The Dreadful Dirge
In my spare time I work at the High Noon Saloon, a kitsch little pub near the bean factory that has, I would think, a fairly obvious theme. The main flow of customers is not actually at night time when people usually feel like a drink, but in the middle of the day. Why? I couldn't tell you. They sit around listening to high-spirited old timey piano music, jingling their spurs along to the rhythm. Most of the crowd is made up of Japanese businessmen wearing large novelty cowboy hats and chaps. Every time the main door opens the room goes silent, and everybody stares at the newcomer with either wide-eyed astonishment or gritty dislike. This gets old very quickly, as in my occupation I have to leave and enter by the front door quite frequently. Often it's to check out the front, where people have tied their Nissans to the front of the building to prevent them from straying.
My boss is called Mr Dale "Trouble" Feldman. He is fat and wears a greasy apron, and spends all his time polishing and repolishing glasses. People say that Trouble is his middle name, because he's always saying "I don't want no trouble" and raising his hands. This made it difficult to secure the job. Our first conversation went something along these lines:
ME: Hi, I saw the "Help wanted" sign out front and I...
FELDMAN: I don't want no trouble!
ME: ... what? No, sorry, I, uhh... I should have maybe been a little clearer. I'm applying for the job and...
FELDMAN: I don't want no trouble!
ME: Right... Right, yes of course. It's just that I could really use the...
FELDMAN: I don't want no trouble!
ME: I could use the money, you see, and I have good references...
FELDMAN: Trouble!
ME: Which are all here on my resume... [Attempts to hand Feldman the papers. Feldman's hands are frozen up in the air.]
FELDMAN: Just take it and leave!
ME: So... uhh... are you saying I've got the job?
FELDMAN: I don't want no trouble! Just take it and go! Nobody's trying to be a hero!
ME: Oh... oh, okay, great. So, like... should I start tomorrow or...
FELDMAN: [Flinches]
ME: Right. Okay, well, great. Thanks. [Takes money from till, leaves.]
Our relationship hasn't really thawed yet. I'm not sure if he notices my work or not. And I've heard rumours that he doesn't actually work at the bar at all. Anyway, I'm really my own boss, but unfortunately I'm a total bastard, and I work myself pretty hard. It's all "Pick that up, Wes!" and "Clean away that vomit, Wes!" and "Move those bodies, Wes!" and "Goodnight, Frank!" It's endless.
My favourite part of the job would definitely be burning the dead cowboys, though. I get a couple of those every day. The High Noon Saloon generates a lot of deaths, because there are always cowboys drunk on high egos and sarsparilla, bumping into stuff and cutting one another down with their samurai swords. I have to clean up the blood after, but it's cool because when I take the corpses down to the furnace I usually keep their clothes and katanas and stuff, so now I've got a fairly badass collection of cowboy gear. I'm not into the whole cowboy theme myself in any big way, but it does generate inspiration for my passion, which is dressing mannequins. Any clothes at all will do, but obviously cowboy memorabilia is my main supply, so the life-sized diorama I'm building in the basement definitely has a kind of a cowboy slant to it, which is a tad unfortunate because it's meant to be a scene from the story of Noah's Ark. I've compensated with some subtle face-painting, so now in my scene it wasn't just two of every animal that Noah saved from the rains, but cowboy animals at that. Gay cowboy animals. I wish some of the wenches from the bar would get into duels, but they tend to just hang back and occasionally smash a tequila bottle over someone's head. So until then I'm stuck with a Noah's Ark scene where all the animals are men. I think the original message of the story is preserved, though.
Any kind of distraction from the drudgery of my job is a welcome relief. Luckily it pays well. Aside from all the free cowboy gear I can nick, I also get about eighty dollars a day. Or like... I assume so. I take it from the till every night after work, and Mr Feldman hasn't tried to stop me, so, like... eighty bucks seems reasonable, anyway. Between cleaning up sarsparilla and cowboys who've committed seppuku, that's one fairly full-on job you're looking at. I'm not saying it's brain surgery, but like... I do do that from time to time too. And it doesn't seem that difficult, if you get my drift. The brain is an extremely simple organ. It's just a load of pink stuff. You can pretty much do anything to it without fear of injury. Obviously all the brains I've operated on are from dead cowboys, but the principles should extend equally well into the living.
Anyway, it's good to finish up work and get back to my music. Oh, and speaking of which, I should offer my apologies to those of you who turned up at the Echuca Moama Bowling Club yesterday. Apparently there had been some confusion, a communication breakdown of sorts. I didn't realize when I posted that information that the club owner actually wanted us to play on September 7th, 2008. So I apologize if any of you drove down there and accidentally ended up catching Frankie J. Holden and Denise Drysdale's show. I wouldn't wish that on anybody. In the future, all gigs will be listed on the Geocities website, when I get that up. Until then, "Bitte, Manne, bitte."
My boss is called Mr Dale "Trouble" Feldman. He is fat and wears a greasy apron, and spends all his time polishing and repolishing glasses. People say that Trouble is his middle name, because he's always saying "I don't want no trouble" and raising his hands. This made it difficult to secure the job. Our first conversation went something along these lines:
ME: Hi, I saw the "Help wanted" sign out front and I...
FELDMAN: I don't want no trouble!
ME: ... what? No, sorry, I, uhh... I should have maybe been a little clearer. I'm applying for the job and...
FELDMAN: I don't want no trouble!
ME: Right... Right, yes of course. It's just that I could really use the...
FELDMAN: I don't want no trouble!
ME: I could use the money, you see, and I have good references...
FELDMAN: Trouble!
ME: Which are all here on my resume... [Attempts to hand Feldman the papers. Feldman's hands are frozen up in the air.]
FELDMAN: Just take it and leave!
ME: So... uhh... are you saying I've got the job?
FELDMAN: I don't want no trouble! Just take it and go! Nobody's trying to be a hero!
ME: Oh... oh, okay, great. So, like... should I start tomorrow or...
FELDMAN: [Flinches]
ME: Right. Okay, well, great. Thanks. [Takes money from till, leaves.]
Our relationship hasn't really thawed yet. I'm not sure if he notices my work or not. And I've heard rumours that he doesn't actually work at the bar at all. Anyway, I'm really my own boss, but unfortunately I'm a total bastard, and I work myself pretty hard. It's all "Pick that up, Wes!" and "Clean away that vomit, Wes!" and "Move those bodies, Wes!" and "Goodnight, Frank!" It's endless.
My favourite part of the job would definitely be burning the dead cowboys, though. I get a couple of those every day. The High Noon Saloon generates a lot of deaths, because there are always cowboys drunk on high egos and sarsparilla, bumping into stuff and cutting one another down with their samurai swords. I have to clean up the blood after, but it's cool because when I take the corpses down to the furnace I usually keep their clothes and katanas and stuff, so now I've got a fairly badass collection of cowboy gear. I'm not into the whole cowboy theme myself in any big way, but it does generate inspiration for my passion, which is dressing mannequins. Any clothes at all will do, but obviously cowboy memorabilia is my main supply, so the life-sized diorama I'm building in the basement definitely has a kind of a cowboy slant to it, which is a tad unfortunate because it's meant to be a scene from the story of Noah's Ark. I've compensated with some subtle face-painting, so now in my scene it wasn't just two of every animal that Noah saved from the rains, but cowboy animals at that. Gay cowboy animals. I wish some of the wenches from the bar would get into duels, but they tend to just hang back and occasionally smash a tequila bottle over someone's head. So until then I'm stuck with a Noah's Ark scene where all the animals are men. I think the original message of the story is preserved, though.
Any kind of distraction from the drudgery of my job is a welcome relief. Luckily it pays well. Aside from all the free cowboy gear I can nick, I also get about eighty dollars a day. Or like... I assume so. I take it from the till every night after work, and Mr Feldman hasn't tried to stop me, so, like... eighty bucks seems reasonable, anyway. Between cleaning up sarsparilla and cowboys who've committed seppuku, that's one fairly full-on job you're looking at. I'm not saying it's brain surgery, but like... I do do that from time to time too. And it doesn't seem that difficult, if you get my drift. The brain is an extremely simple organ. It's just a load of pink stuff. You can pretty much do anything to it without fear of injury. Obviously all the brains I've operated on are from dead cowboys, but the principles should extend equally well into the living.
Anyway, it's good to finish up work and get back to my music. Oh, and speaking of which, I should offer my apologies to those of you who turned up at the Echuca Moama Bowling Club yesterday. Apparently there had been some confusion, a communication breakdown of sorts. I didn't realize when I posted that information that the club owner actually wanted us to play on September 7th, 2008. So I apologize if any of you drove down there and accidentally ended up catching Frankie J. Holden and Denise Drysdale's show. I wouldn't wish that on anybody. In the future, all gigs will be listed on the Geocities website, when I get that up. Until then, "Bitte, Manne, bitte."