#69 In Color!!! August 27, 2013

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The Cafe Loup art collection is pretty amazing. In the last post I wrote about the artists who are shown at the Loup with whom I had or have a personal relationship with. This time around, I am highlighting the more famous of the bunch, most of whom are no longer producing art on account of no longer being alive. I think only one of them is still among the living.
Talking about the art at the Loup, one must start with Brassai. He is essentially the image of the Loup (notwithstanding the Loup's shadow puppet logo) and his work embodies the spirit of what the Loup achieves to be. There are about a dozen photographs of his adorning the walls of the dining room. They range from his photos of transvestites, to the cops on the beat, to portraits of Picasso and Matisse. We have a couple different photos of his on the back of our dessert menu and on the front of our wine cards. [Quick side note: Sean Lennon used to live on the block and would come in quite often. One time him and Yoko came in and I waited on them. He drew a picture of one of the girls from the Brassai photograph on the wine card. When he left, I took the drawing home. So, I now own an original Lennon drawing (of a Brassai photograph, drawn at the Loup. So meta).] I like all of the Brassai's we have in the dining room. I like his style. Being a night person, I can relate to his fascination with Paris at night, especially in the 30's. Obviously, that is why he is so famous. Pre-war Paris is just about the most romantic thing you could think of, and Brassai captured it better than anyone. My favorite piece we have by him is just above Table 12. There are a couple pictures there. One of them is of a couple on a bed in a brothel. Above that is a woman relaxing at the opium den. Whenever I have a couple of people sitting there who are being indecisive or just slow at ordering, I look up at this photograph and I am instantly calmed. The woman is so stoned, it's amazing. There's a little cat with her that is probably equally as high just from the contact buzz. Compositionally, I think there are better ones, but I just like how mellow this one is. It is truly a comforting thing when I am completely in the weeds or stressed out. The woman is essentially saying to me, "This, too, will pass."

Brassai 

The most famous picture we have at the Loup is this next one, by the late Irving Penn. It is prominently displayed between Table 10 and Table 11 right up front. This is a great picture. It's called "Doug" and it is a portrait of the then leader of the Hell's Angels. I really love this piece and I look at it a lot. When you are surrounded by art all the time, sometimes you overlook it or take it for granted and it becomes part of the background. This one never does that. The steely gaze of this Doug character is so arresting, it commands attention. That, and dude's hair is epic. Penn did a shoot for Look magazine in 1967 photographing the hippies and Hell's Angel's of San Francisco's burgeoning hippie scene. He shot The Grateful Dead that day as well. His description is probably better than anything I could write about it, so here it is:

"During the photographing the hippies and the rock groups surprised me with their degree of concentration. Their eyes remained riveted on the camera lens; they were patient and gentle. The distracted quality which I feared would be typical of this new kind of person was not a problem at all.

The Angels were something else again. They were like coiled springs ready to fly loose and make trouble. Being inside a building with their precious bikes (and the wives and children I had asked them to bring) frustrated their natural tendency to smash up the place and do mischief. The delays and provocations were endless. Still, the hypnotic lens of the camera and the confinement of the studio held them in check long enough for the pictures to be made. When the experience was over and their screaming bikes went down the road, I breathed [the] deepest sigh."

Irving Penn "Doug" 1967

The next piece was bought by Lloyd himself, which is a little different, since most of the collection was bought by the previous owners, Bruce and Roxanne Bethany. As long as I have worked at the Loup, the front alcove has been adorned with a bulletin board where artists can pin up their gallery opening invitations. There are a lot of them on there from way back (I noticed one yesterday from April 2000!). But, on the board, right up front is a poster for the opening of an exhibit by the artist Eugene Von Bruenchenhein. This guy was an "outsider" artist and was never famous in his life time. He was a baker from Milwakee, Wisconsin. When he was done baking for the day, he and his wife/muse Marie would make art. Photo shoots, drawings, paintings, and essentially installations were constructed and executed. When he died, thousands of pieces were left behind, including thousands of these pin-up style portraits of his wife Marie. On the poster on the bulletin board, poor Marie's breasts have been poked though by a decades worth of push-pins, but she remains cheerfully staring out at all of coming and going guests. A couple years ago, Lloyd finally bought one of these photographs after being obsessed with them (and the poster) for years. I couldn't find the exact one that hangs in the restaurant, but the one below seems to be from the same time period/photo shoot. To see the actual piece, you'll have to come in sometime and sit up front at Table 11. It's proudly placed right beside the Penn. Lloyd was so happy when he brought it in and showed it to me for the first time. He was grinning from ear to ear and as he hung it on the wall he said to me , "Not bad for a baker's wife, eh, Junior?"

Eugene Von Bruenchenhein

This next piece is by the only living artist in this post. It is a print by the Irish artist John Kindness. Besides having an awesome last name, this guy's print is pretty sweet. It hangs in the back, by Table 36, so it has a soft spot in my heart. When I was new at the Loup, the back section was always mine. It is the easiest section, on some levels, so all the new people start out back there. I was back there for a couple years, and I got to know this picture pretty well. It's pretty simple; just a rubber ducky and the ducky's interior bone structure. Pretty simple, but that is what I like about it. We serve a delicious duck dish at the restaurant, so I think it's fitting that this little fellow commands the back corner. In fact, there is a little shrine dedicated to ducks in that back corner. There is a duck pull toy, and depending on the day, there is even a little duck toy that looks just like the one depicted in the picture. It may have been stolen though. That happens sometimes. Anyway, this guy lived in New York for a while in the 90's, so I bet that's when the Bethany's picked this one up. I could be wrong though. It is certainly the most playful of all the art at the Loup.

John Kindness

"Cocteau In Bed With Mask, Paris 1927" by Berenice Abbott hangs above Table 18. This is one of Abbott's early works, before she moved to Greenwich Village in 1935. She is most known for her work once she moved to New York. However, when she was living in Paris, she became famous, and her portraiture was a veritable "Who's Who" of the Parisian art scene. She had moved there in the 20's and started working with Man Ray. She must have known Brassai as they were working side by side at the time, and both in Paris. In this portrait, the artist, playwright, writer, and overall eccentric Jean Cocteau is seen "sleeping" with a mask. I've always liked this piece, as it is surreal without being over the top. I don't know what Cocteau's hands look like, and I have always imagined these hands to be someone else's. I am not sure if that is true, but they certainly look like they could belong to another person; a woman, perhaps? Anyway, I am also fascinated by the fact that she would have him "sleeping" like this, since he was such an active artist and socialite. Maybe it is because he never slept, and so it was funny to them to portray him in this manner. At any rate, it's an interesting piece even though at first glance it seems so simple. Another fun tidbit; this Cocteau character looks a lot like our handsome bar tender, Jay Milite! They could be cousins! Check out the similarities next time you are in on a Friday or Saturday evening.

Berenice Abbott

Dorothy Dehner's print hangs over Table 5 on the column right in front of the bar. She was an artist who lived in New York from the late twenties until her death in the 1994. She was mainly a sculptor, but she studied printmaking with Stanley William Hayter at Atlier 17. He was working on a technique he called "simultaneous color printing" which is what we see here, even though Dehner uses color sparingly. I studied printmaking in college and have given this piece the old college critique plenty of times. What stood out to me initially was the dirty edges. That was always such a sore subject in my classes that it was burned into my head to always, always, clean the edges of the plate before running it through the press. However, Dorothy never learned that lesson, or if she did, she ignored it and printed it with some filthy edges. Using the "simultaneous color printing" method, she inked up this plate (probably copper) with black ink into the grooves that she had etched, and then rolled on the red to the raised surface of the plate and then ran it through the press. This poor piece gets moved around a lot. It is on the blind side of the column, so when people come in and sit down at Table 5 with a bulky coat or backpack, the piece gets jostled. There are even marks on the wall that show the history of the constant movement, which is a bit of a shame since this woman has work hanging in MoMA.

Dorothy Dehner

Finally, we have "Mirror" by George Tooker. Another print in this same edition has a home in the Smithsonian, but you can see it just down the street at the Loup! Tooker was an American artist living in New York during the second half of the 20th century. He was well respected in his time as an artist and had shows (and work in the collections of ) MoMA, the Whitney and other prominent institutions. This lithograph hangs above Table 43 in the back of the restaurant. Unless you are sitting at Position 3, the print goes largely unnoticed, even though it is right there on the wall. I think this is because how the banquette at Table 43 is positioned. It's too bad that it's not more noticeable, although I like this place for this piece. It's a nice reminder of ones mortality while taking orders from a table of 25.

George Tooker "Mirror" 1978

The Cafe Loup has so much more art, and shows so many more artists than just these that I have mentioned. One of these days, I will find The List and give you more of a glimpse into the extensive collection at the Loup. I mean, I didn't even get into the sculptures. I guess I will leave that for another time. Until then, make sure you come down and visit. We'll have Jay Milite mix us up a couple grapefruit margaritas and we'll talk art!

#69 August 27, 2013

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This is a blog about art at work, and yet I have never really focused on the incredible art collection of the Cafe Loup. I have mentioned that we have a great photography collection, but I haven't gone into the detail of the fantastic works that are housed in that small section of 13th Street.
The majority of the collection was amassed by the original owners, Bruce and Roxanne Bethany. They had been collecting for some time, and put their favorites(?) inside the Loup. They bought some and some were gifts, by artists who frequented the establishment or who were friends. When they sold the place to Lloyd and Ardes in 1995, the collection stayed.
The first artist who is also a regular that comes to mind is Nancy Grossman. She still comes into the restaurant and likes to sit underneath her collage at Table 25. You have seen it if you ever came in to watch the jazz on Sundays; it hangs right behind the musicians. Grossman has worked in many different media, including leather dominatrix masks with horns and zippers. Her piece in the Loup is a little more tame, a collage made specifically for the Loup that includes the matchbooks we used to have. I can't find any pictures of it on the web, but it is similar to her collage pictured below. She even uses the circles seen on the bottom of this piece in her piece at the Loup. We used to have a large table there instead of two small ones and a piano. That used to be in my section and I spent a lot of time looking at that piece. The average amount of time that people look at a piece of art is 17 seconds. I looked at that one (and a lot of the work at the Loup) for a overall total of 17 hours. At least.

Another former guest who donated a couple pictures was the late Jim Marshall. He was a boisterous guy who would come in arm in arm with models two feet taller that he was. Broken nose, raspy voice and drinking scotch, he would control the room while at the same time being a very genial and respectful guy. In his day, he photographed all of the jazz and rock greats from the 60's until just before he died in 2010. You have no doubt seen his iconic rock 'n roll photography if you have ever opened a Rolling Stone, or just about any other publication dealing with rock. We have a couple of his prints; Janis, Jimi, Chet, Woody Allen (stoically watching over the bar), Elia Kazan, and Coltrane, but my favorite is Miles. I love that Jim got these pictures of Miles outside of the place where we usually are used to seeing him. There is no trumpet in sight, in fact, if you didn't know it was Miles, you just might think it was a picture of a boxer. But no, it's one of the greatest performers of all time. In a boxing ring.
In a fun "small world" moment, Jim and I shared a funny little story. My band, Project Jenny, Project Jan was on tour and we were playing a bunch of shows on the Left Coast. One of the stops we were playing was The Independent in San Francisco and we were staying with our friend Mike Winger. We met up with Mike as soon as we got into town and he brought us to his house. He lived in this big old San Francisco house on the upper floor. As we were climbing the stair of the front porch, I saw a sign on the mail slot of the lower level of the house that read, "Mail for JIM MARSHALL ONLY." I jokingly said, "Oh, I know that guy, the famous rock n' roll photographer." and Mike turned to me and said, "You know him?" It turned out that it was the same Jim Marshall! He and Mike were good friends as they had been living literally on top of one another for years. Mike had a bunch of prints that were given to him as gifts and Jim had even taken the Winger family portrait for their Christmas cards! I loved it. The next time I saw Jim in New York I told him the whole story and we had a good laugh over the small worldliness of it all. Now that I think of it, that may have been the last time the two of us spoke, as he died less than a year after that.

 Ken Heyman also gave us a couple pieces, one of them very recently. Ken is in his 80's now but still finds time to come in for lunch every once and a while. Him and Tim are good friends as Tim usually takes care of him when he comes in for martinis and oysters (and curiously sits under Nancy Grossman's collage). He has two pieces at the Loup. One is above Table 11, and depicts skinny-dippers at Woodstock. The other is of Ernest Hemingway, prominently hanging over the piano. I had the pleasure of waiting on him one time and he told me the story of how he got the photograph, as Hemingway was exiled in Cuba at the time and was very grumpy about people taking his picture. Ken was a youngster at the time (this being 1957) and was visiting his friend in Cuba. His friend in the U.S, when learning he was going to Cuba bet him he couldn't find Hemingway and photograph him. So Ken took that as a challenge, and upon arriving to Cuba, decided to seek out Mr. Hemingway. He found his villa after asking around and went up to visit him. At first, Hemingway blew him off, but the invited Ken to go fishing the next day. Ken didn't know where to find Hemingway on his boat, so he never went fishing, but the day after, Ken showed up at the house again and this time wouldn't leave without a picture. He hung out in his car, in which he had a transistor radio, which he was playing to pass the time. After a while, Hemingway came out and finally invited Ken to come inside. Ken asked if he could take some pictures of Hemingway, and he responded with something like, "All the most famous photographers in the world want to take my picture, why should I let you (some kid) get the chance?" But Ken had the transistor radio, and legend has it that he traded Hemingway the radio to take a couple pictures of him. The result now hangs over the piano at the Cafe Loup.

It also kind of looks like the current owner, and head chef, Lloyd. Many people think that it is Lloyd until you tell them that it is, in fact, one of America's greatest writers.
In the next post I will go into more detail about the collection, but I thought this was a good place to start. All of the artists mentioned here I have actually interacted with and have some sort of relationship with. The other artists in our collection are either dead or not having dinner with us that often.

#68 "Make Your Wish" In Color! August 9, 2013

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I am not a writer.
When I started writing these blog posts almost 5 years ago, it was really just to showcase the drawings. I was only posting the drawings on Bookface before posting them here, and in Bookface there was no description of the drawings, how they were conceived, or any information at all except the number of the drawing. We didn't even name them on there, it would just show up one day as "Tim & Jeremy's Mind on Loup #68!!!" Usually with three exclamation points. When number one hundred was posted, I used all caps. No one cared.
As the blog posts seemed to get longer and longer I also started thinking about them differently. Originally, I would make a couple comments about the drawings themselves, but then I started thinking about the restaurant more. Since these drawings are all done in the restaurant, during the operating hours of service, I thought that it would be more fun for my 8 regular readers to get a glimpse of life within the restaurant.
The Loup is, after all, a strange and magical place. It has been at 105 W. 13th St. since 1989, and was conceived a decade earlier in a different location also on 13th St. Since that time, it has become a neighborhood staple. Regulars know they can come in any time for comfort food and strong, delicious martinis. It is a safe haven for artists and celebrities, who know they can show up and dine unmolested by tourists or people looking for autographs. And then there is the literary aspect. When the restaurant was first opened in 1977 by Bruce and Roxanne Bethany, they decided to court the literary community. They decided that if the place was full of writers, the rest of the world would follow. They were right. Writers of all types have haunted, and still haunt the walls of the Cafe Loup. From Salman Rushdie and Christopher Hitchens' wild late nights, to young unknown poets struggling to buy a pint, the restaurant has been a comfort zone and meeting spot to an entire generation (or two) of New York literati.
Of course I had no idea about any of that when I walked through the doors in 2002 and handed someone my resume. For me, it was off a convenient subway line, it was in a cool neighborhood, and it was a on a block with a bunch of other restaurants so it was easy for me to walk up and down the block dropping off resumes. At the time, I had been unemployed for months and so I would go out every day looking for jobs wherever I could. I was cold-calling places, like the Loup; I was going on mass cattle calls that I found in the back section of the Village Voice, and any other method I could think of to get a job; any job. So when I got the call from the Loup, I was just happy to get a call back. I didn't care if it was a Village Institution. I didn't care if it was a Writer's Bar. I was just happy to get a full schedule and the ability to pay my rent. It wasn't until much later that I realized the respect and admiration the people of New York felt for this little restaurant. I was always a little jealous of the regulars because they had this incredible place to go night after night and interact with all these interesting people. Later on I realized that I was not only part of that, I was helping to continue the tradition of making it people's favorite spot. Cafe Loup was my regular bar, and I got paid to be at it. It was a wonderful revelation, and even though I do have some favorite regular places outside of the Loup (aka work), I still consider it my regular place.
I went off on that tangent to let you know about the restaurant a little, although I am sure I have written all of that in some form or another throughout this blog sometime in the past. The original point of this blog post was going to be me going on a self deprecating rant about how I am not a writer, or how I don't describe myself as a writer. I write this blog out of a weird compulsion to continue writing about these drawings in relation to the restaurant that they were created in. It really is compulsory in that I have no motive, I have no goal in mind for the drawings or for the text that accompanies them. Tim and I have talked about making them into a book someday, and maybe some of this text could be included somewhere in there, but that is not the motivating force for me to continue writing. The truth is, I don't know why I keep writing these things. I think it might be a way of processing the work experience and trying to convey it in a clear and concise manner that helps me understand my past 13 years at this establishment. Not that it is important or even very interesting. Maybe I am trying to defend to myself my employment at a place for such a long period of time, even though working at the Loup has given me the freedom that I moved to New York for in the first place. I needed a place that was steady where I could work while pursuing my other interests, which have been incredibly varied in the decade and a half that I have called New York my home.
So, when you read these posts, I hope you enjoy them, but also know that I am almost writing them as a diary that I might look at some day to help me  remember this time and place in my own history. I always say that in an ever-changing world, at least the Cafe Loup stays the same. I sincerely hope that it stays the same forever, but I know that it won't. Some day it will be a Duane-Reade with a Starbucks kiosk in it, and the Cafe Loup name will be in every mall in America as a "New York style French Bistro." Then, you and I will be able to come back and read all of these blog posts and remember a time that was, of people that were, and a special place in the middle of it all. And we can all laugh at all of my typos, run-on sentences, and basic inability to write in the English language. Until then, I'll see you at the Loup!

#68 "Make Your Wish" August 9, 2013

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Bad Co-Workers

Everyone has bad co-workers. Maybe you have one or more at your place of business. Maybe you are the bad co-worker and you don't know it. Sometimes it is hard to see yourself as others see you, and when you do the same job over and over, you tend not to notice the small things that you are doing that can be incredibly annoying to the ones working around you. I was that guy once.

I had been working in New York for three years at that point. Working in any kitchen is going to be an education of swear words in at least two languages, but in New York it is brought to the next dimension. I could barely put an order in the kitchen without insulting someone or having to defend my girlfriend, mom, and all of my female cousins and aunties. So, I decided to take some time off and go work at my mom's restaurant where the pace was a little slower. I was working there for about a month, when my mom pulled me aside and said we needed to have a little chat. I literally did not know what it was about. So, we sat down and she said essentially, "I am going to have to fire you if you don't start treating the kitchen staff with a little more respect." Now, the staff at the time was my cousins and my brother-in-law on the grill. Not exactly people who I was aiming to piss off. As my mom was having this conversation, I looked back on my behavior from the last month and I realized I had been treating these guys like the kitchen in New York had been treating me. And I realized that I had gone full circle and was now the bad co-worker. These guys, my own family, had taken it upon themselves to complain to my own mother about my behavior. Then, my own mother threatened to fire me because of my bad attitude. I was amazed because I hadn't even realized what I was doing.  I had gone from one kitchen to the next thinking that all kitchens must run this way, and they run on insults and negative vibes. I mean, I should have known better, I had worked in plenty of kitchens before, and not all of them were so dysfunctional. And, to give credit where credit is due, that dysfunctional kitchen was pretty darn functional. We put out an insane amount of dinners with a small staff and an even smaller kitchen, and night after night, they went out without a hitch. These guys had the thing down to a science. And maybe that was why they were always so nasty; they were just bored. Yeah, they could serve up 200 dinners every night 300 days a week, but so what? Let's talk shit about your new haircut! What ever the reason, it had rubbed off on me and I was continuing the cycle of negativity. But I vowed to break the cycle and be more aware of my actions, and lo and behold I wasn't fired. That was the turning point for me to be a better co-worker though, that's for sure. Never again would I step into a situation thinking that I could get by on the actions I had been getting by with prior to that situation.

Not like I am always the greatest co-worker to this day. I am still a pain in the neck, like everyone else, but I try my best to stay positive in the work environment. The way I look at it these days is this: I am only at the job a finite number of hours in the week; why not try to make those hours as pleasant as possible by keeping a positive mental attitude. It's not always easy when you are stressed out, hungry, overworked, broke, and tired. In fact, it's hard to stay positive anywhere, and the last place you think that is possible is in the workplace; a place you don't really want to be but kind of have to be or else you'll be traveling the countryside with a polka-dotted bag tied to a stick. I find that copious amounts of coffee help, and then at a certain time of the evening, a glass of wine does wonders. We call it, "The Attitude Adjustment." So, what I'm saying is that I need medication to stay sane in the workplace. Haha. This entire project grew partly because literally keeping ones head down and pushing through the shift was sometimes the best way to cope with unsavory co-workers. It became so much more, but that was certainly one of the original reasons for the project.

Of course, all this talk about positive mental attitude goes out the window when you are working with truly terrible co-workers. It's hard to stay positive when someone you work with is actually costing you money. Once you cross the threshold of being annoying to the next level of actively harming your co-workers financially, then maybe it is time to look in to another line of work, or at least another place of business. And yet, people stay at the same job far after they've overstayed their welcome. I am probably one of them! I wrote in the last blog post about my brunch colleagues and I not getting along all that well. A sane person would've said, "Well, it's been three years and this person still doesn't like me, maybe I should look for a new job." But I stuck it out for another 10 years! I outlasted the people who didn't like me, or I grew on them so much that they ended up, if not liking me, than at least tolerating me enough to work alongside me for another handful of years.
So, I guess the takeaway is that there are always bad co-workers and you just have to try not to be one of them. As far as the guys in the kitchen are concerned; I still work with half of the original crew. We still go back and forth with each other, but after working together for 13 years, it has become more of a secret language than insults. When a new person is introduced onto the scene, all we have to do is say one word, and the whole crew ends up laughing. Except, of course, the poor new dude.

#67 "Otto's Summer Vacation" In Color! August 6, 2013

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For one reason or another, I remember starting this one (or at least adding the strange baldish woman[?] in pink) on Mother's Day 2011. How can I even remember that, you ask? Well, the answer to your question is that I have no idea how I can remember drawing a specific drawing on a specific date nearly four years ago. My memory is not that great, to tell you the truth. I blame it on years of hard living, and the fact that so much happens to a person living in New York City that it gets harder and harder to remember things. As one living in NYC, you are constantly being bombarded with sensory experiences. Just getting to work, you are surrounded by people, noise, movement, showtime, traffic, and of course, more movement. Add in a fair amount of partying, and you can easily forget what you just did two nights ago. Of course, you can go back and really concentrate on what you've been doing with yourself for the past week, but to go back and remember what you did on a random Tuesday last month, or Mother's Day in 2011? That seems difficult.
However, I know that I started drawing that woman[?] on that day. Here's the story.
Let's back up to when I first started working at the Loup 13 years ago. I had to work Sunday brunch for the first 5 years I worked there, as far as I can remember. It was a brutal shift. I was in my 20's and I was going out all the time. Having to be at work and functional on a Sunday morning was the last thing I wanted to be doing, but I had to pay my dues. We were never really that busy during brunch, so it would have been fine, but for some of my co-workers who certainly did not like me when I first started. They would make my already dreary mornings a living hell. And so we worked together for 5 years, eventually becoming "friends" in the process; actually a couple people who could tolerate each others company while working together. So, it was right around this time that Lloyd decided brunch needed a face lift and added jazz to the mix. So now, even to this day, the Loup has Sunday jazz brunch. At that time, we also dabbled in the idea of having jazz three nights a week  with The Junior Mance Trio. Junior didn't really like that gig, and so now we have the Trio every Sunday evening. That is worth coming in for. As I have probably mentioned before, Junior is a legend, and to see him at such an intimate venue is a treat that you can't get anymore virtually anywhere else in the world. Jazz brunch, on the other had, is like punishment. Thankfully for me, I only overlapped with the jazz brunch for a very short amount of time, and so I got to have the experience, and then be happy in the knowledge that I didn't have to work it anymore. However, sometimes people are out of town and need to have their shifts covered. I will happily cover shifts for my co-workers; even Sunday brunch, albeit grudgingly.
So, that's what happened on Mother's Day 2011. Tomoyo must have been in Japan or something and I picked up her Mother's Day brunch shift along with my Sunday night bar shift, making for a Mother's Day that we ended up calling "Your Mother's Day." ("no, your mother's day!") I like to party and I like the ponies, and The Kentucky Derby happened to fall on the day before Mother's Day that year. So the day before, I was down in West Chester, Pennsylvania watching the Derby with some friends of mine. A couple of us knew that we had to come back to the city first thing on Sunday, so we didn't party that hard. Just kidding. We woke up on Mother's Day and three of us slogged into my boy Cramer's Mini Cooper. I was in the best shape, so I drove. Cramer promptly curled up in the back seat and passed out, while Gabrus and I laughed our way to New York.
Once I got to work and had my coffee, the Mother's Day crowd started filing in. We weren't particularly busy, and so I started drawing this picture. The band was playing and my drawing was the closest thing I could do to tune them out. But, right around the time I was finishing up the woman[?] that's when the torture started. The band leader's wife got up and started singing. She does this sometimes, and it is pure insanity. Her song choice is nuts, her tone is deaf, and it creates a sound not unlike fingernails on a chalkboard. Of course, this is just my opinion and who am I to judge? So, I start tensing up and then it all goes to hell once she goes into her second number. I can't tell what the melody is until she launches into the first verse. "Chicks and ducks and geese better scurry..." Yes, she was singing "Surrey with the Fringe on Top" from Oklahoma. But in the jazzy mood.
I couldn't handle it. The song broke something in my brain. I dropped my pen and went out from behind the bar and out of the restaurant, letting the waiters know that it was a self-serve bar for at least the time it took for this song to be over.
So, did we get to the bottom of this? I think we did. I think I remember that I started this drawing on Mother's Day 2011 because I went through a traumatic experience that day, and because of that, I remember the exact origin of this slightly unnerving drawing. The brain can work in mysterious ways. In fact, even though we know that we have a brain and it controls everything we do as humans, we have very limited knowledge about how it actually works. So chalk this one up as another unexplained little nugget of mystery. It's funny too, because the more I stare into the black eyes of that woman[?], the more it reminds of those dark days of working brunch, where the coffee is never full enough, the eggs are never fluffy enough, and the Bloody Mary's never have enough booze.

#67 "Otto's Summer Vacation" August 6, 2013

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I had been sitting on this blog post for a while, and now it has come back to bite me in the buttocks. I should have written a nice puff piece about Syracuse University athletics. I should have written about my lifelong fandom of Syracuse football, basketball, and lacrosse. I should have listed all my favorite basketball teams, players and eras. But I didn't. I waited too long, and now this picture has been convicted by the University to be illegal enough to warrant banning this year's basketball team from the post season.
For those of you who don't follow men's college basketball, Syracuse has had a very good team every year since I was a child. Growing up in Syracuse, the basketball team helped everyone get through brutal winters and gave us something to cheer about in those dark times. I grew up and moved away from Syracuse, but my fandom stayed with me, until it reached it's peak in 2003 when Syracuse won the National Championship game with Carmello Anthony, Gerry McNamara, and a whole bunch of talented young men and a swagger that would have taken them to the Promised Land again the next year, had Carmello not gone Pro. Since then, I still watch numerous games throughout the year, and always watch The Cuse in The Tournament. Not only to I watch and cheer them on in the Tournament, when I fill out my brackets, I always have them winning the whole enchilada. Some people tell me that the method I use is insane and will never win me any money, but hear me out. If I won some money on my brackets one year and I had The Cuse not winning, it would be a hollow victory. Second, and more of a nightmare for me, is what if The Cuse did win and I had picked someone else to win it all over The Cuse? How would I live with myself?! For the rest of my life, I would say, "Yes, I am happy we won it all that year, but you'll never believe I picked Loyola to win it all!" Bonehead move! So, I always have them winning the whole thing, and I have only seen that happen once. It's not as crazy as it sounds, either. The Cuse is usually ranked in the top ten every year, so the probability of them winning the whole thing each year is actually pretty good. Better than Loyola's chances, for instance.
So, this year, Syracuse is on probation and it's 2014-2015 season is shot. The Seniors won't be able to play in the Post-season at all this year. The reason why is pictured above. That's right, Otto the Orange is a degenerate druggie. No, actually, the real reason is way more boring. It's about possible manipulation of grades, hours that interns were given, and other boring things that all Universities with huge football and basketball programs do, but only some are getting caught or being made examples of. I wish they were on probation because of Otto's weed abuse. Otto was born to The Cuse in 1980. Prior to that, the mascot was an indian, or "Saltine Warrior," since Syracuse was once known as The Salt City. Native Americans successfully petitioned against the Saltine Warrior in 1978, and the mascot was dropped from the University. They went through one more iteration before Otto came on the scene. Then, Otto wasn't an "official" mascot of the University until 1995. It was around this time that Otto started smoking pot. You see, the team was really good back then, and Otto was a little nervous about becoming "Official." So, he started smoking grass, and he really liked it. This continued for fifteen years, and what a great span of time that was! A National Title game in 1996, a victory in 2003, the longest (and greatest?) game ever in 2009, and so many great young kids to smoke with! Well, the NCAA caught wind of what Otto was up to on off days and after the crowds had left The Dome for the night and they were not happy. They started hounding the University until finally they had no choice but to self-impose a post season ban. Otto, of course, is devastated, as he always travels with the team in the post season. Upon hearing the news, Otto invited the whole team to his little cave underneath The Dome for one last killer session before giving up marijuana forever.
Or, until next summer.
Until then, you can see Otto cheering on his beloved Orange at home games from now until the season ends in March. Then, we'll pack up this miserable season and get on with our lives, eagerly awaiting next year's hopefully "Probation-free" year. As for the Cuse-free tournament this year; I might still have the Cuse win the whole thing. Sure, they won't actually be in the running, but I bet they still have better odds of winning it over Loyola.