IN DEEP DEWEY

Before the take-out place incident, however, K. and I visited a certain library-themed hotel located in midtown. First we went to the “Library Garden Bar,” which was on the roof. Fittingly, the “Library Garden Bar” featured neither books nor a garden of any sort. We expressed our dissatisfaction to a man wearing a blue apron. Back in the lobby, he had welcomed us, and led us to the elevator.

Now he explained why the hotel had a reputation for being library-themed. Many of the rooms, if not all of them, had interior designs based on categories of the Dewey Decimal System. The man in the blue apron advised us to venture to the second floor, where we would learn more about the hotel. He also promised that we would find a lounge which might satisfy our desire for something more academic.

K. and I got off on the second floor. We took a right, which led to a lounge that had some unspectacular shelves stocked with unspectacular books. They were out of alphabetical order, and seemed to have been arranged in a mish-mash of genres. But the seats in the lounge were plush and comfy, so K. and I sat down and relaxed.

Now of course, we weren’t supposed to be in this room. The lounge was reserved for hotel guests, people of greater means, who had actually paid money to stay there. The few guests in the lounge didn’t question whether K. and I belonged. Either they were too engrossed in their reading, or had too much faith in the man with the blue apron, and his ability to keep outsiders away. So we helped ourselves to the free crackers, cheeses, and nuts. K. later told me that, had she been feeling more audacious, she might have uncorked a bottle of the champagne. Instead, we just enjoyed the ambience. We got our fill of the free cashews.

There was a tense moment, however, when I was plucking those good cashews. Although the snack table sat unmonitored, waiters and hotel employees would venture by (Perhaps to gather snacks for paying guests at other parts of the hotel?). One of them studied me intensely, as if wondering, “Have I seen this person wandering the halls before?” Luckily, I was wearing a clean polo shirt and slacks, not my usual garb of T-shirts and blue jeans. I gave the waiter a haughty look, as if to put him in his place. Amazingly, it worked. He left the lounge; K. and I followed his lead soon after.

Before taking the elevator back down, however, we studied a large chart on the wall of an adjacent hallway. It had icons for each room, with their respective themes under each room number. Apparently, the hotel had a Philosophy Room, and an Astronomy Room. There was a Journalism Room, an Archaeology Room, and an Engineering Room. Couples could request the Romance Room. Brave souls could venture into the Occult Room for a night. K. and I weren’t feeling brave enough to find out the daily rates for any of the hotel’s many rooms. Also, we felt hungry. I, for one, was only interested in mushrooms at that point.


THE NEW VOICE OF FOLK/PUNK

Click on the following link, octopuses.multiply.com/music/item/1, to download the new Halifax Slasher album, "The Donner Party Dinner Party." Then make peace with your God.

JERKING AGAIN

Unfortunately, a title like that will probably keep most people from reading this post. That would be a shame, depriving the public of an opportunity to hear about my latest bout of questionable behavior.

Actually, I did good this time. Instead of just exploding into a ball of rage, I resorted to smart-asshood. Funny, but I remember a time when I’d go into my arsenal of smarmy remarks quite regularly, like a veteran seven-footer in the post. Seems I’ve become too much like Shaq lately. I’ve been relying almost exclusively on dunks, that is, getting belligerant in the faces of people I don’t like. While that kind of behavior is probably more exciting than using my brain against people (and probably looks more kinetic on instant replay, too), it quickly becomes monotonous. Also, it could lead to double-teaming, which I might not be able to handle.

Before I get too bogged down in basketball talk (Although answering people sarcastically is a lot like running the triangle offense), let me paint the scenario: Last night, K. and I got back late from Manhattan. Rather than cook something for dinner, we opted for the chinese restaurant near her place. It was about half-past nine. In Brooklyn, the only food available at that hour is American fast food or ethnic fast food. Luckily, the menu hanging from the bulletproof glass in the take-out joint looked fairly decent.

Here’s what wasn’t decent: The kitchen worker (who also took your money and handed you your food through an elaborate series of panes) was trying to get a customer’s order ready. Said customer, however, behaved rudely. He kept barking commands like, “Cut the chicken! Cut it! Cut it!” The kitchen worker didn’t appear to fully grasp the directions, so the man who supposed himself to be the lord and master got more and more incensed.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I believe that if you go to a restaurant, be it Don Shula’s Steakhouse of Kentucky Fried Chicken, you’re entitled to get your food the way you want it. This dude, however, took his rights too far. The man in the kitchen was doing the best he could. He simply didn’t understand that the customer wanted his chicken wings cut in half. Does a mild bout of confusion give someone else the right to start being rude? No, it does not. Still, here was the asshole customer, bullying a minimum wage-level employee around like his own personal slave. “More napkins! Gimme more napkins! Not that sauce! I don’t want that sauce! Gimme the other sauce!”

A sidebar: Who the hell cuts chicken wings in half anyway? A box of chicken wings cut in half ain’t gonna fool anybody into thinking he splurged on extra chicken wings. It’s gonna look like chicken wings chopped up by somebody who thought the arm and shoulder connected at a different point. It’s pretty pathetic, actually.

I mean, did this guy actually plan to serve chicken wings cut in half to someone? Did he expect that person to be fooled? “Oh boy, eight chicken wings instead of four! And each wing is half the size of a normal chicken wing. Isn’t that funny? I must be eating wings from chickens who weren’t able to jump very high.”

But I’m forgetting the best part. At one point, this surly customer, noticing the bit of a language barrier between himself and the kitchen help, turned to me and said, “Hey, talk to that man, will you?” I don’t know what insulted me worse, that he assumed the cook and I spoke the same language, because we were both Asian, or that he assumed I gave a damn about his food-ordering problem. However, I remained cool. I presented him with a confused look, then said, “Why are you asking me?”

In effect, I was daring him to make some ignorant remark about all Asians being alike. But he didn’t take the bait. Actually, he seemed very confused at first. Gradually, I thought I recognized a brief glimmer of intelligence peeking through the cloudiness of his brain, as if it had dawned on him, with the sudden impact and subsequent illumination of a lightning bolt, that the Asian race might be composed of many smaller sub-groups, who communicate using different languages…

Then he seemed confused again. “Oh, uh, I just thought…” He was mostly quiet until he got his food, possibly embarrassed. But after he left, I started speaking Cantonese with the kitchen guy. His name’s Hing, his family opened the take-out joint six months ago, and a plate of four chicken wings and fries is only $2.99 on Thursdays.

BIRTHDAY BASH, BIRTHDAY BLUES

If you’ve been paying any attention to this blog over the last few months, you’ve probably noticed that there hasn’t been much to pay attention to. Normally, I use this page as an outlet for my emotional extremes, such as angst, joy, and hatred. But ever since I got back from California, I’ve been drained. When I haven’t been scrounging for work, hanging with my girlfriend K., or travelling somewhere in preparation for grad school, my free time has been spent writing movie reviews for my other site, reellifeallaboutmymovies.blogspot.com (Now featuring reviews of Amarcord, and City of Women). Please don’t think I’ve abandoned “When Blogs Attack!” completely. But it’s tough changing gears from semi-serious movie reviewing to what I usually do for this blog, which is, well, being a jerk.

Humor, humor… Where did I leave that sense of humor…? Okay, over the past weekend, I went over to K.’s place, and we watched “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.” For those who have never heard of it, “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” stars Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly, a Manhattan-based bohemian who may be a free spirit, a fake, or something. The movie also stars the late George Peppard as aspiring writer Paul. He gets to participate in that classic scene where he tells Holly he’s in love with her, she replies “So what?” and he answers, “So what? So plenty!”

Anyway, George Peppard also starred in that violent 80’s television show, “The A-Team.” What a career he had! I mean, who else can claim to have acted across from both Audrey Hepburn and Mr. T? Then I started to imagine Mr. T performing some of Audrey Hepburn’s famous roles. Can you picture him, all 250 pounds of muscle, gold chains, and mohawk, reciting, “I want to live someplace that makes me feel just like Tiffany’s.” How about the other way around? Imagine frail, regal Audrey Hepburn, turning up her birdlike features and saying, “I pity the fool who does drugs.” Or better yet, “Hannibal, I ain’t gettin’ on that plane!”

Ah, that’s a good start. Now that the first joke’s out of the way, let me write about the previous weekend. It was my birthday. K. got me the bestest present ever: hankerchiefs! They came in a wide variety of vibrant colors and materials. I won’t describe them all (Lest this post ends up being a grand re-opening, grand closing for my blog), suffice to say, the best had my name/initials stitched into the corner, and the absolute best featured a blue sky pattern with white clouds, and lyrics to “I Love New York in June” written across with acrylic pen.

K. also got me a light pen, for when I’m watching a movie in the theater, and want to take notes. Finally, when we got back to the family compound in Sheepshead Bay, she made me a carrot cake. Not some wussy, Betty Crocker, pre-packaged carrot cake, either. A cake from scratch, recipe taken from The Dessert Bible! K. will probably tell you that we split the labor between us fifty-fifty, but I think that’s generous. I merely mixed dry ingredients, while she did all the tough stuff.

After enjoying the moist, dense, cream cheese-frosted carrot cake, we heard explosions in the distance. Glancing out the nearby window, we saw fireworks bursting in mid-air from the direction of Coney Island. Since my birthday falls somewhat adjacent to that of our great country, fireworks were hardly a surprise. Still, to see them so close… We climbed up to the roof of the house, K. set a towel over the warm tar, and we enjoyed the free incendiaries. Man, were we exhausted by the end of the evening. Thank goodness birthdays only come once a year…

So K.’s birthday happens to be the day right after mine. Despite some slight birthday hangover, we managed to have the best time possible. We took the subway down to Coney Island (A mere ten minutes on the Q train) to watch the annual Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest. The actual race was neck-and-exploding-neck up until the closing minutes, when reigning champion Kobayashi ate himself a comfortable margin. Forty-nine hot dogs in twelve minutes easily outpaced the closest challenger, a petite woman who only managed to scarf down a scant thirty-seven. All in all, the event was a lot of fun. I managed to get an unhealthy-looking tan, even after applying a generous layer of sunblock. But the best part of the hot dog eating contest had to be the unbridled enthusiasm of the emcee, who ascended above the crowds in what looked like a cherry-picker with a Nathan’s tablecloth draped over it.

Eminem’s “Lose Yourself” blaring in the background, he hyped the impending event with such non-sequiters as, “Here, in America, even when we are standing still, we are moving forward into history!” He also referred to Kobayashi and his three closest combatants as, “The Four Horsemen of the Esophagus.”

Once evening came, we went to a restaurant opening hosted by a friend of K.’s co-worker. We ate very well, and even did some slow dancing. At the end of the night, K. told me it had been a great birthday. I was glad. I know that gift-wise, I had not come close to equaling her in thoughtfulness and creativity. Hopefully, she recognized that I made a sincere effort, which outweighs the questionable results. And I’m sure she knows that what I lack in brain, I sometimes make up for in heart. For example, if she were to fall ill with, oh, let’s say, a stomach virus, no question I’d take good care of her.

Again, thank God birthdays only come once a year…

A RAGE-A-THON REDUX

I decided to take down an older post, in which I badmouthed where I used to work, Dahan & Nowick, LLP. It seemed too mean-spirited. Also, I spent way too much time making fun of my ex-manager’s facial clenches/tics (Although, jeez, any more and she’d need a flea collar).

For a while there, I was determined to put an ugly chapter of my life behind me. Luckily, I stumbled upon an old e-mail I sent K., the evening after I had been relieved of my job. I think it conveys my outrage better, and in a rawer way. The luxury of ironic distance hadn’t been available yet. Anyway, I thought I’d reprint it.


“Hey, honey-mammal. How was the ballet?

Today was an awfully interesting day. I got into a verbal argument with Crazy Office Manager, aka Deb. It started because Yolanda, one of the secretaries, had to call in sick. This meant that Brenda, the other secretary, had to pick up some of the slack, office work-wise, and I had to cover the front desk all day. This delayed me from being able to run down to the bank to make a deposit for Deb.

In Deb’s opinion, Robert, our temp from Monday through Thursday, shouldn’t have been sent home, even though he refused to work in the mailroom. Robert, when last we saw him, had invoked his job description, which said he was only to answer phones. So what if this forced me to stay in the mailroom all day, and actually created more work since I had to wait until Robert went home to enter lawyers’ time into the database?

So what if Deb failed to give an appropriate job description to the temp agency in the first place, in effect creating this mess? What’s important is, Robert was good on phones, while Antoine (his
replacement) was not. And it was my fault, for being so selfish, and putting my own needs ahead of the firm’s, that I was the only one who could answer phones today, and could not make the Friday deposit when requested.

Putting aside the fact that Deb implicitly told me last Tuesday, when I first mentioned that Robert was hesitant to do mailroom chores, to take a hard line stance, and tell him, “Either you do this, or we’ll find someone who does.” Putting aside the fact that Deb told me from the very beginning that mailroom and front desk had to be split between office workers 50/50, and that included temps. But to call me selfish! I helpfully reminded Deb that selfish people don’t put up with the unpredictable mood swings of their fellow employees and/or bosses. I helpfully reminded her that selfish people don’t continue working diligently for less money than they were promised…

That’s when the issue of my hourly wage came up. I helpfully reminded Deb that I was initially promised $14.25 an hour, and didn’t find out until two weeks into the job that I would only be paid $14. Sure, it’s only twenty-five cents less an hour, but if you were to add up all those extra quarters since I started working at the firm, you’d have over thirty dollars after taxes. That’s a new pair of sneakers, a week-and-a-half of Metrocard use, more than half my cell phone bill. Not exactly chump change.

Deb was shocked that the wage issue still stung me. “Really, Phil,” she said, “I think we’ve been more than fair to you as far as money goes. Sure, you only make fourteen an hour, but the overtime we give you more than makes up for it.”

“Wait, let me be clear on this,” I replied. “You cut my salary, but you made up for it by letting me work longer hours?” By now, my trademark sarcasm was starting to reassert itself. “How can you possibly make that argument, Deb? First of all, I get overtime hours because the firm tells me to work from 9 am to 5:45 pm. If I could just work from 9:45 to 5:45, I would. But if I told that to Mr. Nowick, I’m certain I would no longer have a job.

“Secondly, I get time-and-a-half for every hour I work past forty each week, not because the firm is generous, but because that’s THE LAW. Any extra money I make, I earn. If I made $14.25 an hour, and worked forty-three hours a week, I would still expect time-and-a-half for every hour past forty. Again, because that’s THE LAW.

“You can’t argue that my working an extra hour every day makes up for the fact that the firm is stiffing me twenty-five cents an hour. I still have to work for that extra hour of pay. What I’m talking about is the base compensation I was promised for every hour I agreed to work. Simply put, you told me one number, then you changed it to a lesser one.”

At my most audacious, I accused her of misrepresentation. Deb became so hyper-defensive it was actually scary. “I made a simple mistake when I told you $14.25,” she said. “I was thinking in my head, ‘Matt makes $14, Zoe makes $13.25.’ I got the figures mixed up. How dare you accuse me, and this firm, of misrepresentation.”

The arguing went on and on. We tried coming up with solutions. Strangely enough, the idea of compensating me for money I was promised, and wasn’t paid, came up only briefly, before being dropped like a hot potato. Ultimately, I said that the situation was probably unreconcilable, that the damage to my relationship with the firm was done the moment I got my first pay stub.

Alas, who knows how unreconcilable the situation really was? If I made any miscalculation in my arguments today, it was admitting to Deb that I was actively thinking about quitting, and looking for a new job elsewhere. A short time before the end of the day, Deb called me and told me that she had found a replacement for me, that I didn’t have to come back on Monday. I probably should have seen that coming. After all, on my first day at the firm, I was introduced to the person I had been hired to replace… about thirty seconds before she was fired. So it goes.

Anyway, like I said earlier, how was the ballet?

Phil”

-God, what a bitch my ex-manager was. Hopefully, she'll be dead before I am.