Cappin' my ass, and reverse racism....
The bar has been pretty dismal, of late. The Fire Marshal’s edict that “no bar shalt go o’er occupancy” has really killed business. I’ve whined about it already, but bring it up again to point out that we now have a lot of “free time” on our hands while working. We sit around with out hands in our pockets, chatting with each other. There’s an old business philosophy that goes something along the lines of “time enough to lean, time enough to clean”, but to hell with that. Not for a whopping $3.15 an hour. For that, they buy my presence, and that’s about it. Anyway….., the point here is that we’re sitting around a lot, so we get to spot trouble even faster than before…
Last Friday, we’re standing there, and “Spikey Mikey” (this is actually not a made up blog name to protect the stupid) is railing on about his latest love, when I see potential trouble. A customer is drunk, starting to get rowdy, and trying to start a fight. I come around the bar to “straighten him out” and he whirls on me and tells me that he’s gonna pull out his “9” on me. For those not in the know, that would be street talk for a 9 millimeter pistol, the most common caliber on the market today. I am not terribly concerned, as, generally, those who brag the most about something are the least likely to come through. A hulking gorilla twice your size comes at you, you don’t “talk” about having a gun, you pull it out. In other words, you can usually tell when they are full of shit, and this kid was oozing it…. So I step in closer, get up in his face and get to use a favorite line from a favorite movie. “Go ahead! Skin that smokewagon!” Apparently, I was the only one in the bar that night that had seen “Tombstone”…. Nobody got it. Oh, well, *I* was amused! He made a move like he was reaching into his waistband at his back, and I simply continued the motion and arm-locked him. (I also notice that he was NOT carrying, as per my suspicion.) I hauled him to and through the front door, using his skull to open it for me. It was about this time that the door-guy woke up. The ‘tard tried to come back in and the bouncer rejected him. He stood at the door and made various threats, and said he was going to sue. He then started threatening the bouncer with his “9”, saying he would come back tomorrow night and shoot him. The idiot finally left, after about 5 minutes of idle threats. The bouncer told some wandering police officers about it, and they seemed singularly unconcerned. So much for police protection, but then again, we weren’t terribly concerned ourselves… This kid is apparently some judge’s son, and has been kicked out of almost every bar in Gainesville. Well, buddy, add another to your list of places you are not welcome.
On Sunday, Sheeps and I were having dinner at a local Chinese buffet. This is one of our favorites – not too expensive, and the food is decent. The waiter,. “Sam”, remembers us and our drink order. Kind of nice, yes? Well, there were three girls of “African American” decent eating there. (I find this a silly term, as I probably have as much tie to Africa as they do – at least I’ve been there….) Two of them ran out of the restaurant and jumped into their car and drove off. The third girl stayed behind. I don’t know why she didn’t try to run too…. The staff were complaining to her, in their limited English, about her friends. They were actually fairly calm, but were insistent that they would phone the police. She was screaming at them at the top of her lungs, railing that she wasn’t with them, and that she was being mistreated. The manager rung up someone else’s ticket while she was there, and she started screaming how he was over-charging her and trying to rip HER off! She was making quite a scene. Apparently she’d called her friends and they came back and paid, claiming that they’d just run out to get some money to pay. They were all screaming at the staff, and the first girl refused to pay, in the end. They all left, jumping into the same car (so much for not knowing them…), and speeding off so that the staff couldn’t get their license plate number. If you’re so innocent, what would you have to worry about? Hmmm….?
Now, I am generally not a prejudiced man. I’ll be honest and admit that my family is, to an extent, racist. I can’t really put too much blame on them for it, as they were raised in an era when that was the norm. It was all around them, and it was the way things were. They’ve gotten better over the years, but it still comes out.
Well, these young girls (I refuse to use the term ladies) sort of brought out a bit of racist in me. I hated them for what they did. I hated them for acting the way they did, and especially, I hated them for trying to turn the situation around and make themselves look like the victims. More than anything, I hated them for making Americans look like assholes. Both Sheeps and I apologized several times to Sam. We didn’t want him thinking that all Americans were such jerks. Oh, well, I suppose that we sort of are assholes, compared to the rest of the world, but we certainly didn’t need any help pointing that out!
Last Friday, we’re standing there, and “Spikey Mikey” (this is actually not a made up blog name to protect the stupid) is railing on about his latest love, when I see potential trouble. A customer is drunk, starting to get rowdy, and trying to start a fight. I come around the bar to “straighten him out” and he whirls on me and tells me that he’s gonna pull out his “9” on me. For those not in the know, that would be street talk for a 9 millimeter pistol, the most common caliber on the market today. I am not terribly concerned, as, generally, those who brag the most about something are the least likely to come through. A hulking gorilla twice your size comes at you, you don’t “talk” about having a gun, you pull it out. In other words, you can usually tell when they are full of shit, and this kid was oozing it…. So I step in closer, get up in his face and get to use a favorite line from a favorite movie. “Go ahead! Skin that smokewagon!” Apparently, I was the only one in the bar that night that had seen “Tombstone”…. Nobody got it. Oh, well, *I* was amused! He made a move like he was reaching into his waistband at his back, and I simply continued the motion and arm-locked him. (I also notice that he was NOT carrying, as per my suspicion.) I hauled him to and through the front door, using his skull to open it for me. It was about this time that the door-guy woke up. The ‘tard tried to come back in and the bouncer rejected him. He stood at the door and made various threats, and said he was going to sue. He then started threatening the bouncer with his “9”, saying he would come back tomorrow night and shoot him. The idiot finally left, after about 5 minutes of idle threats. The bouncer told some wandering police officers about it, and they seemed singularly unconcerned. So much for police protection, but then again, we weren’t terribly concerned ourselves… This kid is apparently some judge’s son, and has been kicked out of almost every bar in Gainesville. Well, buddy, add another to your list of places you are not welcome.
On Sunday, Sheeps and I were having dinner at a local Chinese buffet. This is one of our favorites – not too expensive, and the food is decent. The waiter,. “Sam”, remembers us and our drink order. Kind of nice, yes? Well, there were three girls of “African American” decent eating there. (I find this a silly term, as I probably have as much tie to Africa as they do – at least I’ve been there….) Two of them ran out of the restaurant and jumped into their car and drove off. The third girl stayed behind. I don’t know why she didn’t try to run too…. The staff were complaining to her, in their limited English, about her friends. They were actually fairly calm, but were insistent that they would phone the police. She was screaming at them at the top of her lungs, railing that she wasn’t with them, and that she was being mistreated. The manager rung up someone else’s ticket while she was there, and she started screaming how he was over-charging her and trying to rip HER off! She was making quite a scene. Apparently she’d called her friends and they came back and paid, claiming that they’d just run out to get some money to pay. They were all screaming at the staff, and the first girl refused to pay, in the end. They all left, jumping into the same car (so much for not knowing them…), and speeding off so that the staff couldn’t get their license plate number. If you’re so innocent, what would you have to worry about? Hmmm….?
Now, I am generally not a prejudiced man. I’ll be honest and admit that my family is, to an extent, racist. I can’t really put too much blame on them for it, as they were raised in an era when that was the norm. It was all around them, and it was the way things were. They’ve gotten better over the years, but it still comes out.
Well, these young girls (I refuse to use the term ladies) sort of brought out a bit of racist in me. I hated them for what they did. I hated them for acting the way they did, and especially, I hated them for trying to turn the situation around and make themselves look like the victims. More than anything, I hated them for making Americans look like assholes. Both Sheeps and I apologized several times to Sam. We didn’t want him thinking that all Americans were such jerks. Oh, well, I suppose that we sort of are assholes, compared to the rest of the world, but we certainly didn’t need any help pointing that out!
posted by Turtle at 3:05 PM
1 Comments:
FWIW, if you were to teach a year at a typical high school you'd see that the attitude of entitlement and arrogance you witnessed is endemic in many of the younger crowd these days. I know that every generation has railed against the laxity of their decendents, but kids today venerate thuggish behavior regardless of ethnicity.
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