in the alcohol. One person over 21, we were all drinking beer (I made a point of finishing mine before being handcuffed, even though I hate Bud Light), and they never said a word, not even after finding out we were all underage. Didn’t even make us pour it all out.

Well, in any event, of course there were about six bags of pot sitting in easy visual range, and a half-dozen people looking up at me and the police, blunt wraps in various stages of completion, with the look a doe gives a Mack Truck barreling down I-79 at 70 mph. It was just as messy, but only for me. As soon as the cops started asking questions, some damn idiot started claiming the heat for everything. All six bags of weed (plus the one they found hidden in the couch. Still not sure where that came from.), all the wraps and papers, the bowl, the set of hand scales. One guess who that idiot was… yours truly. Sometimes I look back and applaud my bravery at jumping on a grenade for the sake of my friends. Sometimes I look back and want to go back in time and break my foot off in my own ass as soon as I get up to open that apartment door. It’s a strange dichotemy.

Needless to say, I was arrested, although I did manage to keep my two roommates and two other friends out of jail. Two others were arrested on seperate charges. (One, a self-admitted ‘career criminal’, had unpaid fines, the other had a bag of weed in his pocket that I couldn’t claim.) My charges were Pamphernilia and Trafficking within 1000 feet of a school. Just an interesting anecdote, most of Lexington is within 1000 feet of a school, especially when pre-schools and churches count. 

That first night in Jail was awful. After being processed and seperated from my friends, I was plopped down in front of some young looking guy who explained the charges and my situation. I knew enough to not admit anything (although I did try to ‘cooperate’ with the arresting officer by feeding him the names of mythical mexican drug dealers from Cardinal Valley, affectionately known locally as “Mexington”. If you think that’s racist, consider that I WAS LYING OUT OF MY ASS IN AN EFFORT TO STAY OUT OF JAIL. Also consider LIES ARE MORE LIKELY TO BE BELIEVED IF THEY’RE PLAUSIBLE. Anyway, Captain Sensitive, on with the show.) The kid basically told me that they weren’t going to reduce my bail to 10% of the original number ($50,000. No bullshit. I am public enemy #62 or something.), which was my only hope for getting bailed out. I gave up hope. The next day when my mom came to visit me, I told her, “I guess this is home for awhile.”

But perhaps after reviewing her records, Karma decided she had been a bit too harsh on me, and sent a little luck my way in the form of a damned good lawyer who I knew personally from his occasional stops by the bar and restaurant where I worked. He agreed to work my case for a song (or something. I’m not sure whether he even charged my mom, but if he did, it was nothing compared to what it normally would have run.) Through his experience and respect in the court system, the judge agreed to 10% my bail, and a friend of my mother’s (whom I met once prior to this, maybe) posted my $5,000 dollar bail, and I was released after a little more than 48 hours of imprisonment. As if he hadn’t worked enough magic, he leaned on the judge (Maria Ransdale, I believe was her name. She was rumored to have a particular soft spot for coming down hard on first-time drug offenders.), explaining the situation to the tune of “he’s a good kid, I know him personally, he did this to protect his friends” and got the pamphernilia charge dropped (awesome, because your second one of those is a felony, and I don’t even have one thanks to him) and the trafficking dropped to a misdemeanor possesion.

 I was put on probation for two years, ordered to take weekly piss tests (called “drops”) and attend a kind of NA rehab program. So of course, I stopped smoking weed instantly. It became apparant that probation was just another way to get money out of my pocket. For every “drop” I had to pay $13 dollars, in addition to the monthly probation fee and the cost of the Rehab course (somewhere around $350 if I remember correctly). The best part was the police officer who got the eviable job of staring at your penis while you peed. I exhibited shy bladder syndrome on more than one occasion, which only made me more nervous. Too many “failure to produce” drops can be counted as a positive drop. It basically is all up to your P.O. Thankfully, mine was a down-to-earth woman named Shannon. She was dedicated to the ideals of making people clean up their act, and not arbitrarily bringing down the swift hammer of justice. She could have. If I wasn’t so genuinely clean, she might have. I get the feeling she doesn’t give second chances if you don’t deserve them. (It also didn’t hurt that I made her laugh regularly, with bar stories and my natural humor. She insisted that ‘Devin Scott’ was a Rock-star name, and as soon as we had an inside joke, I relaxed a bit.)

I’ve been off probation for about 4 years now. Sometimes I still dream I’m walking down to the police car handcuffed, walking down to my new jail cell after learning I won’t be bailed out for anything less than the cost of a new Lexus Hybrid, walking to my P.O.’s office after yet another “failure to produce”, only this time she’s not a cool person, and I get tossed back in jail because some stranger was staring at my dick and no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t pee.

Now, of course, if I was stopped and searched with that same amount of pot, it would be a ticket. Maybe. I admit I’m not sure how my priors would effect that, but I feel like it would basically depend on the cop. All this for a plant that has been in use for thousands of years, been legalized, illegalized (for the profit of certain capitalist bigwigs) and is now in a slow, uphill battle to become legalized if you have a cool doctor. Yes, there are plenty of people who use cannabis for their chemo symptoms, for their eating disorders, for their chronic (heh) pain. But let’s be serious, most people just want to be able to smoke pot without getting tossed in jail. Marijuana Prohibition is just as succesful as the Alcohol Prohibition, which is to say not at all. Now we’ve got a potential multi-billion dollar a year industry in the hands of criminals! Because some stiff necked politicians still think it’s satan’s work, or it’s a communist plot, or whatever outdated and out-of-focus viewpoint they express. At the time of this writing, Conneticut has just become the 17th state to legalize medical marijuana, but the DEA continues to raid dispensaries nationwide, continues to shut down doctors, dispensaries, and patients alike. All is done with federal funding from an Obama administration that started off with a reformist attitude towards pot.

So, is it all worth it? What does the legalization of Marijuana hold in store for us? I know that it effects people differently. It’s not always the same for me. Sometimes I slow down and think things through on a deeper level. Sometimes I get sucked in to an endless web of side thoughts and completely lose sight of the fact that I’m holding a lit lighter upside-down. Sometimes I get in the shower and put shampoo all over my body. Sometimes I call a friend and make dinner plans. Will I stop smoking pot one day? Probably. When I do, though, it’ll be because I decide that’s best for me.

Toledo on a Tuesday with Tool

I am currently lying in a bed in a Days Inn alongside I-75, a two minute drive from Toledo, Ohio. The hooker I found lurking underneath the overpass has either fallen asleep or has dropped into a drug-induced stupor, so I finally kicked her to the floor and have the bed to myself.

I’m kidding about the hooker, of course. She’s dead.

When my friend and I arrived, we made plans to take the town by storm, until we checked in. From the outside the motel looked kind of run down, but that notion was immediately dispelled when we walked in the door. This place isn’t run down, it’s been driven down. At the corner of every baseboard are paint chips, some still with teeth marks. The hallways smell like this place was a funeral home before becoming the bastion of travel lodging it is today. Not to mention that when we went to the vending machines, my friend tried to get a mountain dew and was given a livewire. Cruel and unusual punishment, days inn, and there’s a special rung in hell reserved for vending machine stockers who can’t do their jobs.

After feasting on the hotel-recommended vito’s pizza, we no longer felt the need to march on the front desk. Seriously, for thirty glorious minutes we forgot about the remarkably inefficient a/c, the strange unpleasant odor, the fact that our bathroom door has to be body-checked into closing. We even forgot about the rowdy tenants who seemed to be partying in the hallway outside our door, at least until they started fighting. Then one of them said “gun!” and they scattered, but not before one of them banged on our door as he passed, apparently doing the same for all doors he passed, while kindly alerting us to the fact that “the mo’fuckin cops are comin!” When he banged on the door, I was about to look through the peephole, and I nearly shat myself into orbit when he punched the door. It’s a good thing I wasn’t carrying a gun. But hey, at least they were nice enough to tell us the cops were coming, because everyone in toledo knows if you’re at the days inn on miami street and some shit pops off, it’s on you to let everyone else know, cause what if they got warrants?

We no longer felt the need to leave our hotel room after feasting and shitting ourselves from surprise, so we turned on horrible early-morning television and hoped the tumor it would induce would be enough to put us to sleep, or at least provide us with an interesting diversion as our heads swelled up.

In the morning my friend made the heroic effort of waking up at 8:30 in the morning in an attempt to catch some of the promised free breakfast. As a guy who was on many a multi-day roadtrip with my family in my younger years, I knew given our surroundings he shouldn’t expect much of anything, but either he didn’t care or didn’t understand me clearly (understandable, at 8:30 am I primarily communicate through vague hand gestures, monosyllabic grunts, and attempted telepathy), so off he went. When he returned empty handed I was not surprised, but he told me they had a single pastry left when he got there, odd considering the fact there were practically no other cars in the lot. He had taken a bite and discovered that in addition to being stale, it was flavored with leather extract. He carefully placed it in a trash can (read: he threw it against the wall) and tried the orange juice, but the dispenser oozed out some orange-colored sludge that looked more like marmalade. Wouldn’t be so bad if it was marmalade, even though i’ve never drank any, but it wasn’t.

After lazing around for a few hours we decided to get some grub. We found a buffet place online that was part of a chain called Old Country Buffet, a restaurant my family loved and went to regularly. After hyping it up to my friend, we set off on what was supposed to be a twenty minute drive to eat and turned into a thirty minute tour of one of the most depraved, run-down collection of shantytowns and hovels this side of district 9.

If you ever find yourself in toledo ohio, remember this: the drive to this restaurant will take you to a dark place, but the destination is worth it. But I cannot understate the awful appearance of this place. Take away the traffic (it’s widely accepted that ohio drivers are among the worst in the nation, and toledo is clearly the foundation of this belief) and you’d think a horde of zombies came through here a month back, and all the residents have joined in that shuffling mass. Truth be told, the few natives we did spot had a glazed over look I would expect from the living dead.

Maybe i’m being too hard on this place. It sits right alongside Lake Erie, and that amount of wind and cold air means the weather here’s got to be a bitch. Lots of rain and snow getting dumped on you all the time, economic recession, and most of the jobs seeming to lean towards the industrial side of things… all this adds up to what could be termed as a shithole. God knows there’s areas of Pittsburgh that look pretty damn similar, but the sprawl of shabbiness here is appalling in its scale from what we saw. Maybe we missed the garden spots, but come on, it’s like 28 degrees, and i’m only here for one reason.

Tool.

They played at the huntington arena, home of the toledo walleyes. Say what you will about the choice of name for their pro hockey team, the folks at toledo know how to make a good concert arena. Small, but with an acoustic sound that rivals some of the bigger arenas i’ve been to. Even the opening bands had a sound that reverberated in my chest with every slap of the bass guitar or a stomp on a bass pedal. But as soon as the headliners took the stage, they became a barely remembered thing.

I won’t attempt to describe tool’s music. If you’ve heard it, you know it is unlike any other, aside from some side projects of the lead singer, Maynard James Keenan. But whatever you think you know about tool, if you haven’t seen them live, you’re missing out on a huge part of who they are as artists. I have long respected their artistry, not just musically or lyrically, but the collaboration with artist alex grey makes incredible album art. The usual drop-down screens that so many bands use were there, but they displayed clips from their music videos (“out there” doesn’t even begin to cover it) as well as crazy light patterns.

Then there were the lasers. I can’t currently post pictures to this blog on the mobile version (or at least I haven’t bothered to figure it out) but trust me when I say that the visual experience was just as powerful as the music. Tool has not only pioneered a unique style of music dubbed by some as “progressive metal” than has yet to be even imitated accurately, let alone duplicated, but they started it some 25ish years ago. Their first studio album, Undertow, came out in ‘92, which puts them at a musical age of 20, and throughout that period they have stayed true to their unique style of music, one that so often can reach me in ways no other experience has yet to do.

So, in conclusion, I came to a shitty town and had an awesome time. I suppose I could have just typed that sentence and made it a facebook status, and you could have politely ignored it or read it at your leisure, but I turned it in to this, and you read it, so now it’s stuck in your brain whether you want it there or not. But you want it there. You want to go see Tool. You want to spend hours combing the floor of the arena looking for your face. But until you do…

I have a suggestion to keep you all occupied… Learn to swim. Tool - Aenima

For the last time…

This post will be in the form of a rant-list thing. I’ve been told by none other than Athena (no, not the goddess.. I don’t think…) that my bar exploits might get a laugh, and everybody knows i’m a sucker for that…

1) use common sense, people. If you’re standing behind someone and you watch them pay $2.50 for a Bud Light, don’t ask me how much a bud light is. It’s still $2.50. The price does not change according to your gender, attractiveness, sobriety (or lack thereof), or anything else short of a promotion by the company.

2) Ladies, I know there’s a timeless art to cadging drinks from unsuspecting guys. By all means, suck ‘em dry. God knows there’s plenty of idiots willing to pay for your next shot on the off chance that shot was the one that would make you fall in love with the last idiot who bought you a shot. I am not one of those idiots. Generally speaking, most bartenders fall into that category. Don’t come up to the bar and put on your pouty-cutesy face and ask me for a free drink because it’s your cousin’s roomate’s dog’s birthday. I’m here to make money, you’re here to make poor life decisions. Know your role.

3) asking what’s on tap when the handles are right in front of you is the equivalent of saying “I’m as dumb as you can possibly be and not get a check from the government every month.”

4) situational awareness. If it’s Saturday night and i’m three deep, don’t ask me for a slightly dirty yet dry martini with a twist. Get a goddamn vodka redbull and leave your. 50 cent tip, and go bother someone else.

5) never start an order with “you’re going to hate me, but…” or “I know this is a hassle, but..” Spit it out, and if your request is unreasonable, I will cheerfully direct you to go fuck yourself in as polite a way as possible.

6) know what you want before you step up to the bar. I realize as the night goes on you get drunker, and therefore stupider. Really, I do. When someone comes up, orders a bud light, then turns around to their friend and asks what they want, and then repeat it for every friend with them, it takes all my self control to not bash your face in with a tap handle. There are other people waiting, and most of the time they don’t realize its the other customers slowing things down. They assume I suck, and don’t tip. Then I hate you and them.

7) if you can’t afford to tip, you can’t afford to drink in a bar. Go to the liquor store. And if you can’t tip and still decide to go to a bar, don’t tell me you can’t tip me and then apologize. Acknowledging that you suck is not the same as not sucking.

8) some songs are better left unplayed. Why in god’s name are you going to play something like outkast or maroon 5, and follow it up with tracy chapman’s “fast car”? And i’m not even going to start on the whole “don’t stop believing” or “wagon wheel” thing. You all will burn in hell.

9) if you’re going to puke, there are bathrooms. Or trash cans. Or outside. Or your purse. I don’t care. Pick one and hurl away, then go home. Don’t throw up on the bar… you run the risk of having your face rubbed in it like a puppy who shat on the rug.

10) parking tickets cost less than DUIs. So do tows, for that matter. And cabs. Don’t be stupid.

11) don’t tell the bartender to “hook it up”. My response to that is, “do you want a double?” I don’t know you, and unless you’ve been tipping really well you’re getting and paying for the same thing as everyone else. Hell, I don’t even get employee discounts. So remember that as well if you’re lucky enough to have a shot bought for you by the bartender. I pay what you pay, plain and simple.

12) people get skipped sometimes. It happens. It’s usually an accident, and if you calmly get my attention and say you’ve been waiting for awhile, you’ll have much better results than rolling your eyes with a dramatic sigh and saying something about how you’ve been waiting for so long you’re growing a beard. If you feel like you’re getting skipped repeatedly, there’s probably a reason.

13) tell me i’m doing a good job! You’d be surprised how much that helps. Or just tip well. Same thing. (You can also do both.)

14) watch “the bartender hates you” series on youtube. Hilarious (and more accurate than you might think).

15) you flirt with me because it gives you a better chance for a free drink. I flirt with you because it gives me a better chance for more tips. I don’t love you. We’re not dating. I actually had a girl leave crying once because I flirted with another girl while she was in earshot. This tells me you are psycho.

16) if you want a specific drink and I don’t know how to make it, i’m sorry, but i’m not googling it on a friday night. You can do that! And there’s an app that will tell you where the closest store is with the ingredients! And how much they cost! If you want it that bad, go make it!

17) STOP FUCKING WHISPERING! THERE’S 200 PEOPLE IN HERE AND A JUKEBOX ON FULL BLAST!

I hope this was informative. I’m sure there will be more to come.

And he’s off! Random Musing #1.2

First off, the reason this is titled with a number 1.2 is because I was most of the way through my first post and then the computer decided it was a perfect moment to reconfigure itself or something. So of course I lost everything I had written. I’ll try to recall it as best I can, but who knows. Anyway, here you are… hot and fresh and served with a side of sarcasm. (<— new title name? I think so!)

Today was a day like many others for me, and by that I mean there was something that made me pause and really evaluate some aspect of my life. There’s always tons of random thoughts floating around inside my head. Most of them are inane, irrelevant things that have a singular purpose: they make me glad we’re not all telepaths. But occasionally some nugget of potentially useful/applicable knowledge bubbles up from the bowels of my carefully-concealed insanity, and after refinement, rehersal, and a dab of spit and polish, it’s like it was clad in gold. I fully expect to attempt to deliver these nuggets of random observations on a regular basis, and I also fully expect that some of them (probably MOST of them) are not even close to being clad in gold. It’s a metaphor. But whatever, you’ve already read this much, so I ask for just a few more moments of your time, and then you can get back to persuing facebook for that cute person you’re stalking, or comparing organic celery prices in Zimbabwe, or guffawing at some TFLN you’re reading while you’re supposed to be filing those reports for your boss, or whatever it is you do on the internet.

This is something I’ve thought of for a long time as being one of those things that everyone knows on some level, but no one talks about. Strangely applicable, once I stop leading you on and actually get to the point I’m going to make sometime soon.

Oh, look, here it is, right below this. That wasn’t so bad after all, was it?

The thought I had was: “I wonder what percentage of conflicts in my life are caused or enlarged by miscommunication?”

After careful consideration (elapsed time, approx. 38 seconds) I decided upon the figure of 85%. But now, in hindsight, I feel like that may be an overly-conservative estimate. 

For example, let’s say you and a friend were having a conversation, and you came across a topic you didn’t agree on. A lot of times, at least as long as we’re being mature, we’ll shrug it off and agree to disagree. But on the other hand, how many times have you had sparring matches with friends where you just couldn’t seem to get them to see your side? Or when they just couldn’t get through to you? I notice this a lot, because - and this is a key part - I’m outside the conflict. I’m a neutral observer, and I’m very good at seeing the middle path. But I’ve watched so many debates turn into arguments turn into shouting matches. At the end of it, had you just walked in, you might not realize that these people are friends. They’re shouting and screaming, going red in the face, looking like they’re ready to kill each other and saying things I wouldn’t say to my worst enemy just to piss off the other person. It doesn’t always happen like that, but that’s an extreme example that I feel we’ve all been in, or at least seen.

The next time you’re in a disagreement, remember that the easiest way to resolve it probably involves listening. Especially among friends and loved ones. Don’t take something the wrong way and fly off the handle. I know it’s easy for me to say, but I misinterperet things all the time, and then act on my incorrect information, even if I don’t say anything. When we’re in an argument, the first thing we need to do is figure out WHY we’re in an argument. We’re friends, man, why are we shouting at each other?

Example: The other day I was talking with a friend, and I said something to her that she misinterpreted, or I didn’t say right, or whatever. We went back and forth for a few minutes before we realized we were arguing different points that didn’t apply to each other. I was having one argument, she was having another. When I realized this, I said: “Tell me what it is I said that upset you, so I can tell you what I meant.” It may have been the most mature thing I’ve said all year.

Life’s too short to be pissed off all the time. Especially at those who mean a lot to us.