Tanks, Bad; House, Good 30 August 1998

I seem to have some kind of bad service magnet at restaurants. Which is not very fair, I think. I mean, I tip well, I don't make a lot of noise, I hardly ever throw up on the table. What more do they want from a customer?

Today's example was when Marie and I went to brunch at Bitterroot - or "YuppieRoot" as a friend of mine calls it. It's a tres groove brunch place in the Mission, high tattoo saturation, as much cutlery in the flesh of the staff as on the tables - you know. I got the one item on their menu I genuinely like, potatoe pancakes (well, duh) with eggs and sausage patties. The pancakes showed up, fine. But oh gee - did we forget to bring you your eggs? I'm so sorry. Dweebs. It's not so much the you-mean-nothing-to-us-because-we-are-cool insult of it, as the thinking it provokes as to what the fuck kind of karmic debt am I working off here, and what that bodes for the future. I really do not need assistance in this area, thanks.

Marie showed me her new motorcycle, which was properly big and metal and shiny. And scary. I've been on motorcycles a grand total of three times, and my overwhelming impression has always been that anyone who rides these things on the freeway must be insane. I don't even much care for driving on city streets with steel all around me. Riding at 60 miles an hour? On the outside??? With the motor between your legs and the gas tank right in front of your crotch? Shudder. Why not just shoot me now and get it over with?

I know that in this town especially this lowers my rebel bad-ass stock, but it wouldn't be much use to pretend otherwise. Even if I tried to fake it, the continual screaming once we tried to go anywhere would give me away.

Speaking of cowardice, and aren't I always, finally saw Saving Private Ryan today. I think I'd heard a bit too much about it ahead of time, the impact wasn't nearly as strong as it seems to have been for other people I know who've seen it. But even with that, it was definitely a great film. Impossible to believe that this is the same guy who did Lost World. What I found myself thinking through so much of it is how much it explained the political attitudes of the generation who fought in that war. Or rather, why those attitudes were probably never really very political at all.

If I had had to go through one-tenth of the kind of crap that I saw the characters in the film endure, I wouldn't have had the slightest patience with civilian complaints. Or with suggestions that the ultimate result was something other than a better world. And to have come home after it, and think you're safe at last, and then to live the rest of your life under the fear that you were going to be blown up right there in your house... I find it hard to blame anyone for reacting irrationally to that.

Meanwhile, back on the home front, a lovely carefree evening followed at the bar, putting beer bloat on top of too much food and trying not to watch couples schmooze around me. It's that kind of warm friendly feeling that gets you right here. Or, right there. Eh. I'm just being pissy because the stupid modems are down again and I'm having to write this using the Internet equivalent of two cans and a string, and with a broken Escape key to boot. Hey, at least no one is shooting at me. I have a new appreciation for how restful that is.

Willfully blind self-indulgent nebbish or amusingly quirky old coot? And how bout that local sports team? Discuss among yourselves.

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All names are fake, most places are real, the author is definitely unreliable but it's all in good fun. Yep. © 1998-1999 Lighthouse for the Deaf. All rights reserved and stuff. The motto at the top of the page is a graffito I saw on Brunswick Street in Melbourne.