Village Place--Where Everybody Knows Your Name
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01/23/2005 04:49AM Next Entry >>
01/30/2005 03:24PM
Ashley's Blog
Pleased to make your acquaintance, little lady.
Village Place--Where Everybody Knows Your Name (and Asks for Your Number)
01/26/2005 04:47PM
French might sounds like the language of Romance, but fifth semester French perfectly sums up the Ryan Adams album, "Love is Hell". It sucks, and my head hurts because I've been doing three weeks worth of work in one afternoon. Like Mase says, "Breathe, stretch, shake. Let it go." I'm going to take a break and write about my 24 hour diner, and attempt to halt the mental decomposition caused by said homework.
It's called the Village Place, and it has to be the greatest diner in the world. Where else can you get Veal Parmesan at 4am? You tell me. The Village Place isn't in any Michelin guides or "Top Tens of Detroit"--it'd make Best of Chernobyl, maybe. It's greasy, tasteless, and the coffee's always half cold.
Status is a big part of the Village Place. Much of your status is determined by how well you know Chris, the flaming-yet-heterosexual-emo-luscious-rock-god-wannabe who's been a waiter at VP for the last half decade or so. If you walk in and stand for less than a minute without Chris hugging you/putting his hand up your skirt/wrapping his legs around you and threatening to carry you off to his car and perform sexual acts that are illegal in five countries, then you're probably a nobody. Not a bad thing to be, under those circumstances. Social status is also determined by your place in the smoking section (where they, curiously, turn off the lights at 11 but continue to seat people). If you look like you might have friends, you get a seat at a big table. Cops get the back 4 top. Couples get the brightly lit middle row (no funny business in the dark!), and so on.
Our local Village Place could be described as a turf war between Hot Topic and Fubu, with a little Kathy Ireland for Kmart brand tossed in to make ends meet. There are only thugs and goths in Waterford. It's a measly spectrum. The Waterford kids, for the most part, have vague plans to attend community college and work in pizza delivery (no, they ALL do). A lot of them, sadly, take pills for memory loss and brain damage after getting their asses kicked in high school. A normal Waterford fight seems to be 7 on 1, 10 on 2. Getting jumped started to be a concern in fifth grade, when my "friend" got sent to the hospital for three months after she got jumped walking home from school. I say friend rather loosely, because she pulled a knife on me that year.
Back to VP. My favorite part of the whole restaurant was the Wall of Shame, where they would post the bounced checks of people who, I guess, couldn't swing that eight dollar chicken dinner. It would always be the same three or four people with their checks up. They unfortunately took it down last year. Don't be tricked into thinking that the Village Place is empty-looking, now. That place singlularly keeps the tacky holiday decoration industry alive. Pink flamingos and beach balls in June, crepe-paper turkeys at Thanksgiving, stupid looking hearts and inflatable lips hanging from the ceiling as we speak. On the walls are those little cystic fibrosis hearts that you buy for charity and write your name on. It's been going, I think, for the last three years, and there's maybe fifteen hearts on the wall. In Waterford, good will is our middle name.
At Village Place, nothing beats the people that you meet. The latest friend I made was Dave, who came up to me because "You're, like, reading a book, and...like, who does that around here? Sweet." After a half hour in Dave's company, I learned that he had never finished high school, was bisexual, had slept with more guys than girls, had spent two years behind bars for arson, suffered an addiction "to pot and coke and speed", was one of those memory loss kids, had never heard of The Royal Tenenbaums or the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and wanted to make it big in Hollywood.
Dave: "I'm really talented, you see, even though I never finished high school, but that's because I got jumped, you know, and then I went to jail..."
Me: (eyes drooping despite massive coffee overdose) 'What are your talents, Dave?"
Dave: "Well, I'm like a really good artist, and I think I want to design t-shirts, because I really like t-shirts. And I taught myself to play piano. Like, here's my first song. (Ridiculous five minute interlude where he plays piano on the formica tabletop while humming the very off-key notes for me to hear and applaud), and I got a copyright for a song when I was thirteen, and I also write poems. I wrote a poem in high school that got in the literary magazine when Shel Silverstein died, do you want to hear it? Here, I'll tell you the first verse."
Me: "Can't wait."
Dave: "The day has passed/the night is here/for man will have to die/we mouth your verse and turn the page and now it's time to cry"
What do you think? Do you like it? I think it's really good."
The Village Place is a very talented restaurant. Everybody is in a band, wants to be in a band, or used to be in a band when they were in fifth grade, but they didn't have instruments and had to use sticks in their yard for guitars. Everybody is like, soooo talented as an artist, and bring along little notebooks to sketch their masterpieces while they're waiting for their omelettes. Everybody is "spiritual, not religious". Anarchy is accepted as the smartest political movement out there. When Linkin Park comes on the radio, people get excited.
And oh, the hormones racing around those vinyl booths! This is a place where women wear tank tops in January and strut to the bathrooms like it was the YSL catwalk during Fashion Week. People don't do single in Waterford. You're engaged, dating, or fucking. Take Becky:
"I think I'm going to fuck my boss tomorrow at work. He's been doing all this sexual harrassment stuff, I guess you could call it that, but I really like it, so when he grabs my ass I like to rub it against his you-know-what and stuff. So he called me tonight and asked me if I was ready to go on Monday, and I'm going to his place, because his wife will be at work and his kids are at school all day. I really like this Will guy, though, but he hasn't called me back, and he told me he wanted to marry me. And that was the fourth time I've been engaged, but the last guy I was engaged to before Will, his friends walked in on him in lingerie using a dildo, and I thought that was kind of weird, even though I'm bi, too. I'm reeeeally into getting married, but Will hasn't called me back, and I'm going to fuck EVERY GUY THAT LOOKS AT ME TONIGHT."
Me: 'How old are you again?"
Becky: "I'm still eighteen. I turn nineteen in March."
The Village Place is magic. Walk in, and scan the tables. They'll be half full of forty year olds that have ruined their lives, and twenty year olds that are on the way down. It's a comforting feeling. If you desire a quickie or a dime bag or an after-bar breakfast, it's always there. And all you need is black hair, dirty fingernails, 7 credit hours toward your G.E.D., a baby daddy or crazy fiancee that you call on your pay-by-the-minute cell phone, and a job delivering pizzas in your 87 Bonneville that you've outfitted with darklights and a two thousand dollar sound systam to fit in!
Don't mind the sarcasm. For the next four months, there's no place I'd rather be.
01/23/2005 04:49AM Next Entry >>
01/30/2005 03:24PM
Ashley's Blog
Pleased to make your acquaintance, little lady.
Village Place--Where Everybody Knows Your Name (and Asks for Your Number)
01/26/2005 04:47PM
French might sounds like the language of Romance, but fifth semester French perfectly sums up the Ryan Adams album, "Love is Hell". It sucks, and my head hurts because I've been doing three weeks worth of work in one afternoon. Like Mase says, "Breathe, stretch, shake. Let it go." I'm going to take a break and write about my 24 hour diner, and attempt to halt the mental decomposition caused by said homework.
It's called the Village Place, and it has to be the greatest diner in the world. Where else can you get Veal Parmesan at 4am? You tell me. The Village Place isn't in any Michelin guides or "Top Tens of Detroit"--it'd make Best of Chernobyl, maybe. It's greasy, tasteless, and the coffee's always half cold.
Status is a big part of the Village Place. Much of your status is determined by how well you know Chris, the flaming-yet-heterosexual-emo-luscious-rock-god-wannabe who's been a waiter at VP for the last half decade or so. If you walk in and stand for less than a minute without Chris hugging you/putting his hand up your skirt/wrapping his legs around you and threatening to carry you off to his car and perform sexual acts that are illegal in five countries, then you're probably a nobody. Not a bad thing to be, under those circumstances. Social status is also determined by your place in the smoking section (where they, curiously, turn off the lights at 11 but continue to seat people). If you look like you might have friends, you get a seat at a big table. Cops get the back 4 top. Couples get the brightly lit middle row (no funny business in the dark!), and so on.
Our local Village Place could be described as a turf war between Hot Topic and Fubu, with a little Kathy Ireland for Kmart brand tossed in to make ends meet. There are only thugs and goths in Waterford. It's a measly spectrum. The Waterford kids, for the most part, have vague plans to attend community college and work in pizza delivery (no, they ALL do). A lot of them, sadly, take pills for memory loss and brain damage after getting their asses kicked in high school. A normal Waterford fight seems to be 7 on 1, 10 on 2. Getting jumped started to be a concern in fifth grade, when my "friend" got sent to the hospital for three months after she got jumped walking home from school. I say friend rather loosely, because she pulled a knife on me that year.
Back to VP. My favorite part of the whole restaurant was the Wall of Shame, where they would post the bounced checks of people who, I guess, couldn't swing that eight dollar chicken dinner. It would always be the same three or four people with their checks up. They unfortunately took it down last year. Don't be tricked into thinking that the Village Place is empty-looking, now. That place singlularly keeps the tacky holiday decoration industry alive. Pink flamingos and beach balls in June, crepe-paper turkeys at Thanksgiving, stupid looking hearts and inflatable lips hanging from the ceiling as we speak. On the walls are those little cystic fibrosis hearts that you buy for charity and write your name on. It's been going, I think, for the last three years, and there's maybe fifteen hearts on the wall. In Waterford, good will is our middle name.
At Village Place, nothing beats the people that you meet. The latest friend I made was Dave, who came up to me because "You're, like, reading a book, and...like, who does that around here? Sweet." After a half hour in Dave's company, I learned that he had never finished high school, was bisexual, had slept with more guys than girls, had spent two years behind bars for arson, suffered an addiction "to pot and coke and speed", was one of those memory loss kids, had never heard of The Royal Tenenbaums or the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and wanted to make it big in Hollywood.
Dave: "I'm really talented, you see, even though I never finished high school, but that's because I got jumped, you know, and then I went to jail..."
Me: (eyes drooping despite massive coffee overdose) 'What are your talents, Dave?"
Dave: "Well, I'm like a really good artist, and I think I want to design t-shirts, because I really like t-shirts. And I taught myself to play piano. Like, here's my first song. (Ridiculous five minute interlude where he plays piano on the formica tabletop while humming the very off-key notes for me to hear and applaud), and I got a copyright for a song when I was thirteen, and I also write poems. I wrote a poem in high school that got in the literary magazine when Shel Silverstein died, do you want to hear it? Here, I'll tell you the first verse."
Me: "Can't wait."
Dave: "The day has passed/the night is here/for man will have to die/we mouth your verse and turn the page and now it's time to cry"
What do you think? Do you like it? I think it's really good."
The Village Place is a very talented restaurant. Everybody is in a band, wants to be in a band, or used to be in a band when they were in fifth grade, but they didn't have instruments and had to use sticks in their yard for guitars. Everybody is like, soooo talented as an artist, and bring along little notebooks to sketch their masterpieces while they're waiting for their omelettes. Everybody is "spiritual, not religious". Anarchy is accepted as the smartest political movement out there. When Linkin Park comes on the radio, people get excited.
And oh, the hormones racing around those vinyl booths! This is a place where women wear tank tops in January and strut to the bathrooms like it was the YSL catwalk during Fashion Week. People don't do single in Waterford. You're engaged, dating, or fucking. Take Becky:
"I think I'm going to fuck my boss tomorrow at work. He's been doing all this sexual harrassment stuff, I guess you could call it that, but I really like it, so when he grabs my ass I like to rub it against his you-know-what and stuff. So he called me tonight and asked me if I was ready to go on Monday, and I'm going to his place, because his wife will be at work and his kids are at school all day. I really like this Will guy, though, but he hasn't called me back, and he told me he wanted to marry me. And that was the fourth time I've been engaged, but the last guy I was engaged to before Will, his friends walked in on him in lingerie using a dildo, and I thought that was kind of weird, even though I'm bi, too. I'm reeeeally into getting married, but Will hasn't called me back, and I'm going to fuck EVERY GUY THAT LOOKS AT ME TONIGHT."
Me: 'How old are you again?"
Becky: "I'm still eighteen. I turn nineteen in March."
The Village Place is magic. Walk in, and scan the tables. They'll be half full of forty year olds that have ruined their lives, and twenty year olds that are on the way down. It's a comforting feeling. If you desire a quickie or a dime bag or an after-bar breakfast, it's always there. And all you need is black hair, dirty fingernails, 7 credit hours toward your G.E.D., a baby daddy or crazy fiancee that you call on your pay-by-the-minute cell phone, and a job delivering pizzas in your 87 Bonneville that you've outfitted with darklights and a two thousand dollar sound systam to fit in!
Don't mind the sarcasm. For the next four months, there's no place I'd rather be.