Chain of Fools

An excerpt from my memoir "We Got a Bad Potato!"

I’m a huge fan of independent restaurants.  My experience at Il Fornaio and a brief stint at a SF joint called Palomino in the 1990s, left a bad taste in my mouth for chains.  Corporate interests, like Restaurants Unlimited, and the Compass Group measure their success in units of onion blossoms sold and they create these highly detailed employee handbooks that reduce the human element to zero, but the one “bad service” aspect they can’t seem to eliminate is the manager “servicing” the hostess in the office after hours.  When chains aren’t hiring, and promoting sexual predators, they’re busy filling their proverbial butt cracks with fucking morons.  Case in point, in 2008, when the economy took a shit, I got desperate, and even considered suicide, but ended up doing something worse: I applied at Roy’s house of Hawaiian Fusion.  They’re so authentic.  They have seafood from all the great fish cities, like Phoenix and Chicago, and serve radical artful haute-cuisine like “pineapple upside down cake”.  Anyway, they had this elaborate psychological profile exam—you know how this is gonna end, right?-- and yet, they can still hire no-nothing managers with superiority complexes, or the flip side, obsequious taint lickers whose only job is to placate one star reviewers on Yelp. 

And on top of that, you go to these chains and get Stepford service or shitty service anyway.  I fucking hate chains like Roys.

Back to the interview/exam.  So on the skills section; I had to check a box on wine knowledge.  I checked “expert”.  I was trained by Michael Bonnacorsi for fuck’s sake.  The manager, this frumpy she-male, looked and said, “Oh, I see you are an expert on wine.” Yes I replied.  She then asked me the usual bullshit questions, “What are the major grapes of Burgundy?”  I answered one or two, thinking all the while, “Why did I check anything?”  I mean, for fuck’s sake, their list is heavy on California Johannisberg Riesling!  Then she asked me about the noble grapes of Bordeaux and I answered, “There are four: cabernet sauvignon, merlot, malbec, and cabernet franc.” She pounced, “You forgot Petit Verdot”  I acknowledged my omission, with the same emotional intensity one might have if you omitted Timothy Dalton from the list of actors who have portrayed James Bond, but as the words flowed from my mouth, all I could imagine was her blood flowing out of a severed neck artery into the cheap ass wine glass conveniently embedded in her neck. 

I didn’t get the job. 

Speaking of not getting hired, one time I was hired then fired in one interview.  This prick GM who, himself, had been fired by Wolfgang Puck's CUT, was overseeing the opening of an upscale Italian joint in downtown LA.  It was the real deal, with a killer wine list.  We hit it off well and he hired me on the spot.  I was so excited—I needed the job bad—so I asked a few follow up questions about parking and the holidays—and he did something wholly unexpected.  He said, in that comical accent that makes people hate Italians, “You-a ask-a too many-a questions…” and he put a big question mark through my application.  I was fired!  Something rare happened.  I was knocked off the horse!  I couldn’t respond.  He shocked me into a speechless stupor.  We were in an empty conference room on the 31st floor of an unoccupied skyscraper in downtown LA.  Thoroughly beaten I skulked out of the ad-hoc office space.  It wasn’t until I was in the elevator going down that I wished that I could have thrown him to his death.  Really. 

I hope the pharmacy is still open.

My Latest Search for Housing in Fresno

The first ad I clicked on....I hit the jackpot.

$350 Room mate wanted to share Country Home (Woodlake Foot hills)

You gotta read to the end....

$350.00 Per Month Plus Utilities.

To Share Country Home with 2 Acres in the Foothills outside of Woodlake.  Plenty of space to park horse trailer.

Also have 80 Acres to ride horses on, in the pasture next to residence.Full house privileges, which includes access to Internet via Clear Wire, Washer, Dryer, Full Kitchen. House is located in a quiet area with a crime free environment.  

So far so good...

Especailly in todays World. Safety should be considered when finding a place to reside, and rest your head at night.

You would be sharing this residence with a former United States Army Veteran with a decade of military service in combat arms.

Veterans and Preppers are welcome.

Outside pets ok.  No indoor pets unless it is a trained attack dog. 

If intrested please send me your Phone Number and I will call you to set up an appointment/interview. All other inquires will be treated as spam.

Must be clean.

Female preferred, but all applicants welcome.

If you can cook, and clean, I can lower rent (see above).

Thank you for your time.

I love this ad! It's crime free but then he wants a prepper with an attack dog....

See LA the John Gailey Way

Artwork: Behnan Shabbir

                John Gailey was a legend.  He was a waiter’s waiter.  He had worked for Richard and Lynn for years.  He was a Gangly Mulatto Homo--his own description—which phonetically sounds like the Swahili word ganglimulatohomo, which roughly translates to “black man with dick in mouth.”  He stood 6’ 3” with size 13 feet and weighing in at 150 lbs soaking wet.  He was a total nut, and totally dishonest.  He would cheat his own Grandmother.   He was infamous.  He would train waiters and be vague about how many tables they had in their section, then steal those unattended tables. 

And he was cheap.  One time he was limping real bad.  “My foot is killing me. I bought these new shoes from a busboy at the Ivy by the Shore, whose brother got them when they fell off a truck.”  The bussers were famous for their “five finger discounts”

“One of them feels okay, but the other one is real tight.”  “Maybe they need to be broken in,” I said feigning concern. “Take them off and stretch them.” So he did and soon we heard him cursing to high heaven.  Apparently the busser’s brother had sold him 2 shoes. One size 13, the other, size 12.

Tom partied hard. He told this “I’m lucky to be alive!” story about being at a BBQ up in the Hollywood Hills, and being on a deck, tapping a keg, and he was laughing, and pumping the keg, and was chortling at someone else’s lame joke and went to lean on the deck rail, which would have been great if a rail existed.  And as he tumbled over backwards and fell into some gravel he realized that he was still holding the keg hose, and had managed to drag the keg to the edge of the deck. 

“I looked up and saw this keg of Coors Silver Bullet plummeting down at me, and I thought, ‘This kind of booze isn’t going to  kill John Gailey!’” He was right about that.  Another kind did the job later.

Photo: Batrachus

                Tom went to Las Vegas with me and some friends a few years later, and the highlight was him, as token gay man, threatening to drape is flaccid penis across the face of the first of us straight guys to pass out, and memorializing it with a polaroid photo.  I switched to club soda early that night.

I hadn’t seen John in weeks, and if you didn’t see someone for  awhile, but their name still appeared on the schedule, this meant they were either suspended, fired, or worse: scheduled to work at The Ivy at the Shore (aka Siberia by the Shore).  The Shore is to The Ivy as Khloe Kardashian is to Kim. 

The ugly sister who might still put out, but not like her ho-bag sister.  We were guaranteed to make money turning tricks at The Ivy.  The Shore was often just one big party of Europeans waiting to shove a five percent dildo up your keister. 

Turns out he was sick.  In a normal restaurant world employees are kept informed about other employees illnesses, or family tragedies.  Obviously privacy is paramount, but restaurants are a tribal system, and if someone is suffering, others help out.  I heard the Latinos would actually pool their tips and give them to their uninsured co-worker friends.  The Ivy wouldn’t allow us to post any non-Ivy notices on the bulletin board.  Our focus was always to be on “our important guests” and their needs.

John was not fired, suspended, or working at the Shore.  He was very sick.  And soon he was hospitalized.  In the end he was in a hospice wing at Cedars Sinai, which was just around the corner from The Ivy.  I went to visit him after the lunch shift.  Strangely, Roberston Blvd. was quiet that day.  I recall seeing a few open parking spaces.  I walked passed Chaya Brasserie, and entered the hospital.  I noted that I hadn’t stepped foot in Cedars since my own nervous breakdown in 2000.  I took the elevator up to ICU.  He was all alone in his own private room.  He would have been happy to make the list.  I entered, and waited for that vaguely warm yet dismissive greeting he was so famous for, “Hello, Stupido!”  coupled with his usual crazed, Jerry Lewis smile.  Instead I saw his eyes wide open, and unblinking.  He had a breathing tube, and his gangly legs poked out of his gown revealing his big feet.  Now I understood why he was in such pain that day when the busser sold him mismatched shoes.  I held his hand, and told him about my day.  I told him about the waiters, about Brenda crying about how she was being seated, and Marc cheating the busboy, and who got suspended this week, and the paparazzi being desperate for any kind of picture and having to settle for David Hasselhoff.  The whole time he just clutched my hand, despairing, unblinking, as if he was afraid that if he closed them for a second too long they would never open again.  I cried for John.  I wept like a soldier weeps for a fallen comrade.  We were waiters.  We were veterans.  I had served at Spago.  He had served at Wolfgang Puck’s Granita in Malibu.  I was sober.  He was dying.  I was glad I showed up for my “frienemy” John.  Soon, I said my final goodbye. I looked back, hoping that maybe he would say, “Adios Stupido!”.  He was staring at me, unblinking.  The next morning he died.  It was his final checkout.  I hope he kept all the tips.