March 29, 2003
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Well, it was chilly riding yesterday, but still fun.
I met up with Milo (one of the bootmakers for Catskill – where I work at fest) at Kieran’s for a pint, some food, and some conversation. His friend Kate was also there. At one point, the conversation turned to the war which made for some interesting discussion. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to really get into it since I had to get to work at G/Z. Sound bites are easy, but meaningless. To really discuss a difference of opinion or perspective takes time.
Ground Zero was a pretty easy night again. One of the bartenders worked on my shoulder for a bit before things got busy so it held through the night. Of all things, washing glasses caused the most pain.
It was a bit strange ’cause I had to deal with a guy who I’m pretty sure was doing drugs. I’m not sure whether to feel like a hypocrite or not. On the one hand, I feel that drugs should be decriminalized, if not fully legalized. It may even be possible that once or twice upon a time I may have sampled a few myself.
On the other hand, he was doing them in my club which puts it at risk and he didn’t even have the decency to keep me from seeing him trying to hide it.
I asked him what he was doing and when he said “nothing”, I told him that he’d better be cool. I went down to let the other bouncer know to keep an eye on him and was watching him pretty carefully. One of his friends noticed my attention and they quickly left. As I went up to tell the door man to not let them back in, his friend came back in to assure me that it was taken care of and they weren’t coming back for the evening.
In discussing it after hours, I guess I actually should have been more challenging to him and made him tell me what he was doing or get out. The general philosophy of bouncing is that you be nice until it is time to not be nice. Learning exactly where that line is will take some time. Still don’t know if I’m security or bar back tonight. We’ll have to wait and see.
I woke up suprisingly early today and got some work done. Joy was on IM for a while, so we got a chance to chat and make plans which was cool. A little later, I got a call from my friend Chris who managed to talk me into slacking a teensy bit and grab a cup of coffee. I met him and his wife, Jan, down at Hard Times. It’s funny, Chris and I game every week or two, but we don’t get the chance to talk much.
We definitely covered the hot topics – politics, war, even a touch on religion. One thing I definitely urged him to do was check out the Project for a New American Century to read up on possible motivations behind what has been going on and plans for the future.
I count myself lucky to have friends who have many different political and ideological beliefs but are willing and able to sit down and discuss. It’s definitely fun chatting with Chris because he’s got to be one of the more stubborn people I know. Scorpios, I tell ya. I’ve swayed him on a thing or two over the years though. He’s returned the favor, of course.
One of the things we definitely agree on is that no one should let the Democrats off the hook on our current international situation. I get frustrated with all the people who more or less seem to be disgruntled that Gore lost, but seem to have forgotten that under Clinton we were bombing Iraq up to three times a week.
After that, I cruised down to the peace rally (where I was pleased to hear at least one speaker remind the crowd about the Democrats complicity in this situation). One of the organizers asked me to speak, but I didn’t have anything prepared, and I didn’t feel like my head was in a good enough place to ad lib something meaningful enough to be worth saying.
It can be frustrating going to rallys because I find that there are always a set of people who I strongly disagree with even though we are both against this war (but for different reasons).
Ah well. I’m sure there were some folks at last saturday’s pro-war rally who didn’t approve of the people yelling “fuck muslims” and booing a woman who, although she supported this war against Saddam, questioned some of our mid-east policies. I guess every movement has those who you’ld prefer weren’t there or would at least shut TF up.
Back at home now. I’ve got to do a little cleaning and a lot of work. Then it is nap time and off to work and then see if I’m going out or going home. Hm. Maybe I should call my parents in there sometime as well.
