After 2 weeks of living here, I continue to feel more and more like myself. Not in vacation mode, not in adjusting mode, just in being. With each phase comes new spending patterns. The first week, I noticed I was spending too much just adjusting. The second week, I went in vacation mode as I had a visitor. Then went to spend-none mode. Now back to just normal spending.
So I went out last night. Walked around, found a bar that proposed music later, and, not thinking I'd even be around for the music, went in.
The bar was pretty empty, so I found a spot at the bar and opened one of my new books.
After thoroughly digesting the one-page forward and imbibing a 10% Imperial Porter, I was finding myself listening more to the ambient conversations than focusing on the book.
One group of guys, long-time friends, some in from out of town—for the Google IO convention?—were talking about tech stuff that I know some things about, while the bartender and her sound guy were desperately trying to find a door man for the show.
I finished a second beer and, as she asked me if I wanted another, I asked if they needed a door guy.
In most other cities, in most situations, bars don't trust dudes who just happen to be hanging out with $100 in change and potentially 3x that by the end of the night.
But in this situation, they did. Without even so much as a "What's your last name?" or "Can you leave your id with us so you don't just run off with the money."
Not that I would have, and maybe she sensed that, but I've been noticing, as a quasi-drifter—staying at an SRO!—how easy it would be to be a con-man. These people don't know me, and I have a trustworthy face and demeanor. But maybe it's my being trustworthy that has built that demeanor—and face.
So next thing I know, I'm at the door with a hundred bucks asking people for "7 to 10 dollars, sliding scale."
This bar has shows most nights but only charges a cover on some. This was one of those. So a lot of people either didn't expect a cover or didn't know what it was.
I found that the easiest thing was to ask for IDs, because that's pretty normal, and then while they were fumbling say: "There's a cover tonight for the bands." That last part—"for the bands"—was the important part, making me feel more justified in asking for money.
It's all about working with people's expectations.
Some would come in and ask how much; those were easy. Some would come in like they were on a bar crawl. There were, in fact, people on a bar crawl. 3 people came in, learned about the cover and were disappointed. Tried to haggle. I offered 10 for the 3 of them—they weren't here for the music—and the girl said that there were 15 of them coming. I looked around the bar, pretty full with an already-slammed bartender, and said "Then I don't think this is the right bar for you."
Was that too blunt? It was true. For them, for the bar, for me.
So then 15 people walked by the door looking either disappointed or angry.
The funniest thing I saw, besides the passed out cokehead getting carried out by his friends (which wasn't so much funny as unsettling), was out the door. From my position, the door was framing whatever happened out on the street like a mini-proscenium. But most of the action was happening offstage, leaving me to infer from what I could hear—and the little I could see—what was going on.
I saw a plastic cup go skidding by—blown by wind?—and then seconds later, this mid-40s guy in one of the bands comes jumping across my view and stomps on it like he had a score to settle.
Really, the funniest thing to me was the very fact that I was where I was.
The cokehead thing wasn't that funny. Just a white dude in his late 20s, early 30s who was kind of skeezy the whole night. But skeezy in a fun, party way. He was with friends and was "friends with the band" so wasn't just some bum off the street.
At some point, 4 of his friends hurriedly carried his dead-to-the-world body out the door, lying him on the sidewalk. I thought maybe it was epilepsy or something equally strange and scary.
I didn't even recognize him at the time because he wasn't wearing his sunglasses, which he'd been wearing the whole time—in the "darkest bar I've ever been in."
Don't know exactly what happened, but I think he'll make it. And will maybe learn his lesson.
Then the last band ended—who were actually pretty good—and I forked over the money to the bartender. Not sure how much it ended up being, but at least one person—this elvish looking blonde waif—paid with a hundo and there were plenty of other 20s left after I got my cut.
It's a little sad, if you think about it, this random guy—me—gets 60 bucks for the night, while the musicians who put forth much more effort probably got a fraction of that apiece.
Such is life. And now back to my real job.
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