Lot the Bar Manager

Hello, dear friends.
I’ve missed you.
Sorry for the absence: I’ve been on the hustle trying to pay for this idiotic and ill-advised condo purchase.
But… I’m much better now. Weighing the options, a “short sell” (whatever that even means) looks like the most realistic and lesser of the “Eternal Financial Devastation” categories. You homeowners know what I’m talking about – if you don’t know what I’m talking about, you were probably smart enough to not do what I did: Buy a place to live. Silly me.
Anyhow, part of the most recent massive shift in identity for yours truly has been time and the lack thereof in my previous rut.
Put shortly, I’ve been working too much at a job I hated.
My epiphany: If the role you play at your job ever makes you feel like this man:

Then you should quit doing that job immediately and just trust that God knows stuff – because you will go from feeling like good ol’ Tom Hagen one day to… Lot.
With the doors latched.
And all the lights on.
Curled up in the fetal position in a pool of your own tears.
Your “Hottest Club in the O.C.!” will just be, “A bar job in Downtown Sodom, across from the airport.”
That was me: Lot the Bar Manager.
I would describe that life as “a progressive dismantling of one’s dignity.”
Turns out, people really do think they’re the Godfather - even when they just own a club in Irvine that can’t pay its bills. But that’s another story…
Back to how it happens. How one becomes Lot the Bar Manager.

You start off getting into the restaurant biz because it’s flexible job field allows you other pursuits while still being able to pay rent. (Like… Rock n’ Roll)
You wait some tables, you meet some people. You learn that Ranch dressing (or the lack thereof) can turn people into monsters.
You notice the bartenders make the most money in the shortest amount of time, which would allow you other pursuits (Like… more Rock n’ Roll) and possibly… “a better life.” You also notice that bartenders are rarely chewed out by grouchy people who should probably just eat salad instead of dipping their fried sausage burgers into herb-sprinkled mayonnaise. (Again with Ranch dressing?)
You finally get behind the bar and work as often as you can because you have these other pursuits and this “better life” but it all costs money. You laugh at the poor bastards who are still stuck kissing ass to the Ranch Eaters.
Life seems to be picking up for at least… five minutes.
You pick up another shift or two.
You buy a condo because you can finally afford to pay a mortgage instead of rent and, “Hey, the government will give you a tax break as a homeowner…”
Then… you have to pay the mortgage. Time to pick up more shifts.
You discover the reason bartenders make all that money is that for 4 straight hours they deal with people who wouldn’t last 4 straight minutes in any other scenario – people who will grab a total stranger (you) by the arm, while that total stranger is serving other more patient total strangers, and scream,
“HEY!!!!! HEY!!!!! RIGHT HERE, RIGHT HERE. I’LL TAKE A RED BULL AND VODKA!”

I had a slightly hilarious little video to play for you here, something to put you “in there” but… it’s too awful, so forget it. Let’s just say the formula for being “in there” is:
A New Haircut + Club Promoters + “JÄEGAH-BAHMS” x 500.
Welcome.

You realize these people, The Screaming Drunk Grabbers, are who you spend most of your time with because of the mortgage and that this is your job forever and that you kind of hate it.
You realize that you should be releasing some of the pressure by expressing your frustrations through those pursuits you love so much… and then some Screaming Drunk Grabber shoves his credit card in your face and you think the only way to properly express how I feel right now is to jam that credit card into that gaping, screaming, whining mouth…
Then you count the money at the end of the night and forget how much you hated making it (until you’re trying to make it again) because now you can pay the mortgage.
You count the money at the end of the night and forget to write about what you just went through.
You think, “I could work more,” because a mortgage is just a sick trick by some evil Man in a Darkened Room with a Cigar designed to make you lose your mind.
(The word “equity” should always be presented as a question: “Equity?”)
You realize that because mortgages and food NEVER STOP and you’ve now needed to work toward a little job security, maybe a little more control of your environment (enter “Management” status) that you haven’t pursued any of those pursuits in…
Ages.
You find yourself now fully devoted to doing something that it turns out you hate – and the things you love doing, the things you wanted to do more of so you did this, those things that should be outlets for you to let off steam about this stupid thing you now devote ALL OF YOUR TIME TO – are not really being done any more and you are now a PROSTITUTE.
Anyone remember the Bible school story about the frog in the pot?
Turns out, when the heat rises hot enough to cook the frog, the frog doesn’t die… it becomes a Bar Manager.
Turns out the pot isn’t full of water or even a nice au jus – it’s actually a stewing mix of cesspool-grade debauchery, depravity and douchebaggery.
Turns out the pot isn’t a pot at all, it’s Sodom and Gomorrah.
Hence: Lot the Bar Manager.

So, I quit.

I’ve traded in my Boston Shakers, bottle opener, Screaming Drunk Grabbers and 1:45am booze peddling for a remote control, DirecTV, football, pizzas, beer and little kids winning silly prizes.
I went from managing a Lounge to a Parlor – a pizza parlor.
And I feel… awesome.
I now work five days to make what I did in two or three but strangely… I don’t feel like I’m working as much. Maybe that’s because I don’t have to swim through the cesspool in order to make it.
And since I don’t feel like my soul has been extracted on a nightly basis by some rusty tool from one of those SAW movies, I actually want to do stuff.
I have the energy to pursue those pursuits I’ve pursued for so long.
Gonna play some Rock n’ Roll.
Gonna write out what’s in my head.
Gonna go out to a restaurant, order a double cheeseburger wrapped in chicken-fried steak , double-dip it in Ranch dressing then go home and watch the Godfather… and laugh myself to sleep.

See you soon.
m.