MY LIFE AS A COCKTAIL WAITRESS
I recommend life as a cocktail waitress as simply the best way to observe human nature. It just came to me as I watched the C-Span replay of the 28th Annual Emmy Awards and the lovely tribute to Ted Koppel, this year’s Lifetime Achievement Award Winner for 2007. As I watched the procession of tributes with the camera occasionally panning the crowd, it was impossible not to notice Dan Rather sitting there with barely contained rage, not for Ted or his award, I don’t think, but for what one can only guess is his most recently filed lawsuit against CBS, a feat that may well expose the seamy underbelly of our current authoritarian government’s assault on democracy and its eventual bleed into a news organization that was once the standard for all.
Holy, holy, up came the memories from the 1970’s-where in the world have they been all these years? Oh, right, I was consuming stuff, having babies, getting a career, avoiding dealing with the loss of my father, making a career out of sheer desperation, getting empowered (still in progress)-all that jazz.
So I am watching this and all of a sudden I go back to Athens, Georgia, where I attended The University of Georgia and where I began to grow. I didn’t necessarily WANT to be a cocktail waitress, but at the time it was the most expedient way for a female student to make money besides on her back or by marrying way too young (oops, same thing!). I had a lot of power as a waitress-I was in control of the room, with the exception of the bartender, Sully, who ranted gruff but was a Mallo Cup inside. It was such an unusual time.
As in any good bar we had a crowd of regulars, some of whom were the best people in the world and then there were-the others. Back to those guys later, but for now I’ll just say they were younger, ruder and drunker than any lifers. The classic bar fixture was Emmett, who came in at the same day every day, drank the same number of beers, tipped the same, smoked his brains out, looked at everyone and everything but never interacted with anyone in a meaningful way. He was a zero maintenance kind of guy and we were all quite fond of him, much like that comfy and shabby sofa that your mother gave you that can't be thrown away or it would hurt her feelings. There was a rumor that he may have had a wife, but I didn’t know for sure and dared not ask. He played a key part in my room scheme, serving as an anchor of relative tranquility compared to some of the others who came in and showed their worst behavior, and I think Emmett probably knew his place as the anchor in a sea of dysfunction.
“Happy Hour” in those days was a two-for-one special from five until seven in the evening. Regular price, two drinks in front of each customer, no short-shots allowed and because Sully poured a heavy two ounce shot what happened after 7:05 pm was always anyone’s guess. In today’s world of huge penalties for excessive consumption of alcohol it is amazing to look back and realize there was no penalty for drinking and driving, and in fact it was never even brought up that “perhaps so and so in the corner may need to be driven home.” It just never came up as a subject for discussion, and it is amazing that no one wrapped themselves around a telephone pole or died of alcohol poisoning or even more curiously, no one ever spoke of hangovers. After seven o’clock the tabs were cleared and usually the patrons thought, albeit only briefly, that they were not, in fact, drunk as dogs.
One of the nicest gentlemen I ever met was Reg Murphy, who at that time was Managing Editor of the Atlanta Constitution. For the longest time I had no idea who he was; all I knew was that he and the same small group came in regularly every two weeks after some at the University, had a polite couple of drinks and then left to go back to Atlanta, which at that time was accessed by back roads for those "in the know." He would always come in, tall and lean, his dark hair slicked back and with an extremely ironed white shirt and tie. A great tipper with nice manners; a fierce opponent of the war in Vietnam without long hair or blue jeans. He was just telling the story and telling it straight.
One night he didn’t show up as usual and of course I later found out he was in the middle of his two day sojourn in the hands of two bungling kidnappers. Mr. Murphy had been kidnapped by a moronic couple claiming to have an association with the Symbionese Liberation Army, that small group of self-proclaimed radical revolutionaries most famous for kidnapping Patty Hearst and making their eventual deaths in a blaze of police teargas and firearms one of the first times that the nation became transfixed by watching an event of that kind unfold in real time. As a brief aside, it is definitely worth it to take a Wiki look at the SLA story for the flavor of that time but even more interesting is Patty Hearst’s story; once you read about her it is easy to see that it has not been a stretch for her to become a John Waters darling, that master filmmaker of the bizarre who holds a John Wayne Gacy painting in his art collection.
It was no surprise that Reg negotiated his own release in exchange for $700,000 and got his own best story ever with neither the time nor need for a rewrite. A couple of weeks later he showed up and his routine began again as if nothing had ever happened. He had not contracted the Stockholm Syndrome; he was moving forward with only a brief respite here and there in the warm fuzzy cotton ball I called work.
After moving to Los Angeles in 1976 I wrote a letter to Reg Murphy to tell him how much I had appreciated him as a customer. He had moved by then to become editor of the San Francisco Examiner. Lo and behold, a few days later a letter arrived back; yes, he remembered me, appreciated my contacting him, wished me well in my travels and generally made me feel like I was just as important as he. The name of the restaurant was The Prime Time, and that was how we all felt when he popped in. What a nice guy.
TO BE CONTINUED
Sunday, September 30, 2007
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