Wednesday, March 08, 2006

Kill the Messenger

“You can’t handle the truth!” – Colonel Nathan Jessup

He’s right you know. It’s best to candy coat everything, or else be prepared to take it on the chin. Americans like their truth like they like their liquor- a few like it straight, but most prefer it with a sugary sweet mixer, and some flat don’t partake at all. Then there’s the spin-doctors who take up your barstools blowing smoke up your ass and sipping Shirley Temples. They never tip and never shut-up. It’s all pretty complicated. Unless you’ve spent a year or two as a thankless tray jockey, you aren’t likely to grasp that kind of potent metaphor.

Any working class Joe or Josephine will tell you, there’s no education like what you get from slogging it out in the trenches with your fellow peons. Which begs the question - with all the slogging we’d done, why weren’t we educated enough to take or own advice and candy coat the Scam Bible, at least a little bit? Well, there’s no accounting for self-destructive behavior. That’s genetic. Like a couple of rubes, we rolled the dice, and martyred ourselves for first amendment rights and a good laugh. Also, we had no idea the whole country was in such a state of abject denial. Had we only picked up a newspaper!

According to Todd Price, the journalist who wrote the Scam Bible’s controversial cover story “Turning the Tables” - for the the New Orleans’ Gambit, no story in the paper’s history had initiated so much public outcry. The Editor’s desk was literally inundated with letters from mortified (and a few jubilant) readers -

“I hope they and their mothers are quite proud!”

“…vulgar and tasteless!”

“A-holes!”

And so on…but for what? Because we told the truth? America is a fickle mistress. You need only consider the recent controversy concerning James Frey, author of “A Million Little Pieces” who was crucified for exaggerating the facts, to see my point. God knows we wouldn’t want to share his awful fate (22 weeks on the NY Times Bestseller list). Crusty Colonel Jessup may be right.

Now I’m not crying “poor me”. Christ, I’ve got skin like Mexican leather. I’m just happy to live in a country where we can circulate this kind of dubious material without having our nuts chopped off. I can’t imagine it would be this easy for some poor enterprising Pakistani to publish The Infamous Rickshaw Driver’s Scam Bible, or Koran, as the case may be. Although, having ridden in quite a few rickshaws, I know for a fact they have a slew of ingenious angles and are every bit as cavalier about it as certain waiters and bartenders I’ve met.


"Hmmm...Maybe I should write these down."


The truth is we were compelled by the public record. The situation was so uniquely haywire and phenomenally out of control, that if we didn’t write it down, it would have been like spending the afternoon with Bigfoot or taking a ride with Elvis in a UFO and not telling anyone.

Despite state of the art computer systems and innovative safeguards, the sailors had developed such flawless technique that they effortlessly commandeered the ship and keelhauled the captains, time and time again. It was a real life Mutiny on the Bounty with no tribunal in sight. The owners were out of state, the workers had the whole place wired from stem to stern…and the managers? We had packs of frothing managers leashed up like duck hounds, one generation after another, chomping at the bit to void our checks and fetch our golden quarry. If they weren’t playing ball outright, then they were either skillfully outwitted or tied up in a Mexican standoff by some incriminating evidence – maybe they’d bought weed from a staff member with money from their house bank, or had a taste for the powder or plying the waitresses night after night with the company’s top shelf sauce, or were just downright incompetent – you know, the sort of pitfalls that managers often fall into and prefer to keep quiet. It used to infuriate the poor Chef, who’s food costs were often hovering between 80 and 90 percent, while the waiters bought houses and paid for flight lessons.

We’ve been accused by managers of scaring off customers and corrupting the workforce, by square-headed servers of giving the profession a bad name, and even by scamming waiters and bartenders of selling out all the best tricks of the trade (which is probably the best endorsement of all), all of which clearly vindicates us of any partisan effort whatsoever.

As you can see, we had no choice but to sing the ballad of the ol’ Bourbon Street restaurant and bar, of the golden years before Katrina and the curious events that contributed to her demise. Not only because it was the source of so much guilty pleasure; but because it was one of those unique confluences of human ingenuity that demands recognition.

So by all means, kill the messenger – but you’ll have to catch me first!


“Ten fathoms deep on the road to hell, Yo ho ho and a bottle o’ rum…”

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