Sunday 29th 2006f January 2006

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Illog

A , posted by Anthony around mid-afternoon.

I went to a doctor on Monday. He said if I’d gone to him a week earlier he would have given me antibiotics, but I was basically well so there was no point. I was starting to feel better, which was a relief. Then on Tuesday night I headed out for dinner with a few friends, and was struck by food poisoning. This blog is rapidly just becoming a catalogue of my infirmities. I wonder should I re-christen it.

I deduce it was food poisoning because I started to feel ill about six hours after we finished eating, which is I guess the way that goes. After I threw up I had thought I would be ok for work the next day, but when the alarm went off and I got up I found that I couldn’t plausibly maintain any kind of verticality without feeling extremely indisposed. Thursday I made it in, but I had to leave early – I just didn’t have the stomach for it. I’m feeling better now, but this is being a quiet weekend; I could have gone to a party in Brooklyn last night, but opted instead to go to a child’s first birthday party in the Manhattan Theatre Source. Happy birthday, Luca!

In between the meal and the vomiting on Tuesday night I stopped by the Scratcher to say goodbye to Anita – she’s heading back to Canada for a while. I met Anita back around January 2004. I’d been in New York for just a few months. I’d gotten over the excitement. I was broke, not having much luck with work and I was starting to feel lost and anxious. I was sitting around on my own in my apartment in East Willamsburg and I became aware of a slow depression stealing over me. I decided to not just let it happen, but ward it off with human contact. I got my coat and headed in to the Scratcher.

I picked the Scratcher because I had met Karl Geary while working on Timbuktu. He is one of the owners, and he invited me to come and visit him there when I hit New York. I’d already tried a few times, but in actual fact he was hardly ever there (even less now). I had decided that even if he wasn’t there I would try and have a conversation with someone – get out of my own head a little bit.

That’s another reason why New York bars are better than Dublin bars – they’re more sociable. It’s all to do with the tipping. Here, you’re expected to tip a Dollar a drink to the bartender. It can vary with the relationship, the order and so on, but that’s pretty solid. This is extremely shocking coming from a country like Ireland, where you don’t tip the bartender at all. You might tip floor staff, but not a Euro a drink! It seems extravagant.

Once you get used to it, it actually vastly improves the experience. Financially it’s not even that significant once you factor in buy-backs – this is where the bartender will give you a free round. If the place is good about buy-backs you might even come out ahead, getting free drink worth more than you contribute in tips. It greatly increases sociability – as a customer you want the bartender to remember you so they’ll get you a buy-back, and the bartender wants to make sure you keep tipping them. I don’t mean that everybody is pretending to be best friends LA style, but there’s a lot more eye contact, nods of gratitude and so forth going on and the whole thing has a friendlier cast to it. This extends to situations when you’re on your own and they’re not busy – they’ll talk to you. You’re as likely to get a good conversation as you are with any random stranger, but at least the opportunity is there.

This has further ramifications. It means that people who are just killing time and in feeling like a chat might very well just pull up a chair at a bar to make small talk with the bartender, so even if the bartender is busy (or boring) there is very likely to be somebody else sitting at the bar who is open to a bit of meaningless human contact. New York bars are just friendlier than Dublin bars.

I know that in Dublin there are people who have a regular relationships with bars. They have a local. They go in there all the time and know everybody. That’s not what I’m talking about. In New York you can walk on your own into a bar you’ve never been in before and, if you want to, have a pleasant conversation. This is much harder in Dublin. As an example, I went to a bar over Christmas, a bar I’d been to many times (although obviously not recently). I was a little early. I ordered a pint and waited. I grew a little bored, so I tried to engage the barman in conversation. He seemed like a nice guy, but he clearly had no interest in talking to me. He answered my question and walked to the other end of the bar to clean glasses.

That’s just the way the bartender/stranger dynamic works in Ireland, at least in the cities – before I’d been in New York it never even would have occurred to me to talk to him. You order your drinks, pay for them and drink them. If you’re lucky they’ll care enough to ask you if you want another when you’re running low and maybe even remember your order, but rarely anything beyond that.

There were two people in the Scratcher when I arrived, Anita behind the bar and an older man talking to her. I sat at the bar, got a Guinness, listened for a bit, and joined in. I ended up talking to him for a while, I’m not sure about what. I have a vague memory of a story about blowing a tire in Monument Valley and not having a spare. He left. Anita had mentioned being an actress, so I asked her about that, and we talked for a while. She was the first Scratcher employee I talked to who actually had hard information for me about when in fact Karl was likely to be in evidence, so I did eventually manage to meet him. I left after a few pints, considerably cheered – the tactic had worked. Not the drinking, the human contact.

I started heading in there on afternoons when I was free and Anita was working. Even if she was busy it was a good pub to have random conversations in – I’ve met quite a few interesting people there. It became part of my routine, part of my New York experience. Since then I’ve been to parties and gigs with Anita and her friends, and introduced her to some of mine. I helped stage manage her one woman show when the person who was doing it couldn’t do it. She and the Scratcher pop up in the blog from time to time – do a search, I’m too lazy to link to all of them. I haven’t seen so much of her since I started working regularly – my afternoon pub hours have been severely reduced.

Anyway, I’m sorry to see her go, and I hope she’ll be back at some point. Good luck, Anita! Hopefully my next entry will be illness free. Please continue to de-lurk, even if Dean does start randomly abusing you. I’m glad to see there are people out there.

Comments on "Illog"

  1. Gravatar

    Comment ID: 6142

    At 3:35 pm on Sunday 29th 2006f January 2006, Nigel opined

    I got to know some of the staff of my local quite well when I was living in Holloway. Very handy for being invited to stay behind for lock ins, playing pool until dawn!

  2. Gravatar

    Comment ID: 6143

    At 8:06 pm on Sunday 29th 2006f January 2006, JIMI, M.A Hons realised it was important that we all should understand

    DEAN>> A trolley bus is an electrically powered bus with telescopic poles attached to the overhead wires, but unlike a tram it doesn’t run on tracks. It runs on a normal road and can even overtake cars but it can’t overtake other trolley buses as I learned the hard way during my first training session!!!

    Of course Anthony knows all about trolley buses and I didn’t need to explain them to him on his visit to Vancouver. Right Anthony?

    For those curious to know more about trolley buses (yes, the rumours are correct – I’m currently training to be a trolley bus driver in Vancouver), check out this wikipedia entry:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_bus

    Gotta go. Back to work…

  3. Gravatar

    Comment ID: 6144

    At 4:10 am on Monday 30th 2006f January 2006, D2 discoursed

    Anthony.. sympathies on the food poisoning. I got the stomach bug last year and thought I was dying. There was stuff coming out everywhere.

    and what’s this “abuse” business.. at least I, like Jimi & Babs etc actualy take time out of our busy day to comment, unlike those creepy ass lurkers! (OK, spose that was actually abusive.)

    Jimi!!! Congratulations, although i scarcely believe it. So you never got to be a train driver but a Vancouver Trolley Dolly will do eh? Nice one!

  4. Gravatar

    Comment ID: 6149

    At 10:59 am on Monday 30th 2006f January 2006, Babs imparted

    You’ve got to stop getting sick, Anthony, you’re starting to sound like me (and that ain’t good).

    I always found Manhattan’s bars far too crowded. Then again I’m jaded and always get annoyed when I’ve got to part a sea of people just to get to the damned loo.

    Also, Trolly Dolly?? I thought that was a drag show in Atlantic City!!

  5. Gravatar

    Comment ID: 6152

    At 12:26 pm on Monday 30th 2006f January 2006, J was inspired to add

    So that’s what he’s really doing. Good sleuth work Babs – bit of a waste of his MA, though, surely!

  6. Gravatar

    Comment ID: 6160

    At 5:02 pm on Monday 30th 2006f January 2006, Sibyl proclaimed

    Not creepy, busy. (kind of like not drowning, waving -though with my job much more like not waving, drowning).

  7. Gravatar

    Comment ID: 6186

    At 6:23 am on Tuesday 31st 2006f January 2006, daragh stated

    Without sounding like Mr. Pink from Resevoir Dogs, I think you pay for their kindness and conversation. Sure they’re kind and friendly, the yanks have that down to tee, same goes for food aswell, you can see the difference in service. But dontcha not miss the crush at the bar for the dreaded drink, holding onto your pint glass, like it was golden nectar poured from the gods themselves… the wait, the anticipation, especially when you order a pint of the black stuff, then for it to be gobbled up, and getting ready to order your next one. Or the fact that your Irish barman can take seven to eight orders at the same time. It’s no wonder that Irish themed bars can be found in every major city in the world…surely there must be a reason for this? Craic agus Ceol – Its the atmosphere – I reckon its the people not the bar that make a great pub, and true, the surroundings and decor can add to that. Like so many of us, the dissapointment on going to Boston and the ‘Cheers’ bar not remotely like the tv one, ok its movie magic but it would be nice…“Where everybody knows your name” come on, sing along.
    The ‘Buy Backs’ and obligatory tipping are the greatest pain in the hole. It gives the false impression that you are getting something for nothing. I’m not as severe as Mr.Pink, I am generous and will note my generosity in the tip, but if you’re shitty to me, why should I compliment you in tips for being such an asshole? – could never understand that. Like the lads in the film, – ‘What do you want her to do? get down on her knees and….’ Well ya, why not, I’m paying for this performance’... Na seriously, they do work hard and deserve every penny. But it is hard to guage sometimes how much things cost with the taxes and tips added on after. I’m sick to death hanging onto all those dollar bills for tips for food for drink for taxes for the hell of it. Its like a sketch from Monty Python in the haggaling scene, tell me the bloody price and i’ll pay for it!
    Buy Backs : These normally happen at the end of the night when you’re just about to fall off the chair or your too pissed to tell the difference. You’ve just had a conversation on astro turf, the pros and cons, you reckon the bar girl is the best thing you’ve ever seen, and possibly, you, like the bartender, are now buying drinks for strangers, except the bartender is perfectly lucid and sober. ( the shots they drink with you are non-alcoholic I reckon). Although not in the Scratcher, Anita can hold her own. There I was having the chat and it slowly crept up on me, sneeky shots,appearing from nowhere. At first I thought this was odd for Bar staff giving me free drink then I tried to pay for it for fear that I was being set up. Like a scene from Goodfellas, I thought the reason people were being nice to me, was that at any stage I was going to get wacked. There I’d be going for a jimmy riddle in spiddal, and wallop, out for the count. But no, no luck there, then I thought… whey hey, I’m in, she fancies me, but we all think that at some stage of drinking. Then the penny and my shot glass dropped, the buy backs…... aaaaahhhhhhh what a night!

  8. Gravatar

    Comment ID: 6187

    At 7:31 am on Tuesday 31st 2006f January 2006, J wrote

    Good God what just happened – Did Daragh just post something that made sense, and with punctuation!

  9. Gravatar

    Comment ID: 6188

    At 8:53 am on Tuesday 31st 2006f January 2006, D2 attested

    Yes, actually, he did. Could do with returns after his paragraph breaks but ther than that… I agree!!

    Why the FCUK should you tip every time you buy a drink? Sure that’s mad Ted! Mad! What happens if you don’ t tip? Try that sometime, go on, dare ya!

    Hmmm, wonder how Jimi’s Drag Act is getting on. Atlanta City eh.. sounds like he finally hit the big time. Well done Jimi. Well done!

  10. Gravatar

    Comment ID: 6191

    At 10:16 am on Tuesday 31st 2006f January 2006, daragh typed

    I do my best sometimes.
    Deano you can talk ‘but ther than that’.

    Take care Anita, look forward to a ‘Buy Back’ sometime.

  11. Gravatar

    Comment ID: 6192

    At 11:17 am on Tuesday 31st 2006f January 2006, fionn posted

    whoosh! he took off his lurking cape, and all
    at once he became visible, a mere scrap of a man,
    plale, very pale, reflective really, spotty, and a bit smelly. allthough he had the notion that he, perhaps was irrestable to women, who clearly like the smell of ciggies, b.o. and crisps, but pretend not to, in case they get slagged by other women. ....... Hi Anthony,
    whataboutcha, hi james ,daragh, any anyone else, well anyone really, you’re all special, especially the poorly ones like anto, aww. poor you. You are better now i see. good. No need for real sympathy. Now who exactly is training be be a trolly bus driver, ? and that !
    regards etc.
    fionn

    mmmm cheese and onion.

  12. Gravatar

    Comment ID: 6199

    At 3:47 am on Wednesday 01st 2006f February 2006, D2 wrote

    Yes Daragh, very obsvervacious of you. Unfortunately I’m now working in Japan and the key boards are a vit qixed up here. Althouw I an Flunet in Japoaoese it still does{mt help.

    Now if you’l ecuse me i’m off for a spot of groping on the the packed trains! Anthony, is this something you do on th way o wok?

  13. Gravatar

    Comment ID: 6220

    At 6:52 pm on Friday 03rd 2006f February 2006, Babs asserted

    Oi!! Where the hell’ve you all gone NOW??

  14. Gravatar

    Comment ID: 6221

    At 10:33 pm on Friday 03rd 2006f February 2006, J felt the urge to write

    Oh thank god some one else posted. I didn’t want to for fear this was some kind of doomsday scenario – or a re-enactment of a dodgy student film. Either way cheers Babs for bringing things back to life in a non-zombie type way

  15. Gravatar

    Comment ID: 6223

    At 2:22 am on Saturday 04th 2006f February 2006, Babs blurted

    I do what I can, J.

    Mind, the weird student film thing would be sort of interesting.

    We could call it ‘Apostrophe Now’ and follow certain grammatically challenged-types about. There’d obviously be mention of Fake Bacon, too.

    And pirates, obviously, would be featured.

  16. Gravatar

    Comment ID: 6224

    At 2:23 am on Saturday 04th 2006f February 2006, Babs realised it was important that we all should understand

    All of which indicates I REALLY need a nap.

  17. Gravatar

    Comment ID: 6227

    At 9:32 pm on Saturday 04th 2006f February 2006, JIMI, M.A Hons declared

    er… I think the phrase “Apostrophe Now” was used in one of the Gone to Canada cartoon strips… Plagiarism will get you nowhwere…

  18. Gravatar

    Comment ID: 6228

    At 10:04 pm on Saturday 04th 2006f February 2006, Babs professed

    Dammit!! I plead the fifth.

    And, come to think of it, I’ll drink one, too.

  19. Gravatar

    Comment ID: 6232

    At 4:06 am on Monday 06th 2006f February 2006, D2 blurted

    You’re right Babs! Lets thurn this into a BLOG SOAP!!!. Pweaaaseee??? I promise, no farting and no pirating!

    Hmmmm, but which soap? Dynasty perhaps? Or Emerdale. Or what about Glenroe?

  20. Gravatar

    Comment ID: 6239

    At 2:31 pm on Monday 06th 2006f February 2006, Ivan professed

    Avoid food poisoning, drink absinthe after meals and kill any living organisims inside. Tell your friend to try absinthe.us.

  21. Gravatar

    Comment ID: 6400

    At 8:22 am on Thursday 09th 2006f February 2006, D2 testified

    If this comment does’nt post well I….. I …... Damn it! Anthony! Put more money in the internet web thingy!

  22. Gravatar

    Comment ID: 6401

    At 8:27 am on Thursday 09th 2006f February 2006, D2 proclaimed

    Ahem… So it does work…now. I’m sure I’m not the only one who experienced a recent failure in the comment thingy!

    I had lots of stuff to say the other day, but to go back on it would be like soooo yesterday! I was also gonna post some interesting cartoons just to entice out all of Anthony’s secret fanatical lurkers… but lets not go there!

  23. Gravatar

    Comment ID: 6405

    At 8:21 pm on Thursday 09th 2006f February 2006, daragh realised it was important that we all should understand

    Met larry in London the other day, rumour has it your back in Ireland now James, wanna meet up for Ireland v France this Sat?

  24. Gravatar

    Comment ID: 6408

    At 6:48 pm on Friday 10th 2006f February 2006, Anthony asserted

    I see that my call to de-lurk has had the unintended effect of decreasing the number and frequency of other comments. I don’t know how to feel about this. Why? Is it shame?

    Ivan, a group of us at work have ordered a bunch of Absinthe. Food poisoning begone!

    Dean, I only found one of your comments in the spam trap, which I’ve reinstated. Have other people been having problems?

    Hello, Fionn!

  25. Gravatar

    Comment ID: 6409

    At 1:19 am on Saturday 11th 2006f February 2006, Babs testified

    At least I have a legitimate excuse for my decrease in commentary.

    They’re all psychotic down here.

  26. Gravatar

    Comment ID: 6410

    At 8:01 am on Saturday 11th 2006f February 2006, JIMI, M.A Hons typed

    Back in Ireland, moi? Tell that to the passengers on the number 6 Robson bus route! They’d be quite amused to learn of the bilocation skills of their little Irish bus-driver…

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