If You’re A Creeper And You know It, Click on Search

                I’d rather not say I’m an internet creeper, but we all know that’s not true. I’m as much of a creep as you are, and don’t pretend you’re not. The whole world is one big community of creepers and internet looky-loos. I’m not sure how comfortable I am with this, but like you I can’t stop. I want to know what you look like before I meet you, before I trust you, before I have any face-to-face interaction whatsoever. Why? Because I can, and because it is so damn easy.

                Here are some of my creepy activities. I will google you if you make a reservation at my restaurant. Not all of you... just those of you who look filthy rich, who are total and complete jerkfaceasses, and those of you who look interesting. Sometimes I find out that you’re not just a jerkfaceass in my restaurant, but you’re also one of the top white collar crime attorneys with very good friends who have very low ethical standards. Does that change how I treat you, your service, or your meal? Sadly, no. Nothing will happen to you or your food. My smile and well-wishing comments as you depart will not be altered in any way. When you leave, though, you may be the topic of snide conversation, or the subject of a blog post. Neither of which matters to you. That’s ok. The thing about me is, though, it matters to me. I find satisfaction knowing that when you leave the room we know who you are, or at least who you are as a public figure. They may not be the same, but they probably have an influence on one another. When I leave a room I try (and I emphasize try because I know it doesn't always work out this way) to live in such a way that, either I have done nothing worthy of discussion, or if I have I hope it is positive…or neutral. I know I cannot always accomplish this, but it is at least a goal I feel is worth striving for.

                I will also FB stalk you if possible. This is ok if you have your privacy level set accordingly. Trust me, I’m not going to work that hard. But I will say that I have already FB stalked all my students for the upcoming semester. They all seem lovely…and are really good about privacy settings. But the most recent creep machine I have discovered is the public online PA court docket database. This has made me feel the creepiest and slimiest. Did I search the names of my roommates? Yep. Do I feel a little weird about it? Yep. Do I feel more comfortable that none of them have committed any recorded criminal offenses? Definitely.  Did either of them murder their last roommate and bury them in cement at a new construction site after cutting them up into tiny indiscernible pieces? Shit…

                Anyway…The face of how we interact has changed and will continue to do so. Although, I’m not completely convinced that we can only be immersed in technology and have our lives, vehicles, and photos constantly tracked via GPS before many of us turn away and finally shoot out the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg*. There may come a time when people decide it’s enough. They want privacy for privacy’s sake. I will admit (obviously) that I’m an internet creeper. Does it make me feel weird that so-and-so from elementary school randomly remembered my name and might be googling me as I type this? Hell yes.  Stop it. Do not google me. Go google yourself. In fact, it is a healthy normal practice to google yourself. Children google themselves, adolescents, and adults too. In fact, self-googling increases with adolescence. You and your partner could even practice mutual-googling as a fun and alternative activity to your usual…ok, that’s enough.

                The less I’m googled by others the better. But the less there is of me out there to be googled the less I need to worry about it. But, alas, I am a prolific photo uploader and fb-sharer. It is almost compulsive. Why do we do this? Is there a need to feel connected to others while sitting in our underwear at the dining room table typing blog posts while no one is home? No, that’s probably not it. I am worried about kids who know nothing other than a life on the web. Babies are born every day whose face will never not be broadcast over the web. They will literally grow-up in front of everyone. Now, we know that adults rarely make good decisions regarding what they put on the internet whether it is in the form of photos or comments or status updates. Just thinking about it has me yelling at my ovaries already, grounding each and every one of my potential children. I may just slip away from the internet and a public persona entirely…wait, did you see the picture of Clank I just put up??

Shit…

*Who??? Google it.

A Post Post About the Boss Boss

                This post has been a long time coming. Not because I haven’t posted for a while, which I haven’t, but because I’ve slowly been formulating this idea in my brain for quite some time. Actually, what I was formulating was a massive book on the subject. I was figuring out the title of the book, the book jacket, what I would wear when I was interviewed by Jon Stewart after my book sold a flagillion copies…ya know, preliminary brainstorming. But now I have come to my senses, kinda-sorta, and decided to just blog about it. Maybe a few blogs because one posting could never be enough to encompass all that is…dunDunDUN (and believe me, I’d really rather not say this) MY BOSS!

                Ok, so now if you know what I’m talking about you have either groaned instinctively, laughed out loud (for real, not that acronym bullshit), or done the voice (“Eh, what this? Blog? Is that like a sexual things?”) And if you don’t know to what or to whom I’m referring don't worry. I’m about to help you.

                I work at a great restaurant with great people. The management staff is, and has been, very supportive. I mean that not in a swooping in and taking an order disrupting your entire flow kind of way, but as in they cared about my progress in grad school, and would ask about my life with a genuine twinkle of interest in their eyes. The food is also damn good. Anyway, with all pleasantries aside, and with all due respect, my boss is a 66 year old Italian man who is good at what he does and has been around the block. He knows that he knows what he’s talking about, and he knows what he wants and how he wants it. The problem is the rest of us do not.

                I will give you a brief example. Your name is, oh I don’t know, let’s say, Jim. Your name is Jim. You are the first person to arrive for the dinner shift. You are virtually alone in the restaurant with with Boss. You hear him calling Stephanie. You don’t know Stephanie. Maybe she’s new. Maybe he’s on the phone.  Oh, no…wait, he’s looking directly at you wondering why you’re not responding. Finally, you give in. Your name is Stephanie, Jim. Or Todd, or Edith, or Bort. Any of these could be your name. Any name, any name at all, could be your name. And while we are on the subject of names I will give you a very brief Boss to English dictionary: Flashlight = a lighter, a lighter = torch, pruning shears = pliers, sputnik = fountain birthday candle, and “Eh, da thing dere” = whatever he is pointing to or is closest to you. When you say, "Hello." He may respond with, "What happen?!"

                He frequently doles out advice along with directions for the day/evening. He will chide you with, “Don’t tell your father how to make children” or reprimand you for conversing when you should be working by saying, “You can talk to da girls when you see da chicken take a leak.” He reminds you that he is calm and ready to take on the night (and you should be too) by saying, “I am the tiger of the forest. I no scare of lion. I no scare of bear. I no scare of little bird that come to pee on my head.” He means not to worry if 400 people all walk through the door and demand to be seated. You should only worry if zero walk through the door, because "You cannot make a customer. Only God can do that. But you can always make a table." Good thing God has a carpenter in the family because I'm gonna need more tables if he doesn't quit making customers at 7 o'clock on Saturday night. But the best piece of advice that he gives, regularly and as often as he can, is the good ol’ appropriate in all situations standby of, “No push push in the bush bush.” Figure it out for yourself. It's a literal statement.

               
       All that aside for now because there’s more, oh, so much more… I wanted to show you my interpretation of one of Boss’s directives. It is as follows:

  The complete and detailed instructions. "Play with this paper, please." That is it. Do not try to over think it, like maybe there was an arrow, or maybe it was taped to something else that, within the context clues, made sense. Nope. That is it.

So...we started off with something easy.

 But then I thought we should aim a little higher, play a little harder. This paper was good for more than just a simple airplane...

                                                              A Boat.

(I wanted to say "A goose" Jim Carrey style but that was too hard to make in the
short window of time I had to do this while
still looking up to say, "Have a good night! Thank you!.")

 But then I realized who we were dealing with. He expected more from me, I was sure of it. What could he have meant?!?! He always says, "There are two things most important of all: God, work, food...and sometimes drink." So out of those two things he so deftly counted there was only one thing I could really do. Since number one is God and he's got the toughest job of all, which is making customers, and I can't do that, the next best thing was number two. Work. If only God can make a customer what can I make that would benefit the work the restaurant is doing while still following his directions??

 I MADE A TABLE!!!!

                                                           Task owned. 

The boss is pleased.

Sex You Can Touch

                There’s a thin line between a classy joint and contracting Gonoherpasyphilaids* from a fork. Classy joints and seedy establishments may be difficult to differentiate, but I have a surefire way to put your pure (or perverted) mind at ease. The difference is in touchable vs. untouchable sex. Makes sense, right? Well, that’s what I thought too. Here is what sparked my penetrating thoughts on sex you can touch and sex you cannot.

                In the August 2011 issue of Philadelphia Magazine** Patrick Kerkstra writes in, “Atlantic City's Last, Last, Last, Last, Last, Last Chance”:*** 

The whole scene is a collection of pawnshops, low-rent sex stores, bail bondsmen, abandoned buildings and vacant land, broken up by an occasional local restaurant or retailer. And everywhere there are people like Jimmy—on the hustle—who  make their beds in run-down boardinghouses or under the Boardwalk.

Kerkstra is commenting on the stark and sudden contrast of AC’s residential area to its resort area. He mentions that while strolling by the construction site of a new casino a SWAT cop told him he needed to get out of there unless he wanted to be hit by a stray bullet. His article discusses the various ways that AC fell from great heights, and ways it is possible to return to those heights. What I thought was interesting was that both the fall and climb had something in common. He writes:

The city needs more entertainment, more dining, more beach- and Boardwalk-centered-activities, and more sex appeal.

                Really? More sex appeal? But didn’t he just say that the residential section needed to be cleaned out of low-rent sex stores and whatever seedy business goes along with it? Interesting, I thought, AC needs less of one sex and more of another. The article continues:            

 Farther up the Boardwalk at Resorts, new owner Dennis Gomes is experimenting like crazy. He’s spliced a Boardwalk Empire retro theme (the waitresses are in skimpy flapper dresses; the dealers don green eyeshades) with explicitly sexual offerings such as a nighttime naked circus. Seriously…. ‘We have to be more like Las Vegas and do these kinds of new things,’ he says. ‘It’s not that you’re selling sex. You’re selling sexuality, and sensuality. It’s one of the ways we can be different from the convenience gambling venues.’

                I don’t see much of a difference other than location, monetary investment, and touch potential. Would I like to see a naked circus? Is that even a real question? Selling sex is selling sex. You can call it selling sensuality, but that’s like the difference between eating at a diner or a five star, either way you’re putting it in your mouth. Whether or not cleaning up the residential district by getting rid of sex shops just to dress them up and transplant them into the casino is a contradiction in morality or judgment isn’t really my issue (or maybe it is). My thoughts are concerned with the illusion of sex and the number of sequins it takes to produce that illusion. Classy people apparently want the illusion, but they don’t want to touch it, or if they do want to touch it they want it to cost a lot of money, and be able to take it back to their high rolling suite with room service so they can stay in while still eating out. Seedy people want the same thing, but they pay less and don’t need a casino or an audience.

                I don’t know the answer for AC nor do I care to figure it out. I do care that my drinks remain free while I poke at glowing screens hoping I don’t go over 21. I like AC. I would love for AC to flourish. All of AC. AC officials and administrators should concern themselves with all four miles of their little-big city and not just the miles attached to the boardwalk. If the residential community improves so will the resort community. Plus, you should just take care of your own. Your residential community lives AND works in the resort. Instead of hiding them lift them up so there’s nothing to hide.

                In the meantime I’m sure AC will be more concerned with their resort “To Do” list which includes untouchable sex, at least for now. Get rid of the sex in the city, slap a flapper dress on it, teach it to do cartwheels, and you’ve hit the sensuality jackpot. But there is really no difference in the sex they condemn and the sex they condone. So there are no actual sex shops in the casinos, yet, but just because it’s not hanging on a retail shelf doesn’t mean it’s not there.

*There is no evidence to support the claim that this STD even exists let alone its fork to mouth contractibility. Also, I do not take any responsibility for Gonoherpasyphilaids. Apparently, you can get it from NOFX.

** http://www.phillymag.com/issues/in_this_issue.html

*** http://www.phillymag.com/articles/atlantic_city_s_last_last_last_last_last_last_chance/