16. What's in a Name?

Kind of a dumb question, especially considering that, due to their names, Romeo killed his cousin, was banished, then Juliet faked her death, then Romeo kills himself then Juliet kills herself for real. None of this would have happened if Romeo’s last name had been Johnson [aside: Romeo Johnson might be my new stage name]. Things might have worked out between these two (I still would only give them three years, tops).

“A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” Not true. As I have often and disgustingly argued, if roses were known as “poop-sticks,” “i-hate-you’s” or “baby-rapes,” you would not give them to your lover. The smell of a dozen baby-rapes would not evoke the amorous sighs of the beloved other. You would get yourself dumped. Hard.

This is to say A LOT is in a name. For our lovers, Capulet and Montague were their class, lineage, position and crossed stars. Entire biblical histories of begats are embodied in these written and spoken symbols by which we identify ourselves. Our names have weight and meaning and force.

I bring this up because every day I stare at unbelievably long lists of names. I probably write out five or six hundred individual names by hand every shift. If someone gives the name Jennifer or David, I always ask for a last initial because the odds are extremely high that I’ll get another before the first is called. My job is based on names and the remnants of one of my shifts consist of pages and crumpled pages of scribbled out names.

It sometimes occurs to me that all these names, at some point, meant something literal. Native folk had literal names- Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, etc. We do too, only our original languages are lost to us. According to the Oxford Dictionary of Names, my name literally means “Gift-Of-God, Bright-Sea, Long-Tall-Stone.” I have considered introducing myself as this at parties. Stephen and Mary and Benjamin and Alice, these have as much literal meaning as words and are not just telephone numbers to which our souls are assigned. Your parents most likely considered the meaning of your name when they named you or they named you after someone important to them. This also constitutes a hereditary species of meaning.

Other people make up their own name. My friend Quail Dawning (which is a pretty fantastic name to begin with) changed it to Olivia Pepper. Another friend legally renamed herself Jenna Jack-o-Lantern. Whoa. In my time, I have known people named Lunchbox, Lazer, Frogg, Rainblo, Crazyglue, The River Euphrates. Celebrities these days are going absolutely bananas over weird names. Here, briefly, is a sampling: Apple, Princess Tiaamii, Audio Science, Aurelius Cy, Blue Angel, Bluebell Madonna, Diezel, Fifi Trixibell, Heavenly Hiraani Tiger Lily, Jazz Domino, Jermajesty, Kal-El Coppola, Kyd, Luna Coco, Moon Unit, Dweezil, Diva Muffin, Moxie CrimeFighter, Pilot Inspektor, Poppy Honey, Rocket, Rufus Tiger, Sage Moonblood, Seven Sirius, Zola Ivy… the list goes on FOREVER.

There is a man in Ireland who has renamed himself every James Bond movie. His name (legally) is “James Dr No From Russia with Love Goldfinger Thunderball You Only Live Twice On Her Majesty's Secret Service Diamonds Are Forever Live and Let Die The Man with the Golden Gun The Spy Who Loved Me Moonraker For Your Eyes Only Octopussy A View to a Kill The Living Daylights Licence to Kill Golden Eye Tomorrow Never Dies The World Is Not Enough Die Another Day Casino Royale Bond.” There is a Swedish kid named who is actually named “Brfxxccxxmnpcccclllmmnprxvclmnckssqlbb11116,” which is pronounced “Albin.” There is an English football fan named “John Portsmouth Football Club Westwood” and an ex-politician from Tennessee named “Byron Low Tax Looper,” who is now in jail for murder. Pedro V, King of Portugal’s full name was “Pedro de Alcântara Maria Fernando Miguel Rafael Gonzaga Xavier João António Leopoldo Vítor Francisco de Assis Júlio Amélio de Saxe-Coburgo-Gotha e Bragança.” He was so beloved a king that when he died, his people actually revolted. And of course, there is Dick Assman, the Canadian gas station owner.

So I man the host’s stand like St. Peter at the gates, transcribing names like David, Stephen, Amanda, Nick, Gina, Robert, Tiffany, Sarah, Paul, Donnie and so on… although what I’m really writing is Beloved, Crown, Worthy-of-Love, Victory-of-the-People, Queen, Bright-Fame, Manefestation-of-God, Princess, Humility, Ruler-of-the-World; a strange, high-worded poetry of what our forebears saw or hoped they saw in their children.

The day before yesterday, a man walked up and asked to add his name to the list. He gave my name. Although my name isn’t uncommon, it was a little startling to hear it and surreal to write it down at work. Amongst all the other names, it stood out when I looked down. And after 45 minutes, I called my own name and led myself back into Zemblanity.

15. Little Hurts

My feet hurt at work. This is due to two reasons. (1) I have to wear dress shoes at work which are not comfortable or supportive. (2) I run up and down the stairs all day. I have often wondered how many shifts it would take me to run up to the top of the Empire State Building. I posed this question to my manager Freddy and he replied, without pause, "100 floors? Two shifts." Having given this matter some thought, I believe I could make it to the pinnacle of the Empire State in less than one and a half.

I sometimes like to imagine my accumulative altitude gain by picturing a bare staircase, with no supportive architecture, rising into a clear sky over the city of cities. And, having been to the observatory deck of the Empire State Building, you cannot even make out the figure of Zemblanity. It is possible to see the general section of the city in which it resides but amongst those groves of great towers, it is all but invisible.

And after six consecutive shifts, everything hurts. The balls of my feet, the arches, my calves, my quadraceps, my hamstrings, every part of my back complains like mistreated baby. I sometimes stand motionless in the hot shower at home, after work, for a long, long time.

Nonetheless, I make no bones about the ease of my crappy job. I do not work in a sweat shop, I am not a prostitute, I do not dig trenches or shovel gravel, I am not a coal miner or even a hale bailer. I have enough in the tank in the evenings to write about the day.

Still, it is telling that this has been my hardest physical job. In fact almost all my jobs have been "non-jobs." I have been attracted to positions that were easy, that in no way interfered with writing or the playing of music, that paid the rent and left enough dough to buy cereal, burritos, and beer. This is, of course, not a very mature outlook upon employment but one that has supported my meager ambitions and made me happy until now.

For the most part, I have worked as a baker's assistant, movie theater box office attendant, projectionist, gallery salesman and picture framer and dishwasher. Nothing. I did however work a very difficult (in one sense) job (but very easy in another). For five years I worked with the developmentally disabled.

This was an easy job in that all I had to do is work two 20 hour shifts a week, cooking and cleaning and passing out meds. This was a difficult job in that I had to help two of my beloved clients die, had to rescue one from a diabetic coma with a gigantic needle, dealt with violent seizures and became so emotionally attached to my clients that they became as wondrous and difficult as family members to me.

Physically, that position was an absolute cakewalk compared to the exertion required as a host at Zemblanity. Having worked with my beloved retarded population, I think, has prepared me for dealing with the ridiculous behaviors of spoiled, Upper-east-siders.

And while my body certainly hurts, it is very little compared to the hardship of Abdul, my favorite busser. All day he clears tables and hefts away the remains of meals. The weight of these dishes is substantial. He works harder and then works harder and then gets yelled at to work harder.

Abdul has been married for six years. He offers me advice on marriage in broken english. He has only seen his wife and two children for a month at a time, two times over the last five years. Every dollar that he earns other than what he needs for rent and food, he sends back home. And while he works his back breaking work, he sings.

Even though I am in New York for a reason and work for a reason, I may never fully contemplate the difficulty of Abdul's work. He likes that he and I are both married. He sometimes holds up the ring on his finger to the ring on mine as we pass and says "Ah! You got a lady! You got a lady, Man!"

14. The First Christmas Tree

It’s December now and the Season of Joy is upon us! In Mid-town Manhattan this constitutes a no-holds-barred, cannibalistic fist fight to the death. Raggedy consumers drag their beaten bodies (their clothes hanging like the tattered shrouds of a ghost ship’s sails) from gift shop to beleaguering gift shop in search of that perfect something for that special someone. Through the grinding gauntlet of blood-strewn streets the exhausted soul slouches through the boulevard of the shadow of death and at every turn- the gnashing of teeth, the blaring of bus horns, the stabbing cold and a thousand Santa Clauses, bellowing that ominous, merry chuckle like a legion of evil Nordic clowns. And finally, the thrashed pilgrim finds their way into the glittering doorway of Zemblanity. At which point, I inform them of our FOUR HOUR WAIT. No, sir, I am not joking. I am deadly serious.

Ho. Ho... Ho.

The epilepsy inducing glut of spectacular holiday decorations went up the day after Halloween, an obscenely early date by any rational standard. Christmas trees in every grotesque shade of neon hang upside down from the ceilings. Vast confusions of lights, tinsel and fake holly are smooshed into every conceivable corner. And far in the back of the restaurant, there is a tree so bewilderingly and blindingly pink that it defies comparison. Henceforth, if I ever need to describe something as very pink, I will (hyperbolically, of course) compare it to that flabbergastingly pink, twinkling phallus in the heart of Zemblanity.

Digression: Today I saw the Governor of Alabama, Rob Riley, sitting next to this flamboyant tree. His security detail stood outside in the cold, snickering at seeing so powerful a man dwarfed by the supremely gayest incarnation of Christian holiday ever dreamed up in the minds of men. I wondered something similar when Sarah Palin was in. What is so conservative a politician doing in so gay a restaurant? This was one of the first places that was safe for gays in the city. There was, upstairs, where the offices are now, a room full of cots where fellows would indulge themselves with other fellows without fear of a police raid. And here is the Governor of Alabama and the ex-Governor of Alaska, beaming, shaking hands and posing for photographs in front of the fruitiest Christmas Tree in history. [End Digression]

And folk see fit to wait for four to FIVE hours to eat in this exaggeration of Christmas. Why? More and more, I have been troubled by this question. While at first, it was merely amusing or interesting from a sociological perspective, it has begun to make me more and more uneasy. What is wrong with these people? Why do they subject themselves to such an excruciating test of endurance?

Sometimes a person will get truly angry at me. They have waited in the freezing rain for three hours and I inform them that they have an hour yet to wait. They will explode upon me, demanding to see the list of names, making outrageous claims that all the people who checked in with them have already eaten (although this is obviously and sometimes hilariously false). They see me as a figurehead of this miserable and inexplicable process and they hate me (HATE ME) for it. I have to become a rock that ocean breaks itself against. I think, "You chose to endure this. It's your own dumb fault for waiting this long for something you only suppose is worthwhile. Your misery is your own problem and has nothing to do with me."

But this attitude is not very in keeping with Christmas spirit, is it? More often, I feel a true sense of compassion for these poor fools. More and more, I have taken it upon myself to become an entertainer at the host stand. I perch at the podium and, in an attempt to ameliorate the hardship of the wait, loudly regale the claustrophobic crush of patrons with bizarre, funny and pseudo-mystical stories, the same stories I relate to you, dear reader.

In a sometimes futile attempt to turn the wait into a worthwhile experience, I describe the lobby as the busiest square feet in all of Manhattan. I compare it to a submarine or a subway car. I tell them of Andy Warhol and Marilyn Monroe, of Oprah and Jude Law, of the 25,000 dollar desert or the World's Largest Hot Chocolate. I plunder the recesses of my memory for interesting tales from these very blogs, in a desperate attempt to foster the feeling that, Yes, we are all fools and yet, we are doing something entirely unique and entirely New York-ish.

I ask the multitude of hungry souls if we should all go stand over the tables and watch the people as they eat. Maybe we will scowl and point at our watches. Or what if we turned over an hourglass on the table? Would they get the F-ing hint? Or what if we just screamed "We're Hungry!" at the top of our lungs? Would that help?

When everyone in the lobby looks at each other with knowing glances, when everyone in the lobby laughs at the same time or says "Wow" together, I feel warm in my heart, an honest glow. And back at table eleven, a tiny, beautiful little girl laughs a laugh so loud and pure that even the hardest and most cynical of Zemblanity employees can't help but grin. And outside, it is beginning to snow, the first of the season.

And on my way home, I will buy a Christmas Tree out of my bribes. It will be the first tree my wife and I have ever had together. And she will pin a picture of her beloved and recently departed pug, Pierre, at the top. Pierre was an angel of dogs and loved Christmas Trees more than anyone.

13. Three Episodes

Every so often, there is a slow shift. My new thing is to ask whomever I am standing around with to "tell me a story." Everyone at Zemblanity is brimming with stories. Thus, we'll take a break with these three little episodes.

1. One time, the sidewalk was overrun by patrons waiting to get inside. One woman in particular was being troublesome and so, the general manager Tanya went outside to deal with this cranky lady. As Gabriel put it, "She got kinda nasty with this lady," which is not too difficult to imagine. Well, this woman came inside to lodge a complaint and asked for the manager. She was directed to Gabriel who then listened to this woman expound upon the great indignities to which she had been subjected. The staff was all listening on. So Gabriel said, "You know what? I'm going sit her down and reprimand her. Don't you worry Miss, I'm going to have a talk with this individual." Of course, it almost impossible to imagine Gabriel scolding the general manager, his boss. All the employees got a kick out of trying to imagine it though.

2. Phil, Zemblanity's best waiter (in my opinion), tells me this story: "So there must have been three or four feet of snow outside the door and this stretch hummer limo pulls up outside and Bruce Willis gets out. The restaurant's almost empty and he goes upstairs to eat with his daughters. Now, at the time he was dating... oh, I'm blanking here... the mousy one, you know, the shop-lifter." Winona Ryder. "So anyhow, as they're all leaving, she's holding up the show, browsing around at all the trinkets. He turns to her and says 'Alright now honey, no shoplifting.' And she turns to him and gives him this... look." At this point Phil busts up, remembering her icy glare of reproach. You know what, Bruce Willis seems pretty cool.

3. Although Miss Annette's name is not really 'Miss Annette,' it seems that I was almost clairvoyant when I picked that moniker. You see, when she started working at Zemblanity some 40 years or more ago, she used the fake name Netta. There was some reason that she changed it having to do with her modeling career. Anyhow, Netta worked the days either at photo shoots or doing runway or working at the Max Factor counter at Bloomingdale's. Then at night, upon Mr. Charles' request, she would stop in and work as a model. Zemblanity had a lot of models in those days, back when Mr. Charles was an aspiring clothing designer. Netta would strut the length of the restaurant, wearing one of his dresses. Customers would just buy these dresses right off of Miss Annette's back for hundreds and hundreds of dollars. Anyhow, after the epic work day, she would go out and party and then often wind up crashing at Mr. Charles' fifth story walk up which was about a block or two away from Zemblanity. In those days, in the mornings, Mr. Charles would call down to the restaurant and ask one of the waiters to bring over a pot of coffee. What a life!

And now, a poem.

Annette

All that remains

of her glamour

hunches in a grizzled husk

amongst the gravelly remains

of a hundred thousand cigarette butts,

ground out, as forgotten as days.

Ah, but once, her body

had been a silk ribbon

of silver smoke, bending

as lithely as a blue note

in the ashen streets of dawn.

Her lovers

bent over backwards

at the slightest gesture

of her flawless wrist,

the angle of her neck,

her hip cocked

with the corner of her lip.

Her laughter had been

a perfect bell.

Now she coughs wrinkled growls

and cracks mirrors

in the burned out apartment

of this old woman's body.

Everything hurts.

But most of all-

this parade of women, young

and brimming with sex, heart-

-breaking in their short skirts

and long lashes.

"Laugh now Princess,

you won't be beautiful forever."

12. Ghosts

Here’s a strange tale. Big gay Sam told me that, for a spell, the section known as “West,” tables 21 through 26, was cursed. Saltshakers would inexplicably shatter and spill salt everywhere. Mirrors would crack untouched. The section never made decent money and tips were small, even for the most accomplished waiters. A bedeviled pall hung over the West.

So, Mr. Charles decided to hold the first Zemblanity séance. It was generally accepted that the newly installed Andy Warhol effigy, which hangs above table 21, was somehow responsible. And so it was to Warhol’s soul that Mr. Charles turned.

I have never seen one of these séances but I can imagine. Knowing Mr. Charles, the affair is most likely half deadly serious and half in jest and meticulously choreographed. I am picturing him in a dark, sequined robe, sitting in the darkness of the dining room, lit only by hundreds of candles which cast eerie shadows against the otherworldly hodgepodge of artifacts dangling from the ceiling and hung on the walls. The wait staff holds hands around table 21, chanting and then listening for a communiqué from the other side.

According to Sam, Mr. Charles asked Andy Warhol if he was happy in his new digs. Warhol replied “yes but… where are my shoes?” You see, the little Andy doll had no shoes and so Mr. Charles sent Sam on a mission to the Baby Gap. Sam returned with a suitable pair of canvas loafers, which the doll wears to this day. The curse was broken and West returned to normal (which is not very).

I have not yet determined how haunted Zemblanity is but my instinct is that every inch of it is overwhelmed by ghosts, the specters of old patrons and celebrities returning to their old hangout from beyond the grave. I know that the spirits of the other two owners, Kit Caruso and Billy Mann, now deceased, are woven into the very wood or the chairs and tables. When the eyes of children grow wide upon seeing a place as outrageous as Zemblanity, they are becoming outward ripples of the imaginations of these men.

My theory is that New York is the most haunted city in America. It is certainly one of the oldest of our cities. It is also the most important and storied of our metropolises. The quantity of life and death, the hummus of time upon this small island is immeasurable. However, I think that this city is too populated by the living, too furiously alive, too noisy with moral traffic for those auras who have passed before us (leaving their fingerprints on everything) to be audible.

In my experience, New Orleans has seemed more haunted than New York. It is also very old and by nature, New Orleans is a spook, full of voodoo and black magic. But what really makes it seem more haunted is that it is slower, quieter, darker. The shadows have space and weight. It is quiet enough that the ghosts of the Delta are given audience. This is also true of the little haunted mining towns of the West and Southwest. They are quiet enough to hear the ethereal, see-through voices of those who made the past into the present. In New York, the living have little time for the dead. This is with the exception of the World Trade Center.

In the mornings, when I clean the menus and stare at the enormous World Trade Sandwiches on the front, I think about how Zemblanity stayed open on 9/11. Mr. Charles said that the weather that whole week was unseasonably perfect. There was no wind or a cloud in the sky and vivid clusters of bright butterflies all over Central Park. When those towers, which had their own zip code, came plunging to earth, Mr. Charles said he stood out on 60^th street and could see the cumulous plume of dust and smoke rising straight up over the brownstones into the perfect sky.

I have not found out who made the decision to keep the restaurant open but when I asked what the mood was like in Zemblanity that day, the manager Micah told me that it was like it was everywhere else in New York and in the country. The whole city was trying to get off the island and so a vast multitude of New Yorkers walked across the nearby Queensburough Bridge. I wonder who came in on that day and why.

I suppose to feel comforted. To go to a place that has been a happy staple since childhood. A place draped with memory. This will be a good way to distract the kids while we wait for the phone. It would have been quiet inside the restaurant. A man would have sat at table 44, eating an Icy Hot Chocolate and looking out the window at the white plume in the blue. Did any of the waiters cry?

11. Play Acting

And now, dear pilgrims of culinary ludicrousness, to the issue of work tone. By this, I am referring to the difference in the way people talk at work compared to the way they normally speak. On the one extreme, we have flight attendants, whose saccharine lilting is akin to the way that mothers coo at toddlers and oozes with an almost sarcastic note of concern. On the other hand, we have most bartenders who often sound as if they could give less of a shit about you. These are, of course, stereotypes but you catch my meaning- the verbal mannerisms we adopt in order to adapt.

The difference upon opening the restaurant is stark. We stand at toward the front, preparing for the onslaught of eager customers who press their faces to the (recently cleaned) glass, peering in at us like animals in the zoo, giddy with anticipation. The comments before opening are on the order of “Stop ogling us you morbidly obese bovine,” or “Just wait your turn turd-face,” or “you’re never getting in here poop-for-brains.” After opening, it’s “Welcome to Zemblanity ladies! We’re so happy to have you, right this way!” This mirrors the music on before and after opening. The cooks usually have on hard-core gangster rap in the kitchen, which is totally surreal in that glittery fantasy land, but when we open Mr. Charles will turn on some polite American Idol album or Christmas carols.

The waiter, Duncan, has the worst and most obvious work tone. His eyes grow wide and the music of his speech is a condescending sing-song that fools no one. As he stoops to gaze with sickly smile into the faces of diners, I wonder if they believe that they’re being openly mocked. It makes me laugh. Duncan, is a really lovely person, very nice and intelligent outside of work, he just has trouble lying.

The reasons for this charade vocal and physical performance are myriad. There is simply too high a volume of human interactions to be negotiated in all earnestness. Adopting “the tone” facilitates an ease of dialogue which can still be construed as polite and concerned. Another reason is that it is impossible to anticipate what sort of treatment a customer may require. The tone is a formal neutrality, a blank slate from which many interpersonal strategies may be launched. A service workers tone is further dictated by the social strata of the job. If the establishment is ritzy, the customer is payer for a higher quality of coddling. If you’re at a corner bodega, the expectations and probability of offense are low. At Zemblanity… I don’t know what people expect.

Politeness, after all, is a show. It is a ballet of gestures meant to imply kindness, generosity and benevolence. It is a gesture meant to put people at ease (again, like the cooing of mothers) and, in an explosive environment like Zemblanity, this comes in handy. It is a well-intentioned falsehood, which keeps the world from erupting.

I remember hearing an interview with David Bowie on the radio. He said that when he was first coming out with stuff like Ziggy Stardust, he was competing against a lot of folk like Bruce Springsteen. Most critics believed that Bowie was creating and playing these parts on stage, like an actor. Bowie said he felt that the singers like Springsteen were modeling themselves after the likes of Bob Dylan, wearing white T-shirts and jeans and trying their damnedest to show no signs of pretense. Bowie thought that these singers were putting on just as much a show, acting just as much, still playing a part. But by becoming Ziggy Stardust, he was admitting that it was a show, a projection, and he felt that his glam persona was actually more honest. Bowie thought explicit acting was more honest.

Maybe this is one of the reasons that my manner at work is so humorously exaggerated. My personal opinion is that customers don’t necessarily have to believe that I’m really like that so long as they enjoy the show. This is why I, and so many of the waiters, have little cards of funny interaction that can be pulled out and played in a number of situations. I like that Sam often greets his tables by saying “Hello thrill-seekers, are we ready?” I like that when they ask him what is good, he will tell them that if they choose something bad, he will sarcastically ask “Really?” I like that whenever Craig brings a hot-chocolate with whipped cream when it should have been without, he’ll laugh in a really obviously fake way and say “Just kidding!” I like that when Phil presents a sundae, he will say (in a very unconvincing way) “Ta-da!” These little performances do a number of things- they often make customers laugh or chuckle, make customers believe the waiter is “trying,” they allow the waiter a manner of attending to the customer without being overly disingenuous. Duncan could probably learn a thing or two from these older waiters. He’d probably make more tips.

Sometimes I get to talking in work tone to such a degree that it takes hours to wear off after work. I will finish talking to someone and say “enjoy!” but what would they enjoy? We’re not at a restaurant. Or I’ll hold open a door of a bar for someone and say, “right this way sir, come right on in.” What? Why am I talking like that?