#71 September 10, 2013

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"Garden of Eden"

As my loyal 8 readers know by now, the text in these blog posts really doesn't have much to do with the picture posted above.When I started writing this blog, it was more based on the pictures, but as the years wore on and I struggled with the meaning of the drawings and the meaning of the project in general, the text of the blog started looking inward at the restaurant that the drawings are made in. The space of the restaurant, and the inner workings became as important to the drawings as the drawings themselves. I mean, one could exist without the other, but without the restaurant, the drawings would never have come into form. In fact, these drawings represent a perfect storm of opportunity. The restaurant has gone through so many changes in name, ownership, and time, that if it hadn't been for the exact time and scenario that we were able to find ourselves at Cafe Loup, this blog would be about something completely different.
Which brings me to an awesome event that happened a week ago. We were having a normal Friday night at the restaurant, when a table of eight men of varying ages sat down at Table 8. They seemed to be just a normal table of eight, until they revealed who they really were. It turns out that one of the guys at the table was getting married, and this was his "bachelor party," even though his 12 year old nephew was in attendance and he was in his 60's. So, ok, they were having a tame bachelor party. Big deal, right? That sort of thing happens all the time at the Loup, so why was this party special? Well, the guy who was about to get married at one point tells Edie that his parents used to own the restaurant in the 1960's and that he hadn't been back to the restaurant since he was 11 years old! He had the idea to have the bachelor party at the same restaurant that his parents had owned 50 years prior.

Back then, the place was called "Garden of Eden" and it was a glorious downtown restaurant that seems like it thrived in the 1960's. It was then, as it is now, a family run establishment, serving delicious food and drink. The family goes by the name of Monasebian, although they spell it "Monas'bien" on the menu (as you can see in the picture above, depicting the front page of the menu). The Monasebians built the bar, and put a little pool with goldfish and plants in the middle of the dining room! The bar that they built is still that bar that is in the restaurant today. The pool, sadly, is no longer in the dining room. I am pretty sure that it was right in the middle, where Table 24a and 24B are today, and next time I am at the restaurant I am going to see if I can find some traces of the pool.

Mr. Monasebian in the dining room. 1965

The picture above shows Mr. Monasebian in the dining room. The column to his left is still there, although since the picture is so dark, it is hard for me to get my bearing on which direction we are looking. However, you can see the pool to his right, with flowers poking out next to him. 

When his son was in for dinner, they brought with them an old menu from the place and also a bunch of pictures from the dining room and kitchen. Those are the pictures I am showing you all here. We, as the staff, were so interested that we were all huddled around these guys looking at the pictures and menu while our sections sat patiently on a busy Friday night. Tomoyo even gave the guys a tour into the basement (so that she could photocopy the pictures and menu) and they said it was the same as they remembered. In fact, the picture of the kitchen looks incredibly similar.

In the kitchen of "Garden of Eden" 1965

The kitchen of today still has some of the same things in it, from 50 years ago. In this picture, you can see a metal structure hanging from the ceiling with metal hooks hung from it. That thing still hangs in the kitchen now. The shelf behind the head chef is still there and still in use today. You can see a server in the background under a stack of plates. We no longer keep plates there (we do keep pots and pans there), but it seems like that is where one would pick up food, which is the same as today. I admit, that when I first went into the kitchen at Cafe Loup, I was surprised by how small it was. I was then doubly surprised to see how much food could come out of such a small kitchen. But this being New York, you have to make it work with the space you have. Upon seeing this picture, I realized that they were working with the same size kitchen 50 years ago. Not only that, but it was set up the same way! So, these guys figured out how to make such a small space efficient, and it got handed down from owner to owner until today, where it is essentially the same setup now.

Some of the menu from "Garden of Eden" 1965

The menu was a real treat to look at. Not only for the things that they served, but for the prices! 

Prime Rib for $3.95! Coffee for $.35! 

I'm sure these prices were relatively high for the time, but this is New York! And this is Greenwich Village in it's prime (rib)! This was probably a place where you would dress up and take a special date or go with a group for family style dinners. You'd get some steak and some wine and have a grand old time. One of the great things on these menus, besides the food and prices, are the little sayings on the bottom: "Your Presence is a Compliment to Our Restaurant- Haste Ye Back!" That one is great, but the one on the next page, I think we should somehow incorporate into the current menu....

More menu from "Garden of Eden" 1965

"Dinner Without Wine is Like a Day Without Sunshine." 

Truer words have never been written. This whole page is incredible. When the guys showed us this page, it was literally like finding a treasure chest. From the warning that this new-fangled thing called curry is indeed very spicy to the "Shashlik" served on a flaming sword! This place must've been the best! I mean, you could get three lobster tails for $3.95, served with salad and a Baked Idaho potato! So amazing. 

It seems like they also had some special occasions. I don't know for sure, but the next picture looks like there was a buffet every once and a while. I know that at my grandparents place in the 1960's, they used to have a buffet every Sunday evening. It was that way until the 80's, as I remember having to dress up in a little mini suit and tie every Sunday night to dine at the buffet. It was quite an event! This picture certainly reminded me of that time, even down to the chefs tall hat. The only thing that's missing is the decorative Jell-o molds with lobsters in them.

The buffet at "Garden of Eden" 1965

Yes, it looks like the Monasebian's had quite a place. I don't know where this picture of the buffet table was taken, but I have a theory. It seems like the back wall of the restaurant, which would be where Tables 36-40 are now. Now, there is a large banquette there (and photos of Janis and Jimi), and I know that in the place that replaced "Garden of Eden" this was a live room where bands would play. This seems to be that back, and the wall behind the Monasebian's seems to be lined with marble, as you can see a slight reflection of a light fixture just about the chefs hat. I could be wrong, but no matter what, the place looks so 60's glamorous! 

View from the pool. "Garden of Eden" 1965

Finally, here is a picture from across the pool. It depicts Mr. Monasebian seated while his guests put on their furs and prepare to depart for the evening. The pool is in the foreground and you can almost see the goldfish swimming around in it. 

I am not sure when the Monasebian's sold the restaurant. The son, who was celebrating his bachelor party there two Fridays ago said that he hadn't been back to the restaurant in 50 years, so I am guessing they sold the place right round 1965, or so. Maybe not, maybe they kept it until the 70's, who knows. I don't know when it changed hands, as there is nothing about it on the internet that I can find. I even brought that point up a couple of posts ago, lamenting the fact that I didn't know what was in this space in the 1960's. "The Garden of Eden" must have been the first thing in the building, as the building itself was built in the 60's. What I find fascinating is that the place that I know of that replaced "The Garden of Eden" was called "The Bells of Hell." It's so poetic, and so New York. The owners of "The Bells of Hell" must have known the Monasebian's and known about the "Garden of Eden." They must have thought, "Well, we're not going to run a fancy dining room with live goldfish and flaming swords. We're going to run a honkey-tonk rock n' roll bar, so why not take the name in the exact opposite direction?" I think New York business owners of the past thought about that stuff more than they do today. I mean, Cafe Loup got it's name with the same sort of mind-frame, but that's a different story. I like to think that for the past 50 something years, the little space on 13th St. has been both Heavenly and Hellish, and now serves as a kind of space in between the two. A place with both qualities, and now it lives in the body of a wolf, an earth-bound creature that for centuries has been both feared and respected by all those who come in contact with it. A perfect middle ground between Heaven and Hell.

#65 "Happy Campers" In Color!!! June 27, 2013

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Oof. That last post stressed me out!

I was inspired to write a post in the style of a short story instead of a blog post, and for some dumb reason I decided to write about being in the weeds. Well, it was like I was reliving being in the weeds, and the customers were real! Even the guy who tugged on my apron was a real person and I can see his face now! Argh! That is one of the challenging things about this project: I am forced to think about work while not physically at work. One of my favorite parts about being a server and bartender is that when you leave the job, it doesn't go home with you. I don't ever have to work from home. If I am not at the restaurant, I don't have to serve people. It really is a great thing. However, with this project, a little bit of the restaurant is with me all the time here on my computer. I am sure I have mentioned that I rarely draw people I know on these pictures because I don't want to have to think about them when I am at home. Don't get me wrong, Tim and I have inadvertently drawn customers and friends on these drawings before and probably will again, I am just saying that I don't usually do it on purpose. I would feel bad if I drew someone I like on one of these drawings and then all of a sudden, the drawing progresses and that person that I like finds themselves in some crazy scene like the one pictured above. On the other hand, if we draw someone who we don't like very much or who is a difficult customer, then I have to see them, color them in, and make them fit into the crazy scene like the one featured above. That means that I have to spend time with them that I usually would not do. I try to avoid difficult customers. I do not want to hang out with them in my own home in my free time, and they probably feel the same way about me. 

When we do get difficult regular customers at the restaurant, we usually will trade them out. For instance, if you are a problem customer for me, but Mike doesn't mind you, then you will usually have Mike as your server even if you are not sitting in Mike's section. The same goes with me. I will take Edie's problem customers and vice versa and on and on, amen. This makes the night better for everyone, including you. I mean, you don't think that you are a problem customer! You think that you are Cafe Loup's best regular and life of the party! But I am here to tell you that you are someone's problem customer. I think that I am probably someone's problem customer. I walk into a certain bar on a certain night with a certain someone behind the bar and they roll their eyes and say, "darn, that guy is back! Why can't he come in here on my night off?"

It's just part of life. You think you are a good person, a generous person, and a person who is liked by all people and babies and small animals. But you're not. Someone thinks you suck. And I think this happens a lot in restaurants because people who are problem customers don't know that they are being obnoxious a lot of the time. Sometimes it's the alcohol that makes them difficult. Maybe that one night they had a couple too many and started talking crazy to their server. Maybe they were just really hungry that one night and weren't in the mood to small talk and so they got a little snippy with the waitress. Well, whatever it was, your server remembers. 

Being a server is a hard enough job as it is without difficult customers. When I have a full section, which is 12 tables with up to 36 people in my section AT THE SAME TIME, I do not have time to have difficult people. That is 36 people all needing something and all at different times, so I am trying to figure out the timing of getting 36 people one thing at a time. A lot of the time, I have half of those 36 people being regulars who know me, and see that if I do have a full section, they'll be more patient than usual. And yet, with 18 people on my side, all it takes to throw the whole night off is one problem customer. Since the job is all about timing, and making sure everything is landing in the right place, one person making crazy demands or keeping me at the table longer than necessary is a formula for throwing off the entire night. On the other hand, if I mess things up on my end, the same is true. There is a very delicate balance and if as little as one thing disrupts that balance, a good night can turn into a bad night in a matter of literal seconds. 

That is why when you are a problem customer, your server will never forget you. There are people who have been coming to the restaurant for years whose face gives me a visceral reaction of dread and yet I can't even remember how they spited me. They may have done something 10 years ago, and yet, when I see them, I hand them over to Mike or Edie. Yet, even as I say that, I am looking down the pike at future T&J drawings and see more and more real life people making their way into the drawings. However, as you will see in future blog posts, the people who do make it into the drawings come with an interesting story. So, even though they might be awful, at least their story is interesting. Maybe it will be about YOU!

#60 "The Last Days on Krypton" (featuring Stephen Croce) May 22, 2013

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Stephen worked with us for a couple years. I can't remember when he started or when he finished, but I'm going to say that he was at the restaurant for a couple years, which is to say, he was a background player. However, he made a pretty big impact within that short amount of time. There have been bit players who one can't remember now, or if you do remember them, it's with a sigh, and maybe one memory associated with them. Stephen, on the other hand, was a presence. He was (and still is, no doubt) a boisterous, wild man. One of his first shifts, he came in wearing a hat. Who waits tables in a hat? No one said anything to the contrary, so he continued to wear the hat. His mustache was curled on the ends like people were doing back then, and he seemed to be able to pull it off. You see, Stephen had spent the previous 15 years in Paris, living life up to it's full potential, and had come back to New York to become an American again, or something. Who knows why people do anything, anyway. He had known a couple of the people working at Loup back in the 90's, before he left the country for the grand boulevards of the city of lights. So, upon returning, he was set up as one of the gang at the Loup. And he fit in like an old glove that you had lost but found years later in the sofa and were pretty excited to be able to wear again. Everyone at the Loup is a bit of a character. Some people describe it as "The Island of Misfit Toys" from the animated Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer cartoon. That's a pretty apt description of the staff. Everyone is quirky and interesting in their own, special way. And Stephen fit right in. It was like the Loup was the perfect place for him to re-enter American life.  He would come into the restaurant at full steam, taking charge of the dining room with his manic energy. Some people thought he was legitimately crazy, but he was really good at his job. Most of the guests loved him and his wild man antics. When someone had a birthday, he would put a candle into their peach tart and sing to them. And when I say sing, I mean really sing. The dining room would come to a standstill, as this little guy who looked a little like Bob Hoskins and Robin Williams' love child, would belt out the Happy Birthday song in full operatic voice, complete with vibrato and gusto in equal parts. My own father was the subject of this treatment a couple years ago. My dad and nephew have the same birthday and Edie though both were coming in, and so the table was adorned with "Happy 1st Birthday" Lightning McQueen balloons and suddenly, my dad is accosted by the entire staff singing with Stephen in the front, belting out the song. Afterwards, the entire dining room burst into applause, like it was the greatest performance of the song they had ever heard. With a huge grin and bright red face, Stephen beamed in his glory and gave my dad a couple boisterous pats on the back. From behind the bar, the whole scene looked staged and majestic, like an insane scene out of a movie that one can't tell if it's a comedy or some sort of Lynchian nightmare.
Yes, we had a lot of fun. But it wasn't to last. Like most of the cast of characters who exit the Loup, it happens over night and without fanfare. One day they are there and part of the everyday story, and then they are gone and someone will ask about them every once and a while, but for the most part, the show goes on without them. Stephen moved upstate and was commuting into the city for a while before he completely left. The commute started to wear on him, and finally he found a gig upstate so he didn't have to commute anymore. I was pretty bummed out when he finally called it quits. He was a good co-worker and a hard worker when it came right down to it. Yes, he was slightly crazy, and could be over the top every once and a while, but then again, so can I, so we got along famously. He not-so-quietly made it onto the A-Team in his short tenure at the restaurant and would make the place hum on a busy Friday night.
He's still around somewhere, doing something awesome. I like to think of him in his little hat and curly mustache singing an operatic happy birthday song to some disoriented and eventually heart-warmed old lady. You can see him perform in his new band, Painted Blue Sky in and around Kingston, New York. Dude can certainly sing.

#59 "2-5-5-4-7-4-6" July 10, 2013

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This month marks the five year anniversary of the "Tim & Jeremy's Mind on Loup" series. Five years ago, on September 1, 2009, I posted the Very First collaboration drawing that Tim and I had ever done. I am sure there were more before it, but we had never taken the time to bring the drawings home to do anything more with them. In fact, Tim and I had been working together at that point for at least three years, so we could have been doing these things upwards of 8 years, or as long as we have known each other. It would be funny if we had started right from the beginning. In the five years since we started these things, we have made it to a grand total of 105 finished drawings (with countless loose doodles collected by myself, Tim, and Edie). The fact that we are only on number 59 on this blog is a little disheartening to me, as the writer, since that means that I am behind by almost half. Daunting, to say the least. I mean, as the time has gone on, the blog posts have gotten more and more complex, mirroring the artwork. If you go back to the first drawing, it is really just six doodles that seem to come together to form a narrative. It wasn't until years later that the drawings started to become a universe of their own, complete with backgrounds, themes, inside jokes, and substance. The first couple years there were a lot of growing pains, Tim and I both trying to figure out exactly what we were doing with these things. The happy answer is that, to this day, we still don't know what we're doing with these things. We still make them, and have a stack waiting to be finished presently in a drawer at the Cafe Loup. Some are almost ready, some are still in the premature stages, but there are plenty coming down the line. As long as we both work at the Loup in some form or another, these drawings will continue to be made, since when we are spending time there, we are adding, subtracting, and ultimately making more and more artwork. It has become ingrained in the daily life at the Loup. You go to work, you doodle a little bit, you serve hungry guests. Then you have a beer and doodle some more. It's just the way we do things there.
Over the past five years, the progress of both the drawings and the blog have gone through fits and starts. Had it not been for the years 2011 and 2012, I might be caught up with both; however, those two years I was spending my time differently. That time ended up making future T&J's heads and shoulders better than their brethren of 2009-11 (in my opinion). If you look at the early ones, you can see how inept I was at using Photoshop, the program I use to color all of these drawings. I had been using Photoshop since college, but I wasn't really that good at it. I could use the basic tools and even then I was lazy and would cut corners. I look back at those drawings and I want to recolor all of them, but of course I stop myself because they are a time capsule of where my skills were at the time. Taken as a whole, you can see the progression of skill and comfort gained merely by continuing the project. Then, once 2013 comes around, you can see a major transformation. The years 2011 and '12, I spent illustrating children's books that you can find here. Spending the whole year working on these books honed my skills to a whole new level, and it shows in the drawings from 2013. I always like to look back on the past and see that progress has been made, and it is clearest when you look back on artwork that you have created in the past. As an artist, you like to think you are always at your best. There are days and months that you sometimes feel like you are stagnant and doing nothing interesting, but then you look back at the work you did a year ago, three years ago, five years ago, and you see that back then you didn't know half of what you know now and that the quality of work was simply not as good. There are occasions that some of the things you made were good, but I feel like on the whole, you are always improving, or if not improving, then you certainly change. Brush strokes change, line quality, all of it. I mean, when I first started coloring these in Photoshop, I was using a mouse! It wasn't until almost two years later, that I started using a Wacom pen and tablet to color them. That technology changed the whole look instantly. I still use the same pen and tablet as I did then, and I've used the same version of Photoshop this whole time because I'm a cheapskate. But I got comfortable with the technology and so it has influenced the look of these drawings. To my eye, the more recent ones don't look dated to me, even though I am using outdated technology. But I also know for a fact that in a year, three years, and five years down the line I am going to look back on these recent drawings and think that they are very primitive and outdated. But, like the restaurant in which each of these drawings is conceived and created, everything changes while staying the same all at the same time. Tim and I have been drawing pictures on the Triple Dupe pads for 5 years. We'll draw on them again tonight, and tomorrow and on and on. No matter what happens outside of those walls, the drawing will continue as long as we are working within. 

Etsy Store Now Open!!!

Hey everyone!

Now you can own your very own print of "Tim & Jeremy's Mind on Loup!"

I have set up an Etsy store where I am selling prints of all the work you see here on this blog, and even some that haven't been posted yet!

The prints are all printed in the Giclee method, with archival ink on archival paper. This means that the color will never fade and the prints will look just like they do on the computer model. Tim and I printed a bunch out for a show we had recently here in New York, and they look AMAZING (if I do say so myself). If you find yourself in New York in the next couple weeks, check them out at HiFi Bar on Avenue A. If you can't make it there, just click the link below and OWN ONE OF YOUR OWN!!!

We are going to do limited editions of each one. 

If you don't see your favorite one, please message me, and I will make sure to print out the one you like the best. Again, these are fine art prints, not just run off on some regular paper with an ink jet printer. These are museum quality prints that capture the brilliant color and integrity of each piece. 

We are very proud of these prints and are very excited to share them with you!

Collect all 100!

Shop the Etsy Store!

(#95 Pictured Above. Available Now!)

#57 "Happy Hour at the Cafe Loup" May 8, 2013

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There are no real Cafe Loup patrons in this picture. There is one person who is based on a real person, but not a customer. The rest of these characters are from our collective imagination. However, when I posted this on Bookface on May 8, 2013, all of my Loup friends thought they had figured out who was who. I guess on the one hand, you could find similarities to a couple of our customers in some of these fellows, but they just happen to be at the bar. In fact, this one wasn't even located at the Loup until the very end, when I put in the coat room and the clock over there on the far left of the picture. Before that, it was just some random bar in Anytown, U.S.A, although with all those shot glasses littering the bar, it could be anywhere in the world. We always joke about Happy Hour, saying that it's always Happy Hour when someone inquires if we have any specials. I worked in Massachusetts for a long time and you aren't allowed to have happy hours there at all. You can't have happy hours, drink specials, or sell beer in gas stations or after 11 pm or on Sundays (actually, that one got changed) and last call at the bars is at 1am.  It's all from what they call the Blue Laws, which is a fancy name for antiquated Puritanical nonsense. There are Blue Laws in many states and countries that basically force businesses to stay closed on Sunday to observe the sabbath; Massachusetts dates back to the 17th century. You can imagine my surprise when I went to college in New York and found out the bars are open until 4am and you can buy beer pretty much anywhere. I was born in Massachusetts and I have a lot of family from that part of the world, but there are some things about that state that baffle me. I understand that you want to control the amount of alcohol people consume before they do something stupid. I even understand that people in bars at 4am are certainly up to no good. But, if there is one thing I've learned about people and drugs (and alcohol is one of those weirdly and widely accepted drugs), it's that if you want some, you can figure out a way to get it. I learned this in High School, when drinking was taboo, but very common. I learned from a early age that the cool kids went to places like The Field and had parties with beer! This story is as old as teenagers, I'm sure. These kids would find a way to get booze, any kind of booze,and 9 times out of 10 they would succeed. My buddies knew a guy named Basil who would sell them Milwaukee Best cases when they were 16. Kids would lift their parents bottles of booze (which I previously mentioned led to my never drinking of Johnnie Walker Red again). You could always get something if you really wanted it and were determined. It's like that old Chris Rock joke where he says that junkies are the most industrious Americans because they wake up in the gutter and they are high as a Georgia pine by the time they go to sleep.

 Drinking is such an ingrained part of the American Culture. The advertisements for booze come into our homes right through the television. Every magazine has ads for beer and wine and even hard liquor these days. On top of that, people are always discovering new ways to get a buzz. In my lifetime, dozens of new designer drugs have been invented for people to get high from. I know that these are very different from alcohol, but in some ways they are exactly the same. From these designer drugs, all the way down to the caffeine in your daily cup of coffee, drugs are a part of daily American life. You ingest  them in order to change your chemical composition in your brain to feel good and feel different from how you feel without ingesting these things. You take these things to feel happier. You take them at your own Happy Hour. By that logic, when I wake up in morning and have a cup of coffee, that's Happy Hour. When I get off work and have a beer, that's Happy Hour. I guess we were right in our assessment: it really is always Happy Hour at the Cafe Loup.

#56 "Frozen Pool Party" In Color! May 1, 2013

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I love a good cocktail just as much as the next guy. I also love that "cocktail culture" keeps changing. Remembering back to the early Aughts when people were going to fancy Hotel Bars and ordering a $250 bottle of Kettle One just makes me cringe. I realize that people still do this, and in spades, but I like that it is not fashionable now, and when you think of the people who still practice this bad habit, they are thought of as excessive fools. No, we live in a new time, the time of the "craft cocktail." You may have been to a couple places that make them. The bars are usually very dimly lit, the mixologist behind the bar carefully pours the exact amount of ingredients into a tumbler, stirs furiously, slaps a piece of mint or chars the spritz from an orange rind, puts it in the drink and serves it to you, all for the low price of $14 a drink. This is, of course, the extremely over simplified, caricature of what is involved in a craft cocktail. Usually, these men and women who serve this type of drink are extremely knowledgeable about the booze that they are slinging. Their knowledge goes well beyond brand recognition, they are interested in craft booze; small batch liquors and distilleries who use only the finest quality grains, barrels, and customs allowed by law. They're almost like the vegans of the spirits world in the sense that they know exactly what is going into the drink, and making damn sure there is no secret ingredients (added caramel for color? I think not!). I think that this trend is a great thing for the world. People should be more knowledgeable about what is going into their bodies, especially when it comes to alcohol. My whole adult life, I haven't really cared what I was drinking, so long as it had something in it to get me to where I was going. Granted, I had things that I didn't like, or things that I had had a bad experience with, but I would drink almost anything. I don't really like gin, but it's been years since I drank it, so I don't even know if that is true anymore. I used to not like scotch because of an incident with Johnnie Walker Red back in my teenage years. In fact, I was physically unable to even smell the stuff until well into my 20's. However, I work in a restaurant where it is my job to serve these beverages, so I got over it; I actually enjoy single malt scotch very much these days. 

All this being said, the restaurant where Tim and I work is not a craft cocktail bar. If the craft cocktail bars of the world want to be seen as the filet mignons, we are more of the meat and potato stew variety. Does that mean that our cocktails are bad? No way! We have some of the best drinks in New York City; they are huge, they are cheap, and they are cold. What more could you want out of a beverage? Seriously though, our bar caters to a lot of old people, so the drinks are old fashioned, literally. We make Martinis, Manhattans, Cosmopolitans, Old Fashions, Gimlets and Gibsons more often than not. Even the youngsters that come in don't want something fancy, they want Vodka Red Bull, which we don't have (we toyed with the idea of Jaegermeister but never sold any of it). I grew up in an old persons bar, and I was trained there as well, so this kind of old school bar tending is what I know. There is a certain charm in it, and when the going gets tough, I can make a lot of drinks in a short amount of time. Craft cocktails are meant to be made slow and enjoyed slowly as well. You don't shoot these drinks, although sometimes they are so delicious, you would like to, but then you remember that they're 14 bucks a pop and you chill out and sip the thing like a normal person and not some alcoholic menace that you really are. In that case, you come down to our restaurant and have a pint glass full of gin that we call a martini, charge you $12, and send you stumbling into the streets. Because, at the end of the day, people drink alcohol because it gets you drunk. Sure, you can dress it up with all the best ingredients, make the drink with a song and a dance, but at the end of the day, you just want something that's going to make you feel good.

#55 "A Day at the Beach" April 24, 2013

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I don't remember dropping off my resume to the restaurant. I know that I must have been dropping off a lot of them that day and somehow this one caught the eye of our old manager. He liked the very last line of the "Special Skills" part in which I stated, "likes to take naps." I didn't find this out for a couple of years, but that was the line that sealed the deal. I got the call to work there at one of the lowest points of my professional career. I was on an open call in Times Square at the WWE themed restaurant. You might be thinking, "there's no such restaurant like that in Times Square," and you would be right. However, in the winter of 2002, there certainly was that restaurant and me and 1,000 other people were applying for a job there. I waited in line for an hour and a half, maybe longer. It was brutal. The whole time I was standing there in this cattle call, I knew I didn't even want the job. The longer I was in line, the more this became evident, until finally I was at a desk, talking to a manager. I don't remember any of the interview, but I do know I was so angry about the whole thing that I probably gave a horrible interview. I never got a call back from them, and they ended up closing the place down less than a year later. However, when I left that hideous place, I had a voicemail from the manager at my restaurant. It said that I should come in for an interview the next day. I did just that and got the job, starting the day after that. I was pretty excited about this prospect as I hadn't had a steady job in months. I had been doing some freelance art stuff, but I didn't have a steady income and I was broke. I moved to New York right after 9/11 and so the job market was pretty bleak, hence actually considering a job in a chain restaurant owned by a Wrestling Entertainment group. So, on my first day at the restaurant, I got there early and decided to make a good impression. I listened carefully to my co-workers about how to do the setup and what side work was required. I helped them do all of this, and then it was time for our staff meal. One of the best parts about working in food service is getting a staff meal and a staff drink. A lot of the time, the meals are actually quite good, and this being New York, quite inexpensive. Since I had about $5 to my name at that point, I was thrilled that the restaurant offered this delicious perk. And then I went back into the kitchen to see what it was. It was brains. The restaurant serves calves brains every once in a while as a special. The old folks love it because not too many restaurants serve brains any more and this harkens back to the good old days when you ate every part of the animal. I think they will be making a comeback sooner than later as part of this "farm to table" movement where all these trendy restaurants are trying to outdo each other with crazy dishes using often overlooked parts of the animal. So, we're ahead of the curve, because we've probably been serving brains since the 70's. So, on my first day, we had taken the brains off the menu and put them in a big metal bowl under the heat lamps for us to eat, along with some rice and vegetables. My new co-workers said things like, "you don't have to eat that if you don't want to," and the like, but I wanted to prove that as a new guy on the team, I was up for any challenge. And so, I plopped a couple calves brains on my plate, got a scoop of rice and headed out into the dining room for my first staff meal with my new friends. One of the other waiters got a bowl of ice cream and the other waitress had something else, and as I sat down and picked up my fork and knife, the two of them stared at me in giddy excitement. I felt like they were saying, "oh my gosh he's really going to eat it." Which, I found out later, they were. But I soldiered on, and ate one of the brains. If you have never eaten brains, let me briefly tell you about them, from what I can remember. They taste like fish flavored pudding. I think that the way we prepare them for customers must make them taste better, but I was given plain brains, on a plate with a side of rice. This was also 12 years ago. I am pretty sure I haven't eaten brains since then, although I do plan on doing so some day in the future. It would be poetic if the next time I had them was on my last day, but I feel like that will be 20 years in the future and who knows if there will even be calves in that distant world. Starting any new job can be scary and awkward, but then sometimes you have to eat brains on top of everything else. I guess it's a testament to the place, that even after that crazy first day, I am still working there.

#53 "All Hands" In Color! January 14, 2013

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Yelp is a great website and every once in a while when we are bored at work, we'll bring up the Yelp reviews of the restaurant and read all the bad reviews. The bad ones are way more entertaining than the good ones, so we try to figure out who these people are and who served them. It's a fun game and it passes the time, but fortunately we get mostly good reviews. However, there are some really passionate people out there who love the things they love and HATE the things they HATE and are more than happy to post them on Yelp. Take, for example, our friend Mison L. from Hawaii. She really hates the restaurant. 

So, here is her review in full for your cringeworthy enjoyment.

"I HATE this place. HATE! It was bad from start to end with rude, inattentive and snappy waiters to someone eating our leftovers and us not finding out until we opened the containers up the next day. 

This is food that is something that got whipped out of my OWN kitchen. Basic spices, BORING rice, PLAIN yams, and 3 unseasoned broccoli... we ordered the chicken breast and duckling entrees. The duck was covered in some sweet and sour glaze!! It was straight out of the kitchen of some Chinese restaurant!

The waiter was a dick. He's older with glasses and a silly face. He also behaved like he was on cocaine or speed. We had already ordered from someone else when he came by and dropped another pair of menus, which was just confusing because the other waiter acted like he was going to serve us. Then he rambled ON AND ON AND ON about what we had already heard from the first waiter until I cut him off and told him that we had already ordered. 

"You already ordered?" He asked with a SASSY ASS tone.

"Yes."

"What did you order?" He did this weird nod.

"WHO CARES? Go and ask your friend." 

And then he had the nerve to ask in the most condescending way, "are you okay?"

"Are YOU okay?" I snapped. Buffoon, just get our food. 

He did give us a complementary order of fries because the duck would take so long... I wish I had eaten more fries. 

That duck was plain Jane and the meal can overall be described as "hearty." Who wants HEARTY French food? It was something I expected out of Medival England. 

Oh yeah, we were never served again. I had to stand up for the check. We didn't even want to finish our food so we had it to go and this morning we learned that someone had eaten half of our leftover portions before packing them. WHAT A BUNCH OF LOSERS. 

I HATE this awful place."

-Mison L.

I copied and pasted straight from Yelp. You can read more of this person's reviews if you want but this one sums up all the bad ones pretty well. We all think we know who her waiter was but when she accuses us of eating her leftover, that's just the best part. First of all, we are fed quite well most days at the restaurant, and most of us have worked there for a very long time and have had everything on the menu many times. For us to eat leftovers when we could simply order anything we want is just crazy talk. However, if this person knew how much we all love this review at the restaurant, I think they would be even more angry about the place. We read this review every once and a while just for a laugh like you would tell a joke. In fact, when we're having a stressful night, Edie and I sometimes quote the first line, and we both know that it came from this review, and not out of a dark place in our souls. The icing on the cake of this review is the last part calling us losers. It is so fitting because we call ourselves and everyone who comes to the restaurant Loupsers, since that's the way the word "loup" is pronounced in french. So, this person somehow knew what we are, or we started calling everyone loupsers after this review. Who nows which came first, but I never thought I would love something this negative before. 

It just goes to show you that one persons hate is another one's love. 

"Mind on Loup" Art Show Opening Tonight!

Join Tim and I tonight to celebrate our first Art Opening!

We are showing three prints (T&J #68, #74, and #77) at HiFi Bar on Avenue A in Manhattan this evening as part of the Launch Show. There is a lot of great art on the walls and we'll be partying and having a couple beverages. Thank you to all of our friends who are putting on the show and thank you to everyone who have been there since the beginning of this crazy project. It's been a fun trip!

#53 "All Hands" January 14, 2013

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“There are only patterns, patterns on top of patterns, patterns that affect other patterns. Patterns hidden by patterns. Patterns within patterns. If you watch close, history does nothing but repeat itself. What we call chaos is just patterns we haven’t recognized. What we call random is just patterns we can’t decipher. what we can’t understand we call nonsense. What we can’t read we call gibberish. There is no free will. There are no variables.”

-Chuck Palahniuk, Survivor

I never read Chuck Palahniuk, but I did see the movie "Fight Club" which he wrote, so there is that.
I liked the quote and put it in this blog because I feel like I talk about patterns a lot when talking about the restaurant. Not patterns so much as time and relativity. But there are nothing but patterns at the restaurant. At the most base, there is the pattern of opening every day at noon and closing every evening at midnight. From there, the patterns become smaller and more intricate until there are the patterns on top of patterns and the ones that have not revealed themselves yet because they are too small (or too big) to see. I have been working at the restaurant for 13 years now. That is an obscenely long time to work in a restaurant, and by modern standards, an obscenely long time to work anywhere. In those 13 years I have seen many people come and go. I have watched kids grow up and I have watched people die. I have seen families made, and I have seen marriages dissolve. There are a lot of the same people working there as when I started, even though it seems like the whole crew is new. After all these years, I am still not even close to being the senior member of the team. Besides the owners, who have been a part of the team since 1977, there are people who have worked there since the 80's. A lot of the kitchen staff has been there since the 80's, a bartender from the old location (also the 80's), and a waiter or two going on 25 years on the job. This shows the loyalty of a select group of people, but it also shows that the restaurant is a comfortable place to make a living for these people.
This pattern of comfort is probably the main reason so many of these people stay at the restaurant for so long. I know that this comfort is the reason I have stayed for so long. My life outside the restaurant has been in constant flux since getting the job so many years ago, and the restaurant remains the only fixed thing in this state of constant change. Well, there are other constants, but job security is certainly a priority to many people, and I think that I am one of them. I have had my issues with the place over the years, and during the "dark times" I was extremely close to leaving all together. However, I persevered, lived through big changes at the place that I thought I might not be able to work through, and came out on the other side still working there. Them, a couple years later, when my outside life changed completely, the restaurant was almost literally the only thing that did not change in my life at the time. I contemplated moving out of New York at that time, for a truly fresh start, but I think that the restaurant helped me stay anchored to New York in a way that had I been working somewhere else may not have happened. Of course, comfort leads to complacency for the most part. If you don't have to fight for something, you end up resting on your laurels and becoming stagnant. I believe that to be true artistically and all, but in a restaurant? Every day in the restaurant you have to deal with new and exciting food allergies, trendy drinks, tourists, and a whole slew of new and different problems. All the while, playing out the same old pattern of food service in downtown Manhattan. Being stagnant in a restaurant job can certainly drive people crazy. I have seen it happen ad continue to see people slowly (or in some cases, fairly rapidly) deteriorate into madness. But then the comfort of schedule, the certainty of a steady paycheck, the easy familiarity of the place pulls a lot of these people back into normalcy, or something approaching this state.
The pattern of the restaurant lifestyle looks so laid back and easy from the outside. I think this is why the majority of people in the U.S. view waiters as people who have second jobs and other careers. This is true in many cases, but for some, it is a job that pays the bills, puts their kids through school, and is like any other job, only with stranger hours. I think in America, too many people think that jobs define a person. But the bottom line is that everyone needs money, so why should anyone care how you get that money if your life is fulfilling outside of that job?
I think there is a pattern in there somewhere.

#50 "A Question Isn't Answered" January 12, 2012

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Who knows how this one started?
Actually, I think I know. Tim and I were working together one night and once the rush and flow of customers had died down to a trickle of thirsty bar regulars, we sat down on Table 8 with a couple of dupe pads. This was one of them. It's the same old story. In fact, that is kind of how all of these drawings got their start. I mean, these drawings start at all kinds of different points within the restaurant; some at the bar, some in the kitchen, some at the waiter station, but their history starts at Table 8. When I first started working at the restaurant, I drew pictures on that table every night, only minus the dupe pads. Long before Tim had a job there, me and the other waiters and waitresses would sit down at Table 8 and drink a beer and order some food. Back then, the kitchen would actually cook us dinner at about 11 o'clock. We would all sit down and split some escargot or a bowl of mussels, and eat and drink until all of the customers were gone and it was time for us to clean up and go home. In those days though, we didn't even bus the table, but would leave all of our empty glasses for the poor fool who was working the lunch shift the following day. Can you believe that? It's incredible to even think about it. And these were the days when you could still smoke in the restaurants in New York, so you know there were cigarette butts in everything. The smell alone must have been something else the next day. But that kind of thing was not only allowed, it was accepted by the people who had to clean it up! Granted, I was that person every once and a while, as I worked lunch a lot more back in those days when I was just a youngster and low on the totem pole. It wasn't until years later that the boss cracked down on us ordering food late night and making a mess on Table 8 that we didn't clean up. If we made a mess now, it was to be cleaned up before we left. That's only fair when you think about it. In fact, the old way seems incredibly disrespectful to whoever had to work the next day. But, "that was the way it was," and that mantra has left so many things in the restaurant the same way for years, for good or ill. However, back in those heady days of seemingly unlimited free food and booze, while we were sitting around discussing the finer points of life, I would sit on Table 8 and doodle on the table cloth. Well, not on the actual cloth, we have paper that is placed over the cloths so that they last a little longer than just one night. I'm sure you've seen a similar setup in some restaurant somewhere along the way. So, I would sit there and draw picture after picture on the butcher paper that covered the entire table. Sometimes they were really great drawings and I wanted to take them home and sometimes they were just a bunch of crap thrown together complete with butter and wine stains. I wish I had kept a couple of them, but for the most part, they are all gone now. Lost among all of the other lost things from those days. I can't remember any of them now, and at the time I never thought they were worth keeping, even the good ones. I might have a couple of the good ones around here in my apartment, but they're either buried in some box somewhere or they were tossed in all of my moves since I started working at the restaurant. At any rate, once Tim and I started in on the Triple Dupes, the drawings on the table cloth paper continued to feel unimportant next to the Dupe Pad drawings that would eventually be displayed here and on Bookface. In a way, they were the genesis of this project since there was a sort of collaboration with everyone sitting at the table, whether they were actively participating in the drawing, doodling at their own seat, or simply spilling some sort of food product onto the paper. Everyone contributed. Flash forward a couple of years and Tim and I are sitting on Table 8 with a couple of Dupe Pads in front of us and we're stumped on what to draw. So, instead of drawing something, we just covered this one with random marks and lines until it was busy with them. Then, for the next couple of days we found all of these characters and images within the lines we had slashed down on that first night at Table 8. The random chaos of those lines turned into this drawing that you see above this rambling paragraph. All of the lines eventually turned into shapes that the brain can read as recognizable things that seem to go together to create some sort of story. And it all got started right there on Table 8. Julian always wanted to write a book entitled, "Table 8" and have all of the crazy stories that were told there compiled into one, neat, hard covered book. I'm sad that never happened because I feel like now, as with the drawings, those stories have gone and moved on to the next phase, lingering only in the air around an unassuming table in Greenwich Village.

#48 "The Last Macy's Day Parade" December 14, 2011 in Color!

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I have always loved Thanksgiving and in New York, it is indeed a special day. When I was a kid, I would go to my grandparents house and we would have a bunch of people over for breakfast. The menu would be entirely made up of different types of pie. My grandfather liked mince meat and pecan pie. I liked apple and pumpkin. The house would be full of people and everyone would be milling around, eating pie, and watching the parade on TV. Eventually, I grew up and as a teenager, I may have slept through the parade every year, but gotten up for the pie. Then, when I moved to New York, I couldn't wait for Thanksgiving to actually see the parade in person. I know, it's pretty hokey and the crowds are insane, but this was a thing I had been seeing on TV my whole life, and now I finally lived in New York City and I could walk out my door and see the spectacle in person. I was also videotaping everything at the time, so giant balloons floating down Broadway was just the thing for me. I must say, the parade does not disappoint. It is an absolutely crazy experience in person. The fact that there are a million people watching it makes it all the more exciting (albeit slightly annoying at times). The marching bands culled from all over the country blaring their marches, the semi-famous and super famous people and their intricate floats; it's all an incredible display. Granted, it is all basically just a prelude to Black Friday these days, gearing all the consumers up to get great deals at midnight at Macy's. The original idea behind the parade was for all of the newly acclimated immigrants who worked at Macy's to celebrate their new American heritage. But even then, it was really just a publicity stunt for Macy's itself. Over the years, it has become the largest Thanksgiving parade in the nation, and is the one that is on television every Thanksgiving at 9 in the morning. When I first went to it, I was propelled by the sense of irony that I felt towards this event. I have always thought that the balloons are aesthetically pleasing objects and are more than the sum of their parts as most of them are giant advertisements for toys or other products. However, though pleasing to the eye, I thought the whole event was really the worst part of Capitalism, namely the commodification of something that should hold special significance to the country. Thanksgiving, after all, is a day to reflect on all of the good things that one has in life. That is a great reason to celebrate! You are not dead! You should be happy about that, at least. The Parade, I thought, took all of that and threw it out the window, replacing it with a three hour long advertisement for "The World's Largest Department Store" and the things in sold within it's avenue-long walls. But then I attended the event in person. It actually was a celebration of the good things in life! Fun times, music, dancing, people working together to create something for others, community; all of these things were represented and I was so excited about it. It was one of those times where you are so cynical about something, and it surprises you and turns your frown upside down and shows you that, although you might still be right about the broader social implications, at the heart of the event, it is still a parade and parades are supposed to be FUN! Now that I have attended the Parade numerous times over the past 10 years, my next goal for the Thanksgiving Day Parade is to be in it. I would like to hold one of the balloons and march down the street in a "Clifford the Big Red Dog" outfit on and be part of the action. I would like to be on one of the floats with Selena Gomez and throw out candy to all the kids who come in with their parents from Long Island and Westchester at six in the morning. Someday that's going to happen and I will wave to all of you watching on TV, eating your pie for breakfast.

#48 "The Last Macy's Day Parade" December 14, 2011

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This busy monstrosity was started by one of our customers. Not the drawing, but the character that it inspired. Can you guess which one? No, it's not the Satan-like character with the baby head, although we do have some customers who resemble that remark. It could almost be the guy next to him with the mustache. That guy kind of looks like my friend Brew Dude's dad, and we actually have a customer who looks exactly like Brew Dude's dad but he happens to be black. So, not his dad, but I do always text Brew Dude when his "black dad" comes in. I want them to meet someday and see if they are really related. So, anyway, the inspirational character is the woman on the left with the bandaged nose. That actual woman came into the restaurant sometime in the late autumn of 2011 and sat in my section and I drew her in between taking her order, giving her some drinks, and eventually the check. Since we are located in New York City, and Greenwich in general, we have a lot of wealthy customers coming in to eat and drink at the restaurant. A lot of these customers are getting on in age and have enough money to "fix" themselves with various forms of cosmetic surgery. This poor woman came into the restaurant not an hour out of getting a nose job, I am almost positive. Her face was all puffed up, her lips had been botoxed, she had two black eyes (since they have to break the nose to make the new one) and bandages upon bandages on her nose. You're probably thinking, maybe she just fell down and you are judging her to be a face altering, nose-job getting, vanity case. To that I say, you might not be wrong! She may have passed out on the subway platform onto the tracks and was rescued just in the nick of time by a handsome fire fighter who was off duty and leaped down onto the tracks to scoop her up and whisk her off to safety only to break her nose and black both of her eyes in the process on account of the fire fighter being so devastatingly handsome and strong. This could also have happened and I am a mean person for thinking otherwise, and then actually gone ahead and drawn her whilst also serving her food. However, this is New York City and we are living in the modern times. These are the times of constant video and camera surveillance from Big Brother and Little Brother alike. Everyone has an iPhone and they are constantly taking pictures of people and things out in the world that make it up on the internet without the subject ever knowing it. Everyday on the internet people are posting pictures of sleeping people on the subway and random fashion mistakes on the sidewalk. We have become a nation of paparazzi. In fact, there was that guy who live tweeted a breakup that he overheard on a rooftop in Brooklyn this week and it got picked up by news organizations all over the world! People have been calling New York the "naked city" for decades now because of the lack of privacy. Nowadays, with all this social technology, the lack of privacy has grown exponentially, but it has always been this way in New York. You can hear your neighbors above and below you. You can see into the windows of your neighbors across the street. You hear people telling other people all kinds of crazy things on cellphones on the street, and overhear people telling insane stories at obnoxious levels in restaurants. The City is basically like a Chat Roulette every five feet that you walk down the sidewalk. I say all of this just to justify drawing a picture of a person who came in to dine at the place where I work. It is not the first time I have done that and it certainly was not the last, and if I had never said anything about the subject, you would think that all the characters are being harnessed from my mentally insane imagination. However, art imitates life, and life imitates the internet these days, so I guess I'm going to be drawing a lot more zeros and ones. 

#45 "Fever Dream" November 17, 2011

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Nostalgia is a powerful feeling. Sometimes you can remember lyrics to a song you haven't heard in fifteen years, or a certain smell will transport you instantly into the deep past. Miriam Webster describes nostalgia as homesickness or "a wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for returning to or of some past period or irrecoverable condition." The second definition is aptly applied to many people who patronize and work at the Cafe Loup. The Loup serves a large portion of Greenwich Village's elderly population who have lived in the neighborhood since the 60's or before. Every night you hear people talking bout the history of New York and the history of the neighborhood. For a culture that doesn't care that much about history, (since ours is so new, and also because America is obsessed with the newest thing and the future) Cafe Loup customers and employees are obsessed with New York's recent history. People always ask how long the restaurant has been open, what was in the space beforehand, where it was originally, who used to own the place, and on and on ad nauseam. The Loup is actually the perfect place to have these conversations because it is actually a place that has no clear place in time. If, for some reason, no one was using their cell phones on a given night, one might think they have travelled back to the 90's, or even further. There are no computer screens, our cash register is the old pre-60's kind with all the great big push buttons. The bar itself is older than I am and the decor is black and white photos from Brassai and Irving Penn. It has a timeless quality that instantly makes people feel nostalgic. A lot of times I will engage in these conversations by answering questions about the past for customers, but a lot of the time, I get very frustrated about this constant harkening back to the old days. Don't get me wrong, I love listening to Jay tell stories of New York in the 1960's and beyond. I love New York history, and the history of America in general; I find it fascinating and have always agreed with George Santayana's famous quote, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." But there is a difference between forgetting the past, and being obnoxiously vocally nostalgic about it. Mixing alcohol and nostalgia is sometimes a warm and fuzzy place with fond memories and great stories. It is also a place of bitter resentment for the present and a rose colored version of a past that was probably just as bleak and depressing as the present that one is lashing out against. You might know what I'm talking about, people saying things like, "New York was so much better when it was dangerous." and "New York has lost all of it's edginess." People who say these things and things like them are always so bitter. I understand that they have a certain amount of pride in surviving New York in it's horribly gritty heyday, but just because I wasn't living here/ alive at the time, doesn't mean I'm not a New Yorker. Yes, I would have liked to see the Velvet Underground at Max's. Yes, I would've loved to see the Talking Heads and Television at CBGB's, but I didn't. I can imagine it and read about it and listen to the live recordings, and that's it. Having lived in New York for 11 years now, I am sometimes nostalgic for the New York of 2001, but that is a rarity. I am happy with what New York has become, and I am happy with my life as it coincides with New York's life trajectory. I guess those people who are so violently nostalgic really are homesick. They have become unmoored and feel that the life they are living now may not be their own; that this place, while resembling something from the past, is not, in fact, their real home. They were home in the past, and this time in their life is mysterious and menacing, making them uncomfortable and bitter. They escape to the past to try and grasp the notion of home, while the memories of that time grow more and more abstract while at the same time more comforting. I always think that these people should leave New York, if this modern incarnation upsets them so much, but then I think about the rest of America, and how foreign it feels to people who are used to the frantic pace of New York. Someone who lived in New York for so many years would be completely lost outside of the city, and so instead, they stay here and come to the Cafe Loup and bitch about how everything used to be great and how everything now is awful. Maybe one day it will all come full circle for them and they will find their home again. Until then, the Cafe Loup is open seven days a week (except on the 4th of July).

#44 "Shakespeare In The Park" In color! November 7, 2011

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In the last blog post, I talked about how all the characters pictured here are really actors or audience members at a performance of a work of Shakespeare being put on in the park. Well, now it has color and who knows what it's about now. I think we can leave the title as is, although I'm not that convinced of my argument about the characters of Billy Shake being portrayed here. This looks more like one of those "Celebrate Brooklyn" concerts they put on each summer, where things sometimes get out of hand. At least the band showed up this time. Music is an important part of life at the Cafe Loup. I have said that in this blog before but I am just reminding you. That is why I am always bringing up Cafe Loup: The Musical. Some day, I hope someone from the place writes the Musical version of life at the Loup. Sara used to talk about writing a book called Table 8 that would be all about the adventures of the employees of the Loup. The stories would be told sitting around Table 8 like in the old days when we sat at that table every night after our shift. We rarely sit there any more; it's one of the lost practices of the old team. As much as I think that a Table 8 book idea is a good one, I think The Musical would be better. Sometimes when we're all bored at work we try to cast The Musical. It's a fun activity and if you have never  thought about who would play you in the movie of your life, now is the time to act as the casting director, and get someone to play you. Everyone looks kind of like a celebrity, so everyone could be cast in the movie. The old ladies at my old job used to say I looked like James Woods which is cool and everything since he's a bad ass, but he's my dad's age. So he could play the old version of me when I am still working at the Loup in 2030 and this blog has 16 followers instead of 8. I don't know who could play me, but I like to think that my boy Justin Timberlake might be able to harness the crazy in me. That, and he's a dream boat so who wouldn't want him to portray them in the movie version of the The Musical. We have even cast some of the regulars, because The Musical wouldn't be complete without some of the regulars. I mean, they are the reason the place stays open in the first place, so they might as well get at least a little cameo. As for Tim, that one is really tricky. Granted, casting JTLake as myself is kind of insane since I don't really look like him besides the fact that we are both 30 something white boys, but I'm casting this movie dammit. I have Tim narrowed down to a couple dudes, but I am going to have to have them come in and read some lines before I can really settle on one. I am between Matthew Fox (Jack from Lost), Justin Theroux (from Mullholland Drive and Aniston's baby father), and James Franco (from Rise of the Planet of the Apes:). Now, Mr. Fox kind of looks like Tim if you put some glasses on him and made him grow his hair longer than a buzz cut, but what about his chops as an actor? Is he going to be able to give the performance we want from him? Theroux has proven his acting chops in movies like American Psycho and Mullholland Drive, but he seems somehow not exactly right. Maybe he's not edgy enough. I think Franco could certainly pull it off, but haven't we reached the Franco Saturation point by now? Yes, we have; however, maybe this role would bag him an Oscar and we could finally be rid of him (for a couple of years until he starts directing). So, all of you people who don't know what Tim and I look like, there is a small frame of reference. We look like those dudes. Cool right? The Loup is full of hunks.
So, since I cast Tim and I, I feel obligated to cast the rest of the Cafe Loup staff, and maybe some regulars. So, without further ado, here is Jeremy's Cafe Loup: The Musical casting.

Cast (In order of Appearance)

Llyod- Jeff Bridges
Ardes- Annette Benning
Bernardo-
Ociel- Peter Dinklage
Jose Perez-
Segundo- Jackie Chan
Jay- Alfred Molina
Dien- Chun Yao Fat
Sara- Julianne Moore
Frank- Tony Hale
Mike-
Marcel-
Sue-
Jerry-
Tomyo- Bai Ling
Jose Gonzales-
Jeremy- Justin Timberlake
Draman- Djimon Hounsou
Tim- James Franco
Edie- Ginnifer Goodwin
Gary-
Phil- The Lorax
Laird- Phillip Seymour Hoffman
Javier- Shrek
Alex- Dave Navarro
Victor-
Gayle-
Noel-
Richard- Robert Duval
Rebecca-
Liz-
Tommy-
Allan- Michael Caine

(Ok, I couldn't cast the whole thing. Here's a partial list for now...)

#43 "Two Twenty Two in the Garden of Eden" in Color October 26, 2011

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This one was posted right after my birthday in 2011. I must have been working on the coloring for a while because I know I wasn't working on it on my actual birthday. That was what I now call my "burger birthday." The night before, I had gone out and stayed out late with a couple buddies and my friend Andy Nauss ended up crashing at my house. The next morning we got up and were both in the mood for burgers. We went over to the Cafe Colette and each had a burger. Their burgers are incredibly underrated. In fact, they are the perfect breakfast burger; sweet, savory, and with the "special sauce," perfect! As you may or may not know, breakfast also doubles as lunch for me, so my next meal would be dinner. I went over to my friends house in Carroll Gardens and invited a bunch of people over for a cookout and birthday activities (drinking and smoking). We ended up getting burgers and grilling them out on the porch. I said something like, "funny, this is the second burger I've had today." and Tim looked at me and smiled a huge smile. The reason for his giant grin would become apparent all too soon. After everyone was fully noshed and setting in for the old food coma, out came the birthday cake, which was in the shape of a giant cheeseburger! My friends had gone out and gotten the cake without the knowledge of my breakfast choice, and had simply gotten the cheeseburger cake because of its absurdity. Obviously I loved it, but when everyone found out that I had only eaten burgers on that particular day, it became truly funny and poignant. I don't want you to think that I only eat burgers, although I do love them. At the Loup I have one about once a month, and sometimes actually crave a Cafe Loup burger. They are pretty darn good, some say the best burger in New York City. While high in the running (top twenty at least) I think best in NYC is a bit of a stretch. I think Best Burger on 13th Street is a better assessment. However, they are delicious. I can never eat a whole burger there anymore though. I will usually get one and cut it into quarters and share with whomever is working that night, doling out quarters. I can eat three quarters tops, and that's if no one really feels like sharing, but I find that half of the burger is more than sufficient to my needs.
I remember this picture taking a long time to color in. There is a lot of action happening and a lot of intricate little characters. The thing on the left I tried to keep the same color from the spilled bitters on the faces of the people growing out of the alien head. That also goes for the little "world dog" over on the right. They are different colors because we used two different kinds of bitters for those stains. This was when we were staining the dupe pads with bitters to add some color and also as a motivational tool. There's nothing like some randomness to help spurn creativity. You might have done that activity in your high school art class. The teacher would've asked you to draw completely random things, possibly without looking, then make you find some sort of shape in the randomness and turn it into something you can grasp. I remember liking that activity although now I think that most people will see what they always see, like in a Rorschach picture. I always draw faces, so I would probably will a face out of the chaos. Maybe not, sometimes when I look at the clouds I see monkeys on jet-skis and bears on the couch. I guess if I looked at any of these things today, I would see a cheeseburger. I bet you all a quarter that we will have burgers for staff meal tonight at the Cafe Loup.
I'll keep you updated.

#43 "Two Twenty Two in the Garden of Eden" October 26, 2011

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These drawings that Tim and I do are an exercise in randomness. The drawings are done over the course of a couple days, weeks, and sometimes months. We only work on them at the restaurant, and then only when we have some extra time or are inspired by something or another. In this one, we dripped two different kinds of bitters onto the Triple Dupe Pad and then drew the characters from the spots. After a couple passes at the drawing, there is still never a true narrative and as I have said a couple times on this blog. Sometimes there never is one true narrative. The viewer can make up their own story about what is happening in the drawings. So, the fact that this one is about the Garden of Eden is completely arbitrary. It could be about space aliens invading the earth or about how Jim Morrison defended the Alamo from a horde of Mexican robot animals. It's really all about being random. I think that people need to categorize randomness into something that they can understand. No one really likes randomness because it makes them feel out of control, like they are not the master of their reality. I guess I am like this as well, since I am always trying to steer these drawings into something cohesive instead of just a random bunch of lines and spots on a Triple Dupe Pad, which they are. Finding the meaning in these drawings is almost impossible because they are done by two people over the course of a long time who maybe don't know what they are thinking about when they are drawing these pictures. So, later on, once they are finished, I take them home and conjure up a meaning for them in my head and give meaning to them through their title. I am almost positive that neither Tim nor I were thinking about the Garden of Eden in the least respect while drawing this picture. I know I was not. However, there are the two central figures, nude (but for a hat) in the middle of an incredible variety of animals, many of whom are no longer living and have been extinct since the time of Eden. These two people, though small, bring the picture together as an allegorical Eden. Had they not been right in the middle of the composition, or in it at all, the picture would almost certainly be about something else. Take them out in your mind and you see a bunch of animals, some monstrous multi-headed beast, and some clouds over a landscape. I am also sure that if some people of the church saw this, they would certainly call it sacrilegious. They would say that it looks more like The Garden Of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch, signifying man's decline and descent into hell. Our greatest bar regular, Richard always says that Tim and I are the modern versions of Bosch anyway, so that would be okay with me. I always liked that painting; it was so weird and so different from what was happening in art at the time. Western Art was completely devoted to the church and except for portraits of rich people, was the only art form accepted at the time. Bosch was pretty much the first Surrealist, although you could argue that all religious art is surreal since it is depictions of invisible divine figures who have never been seen by the artists. In that sense, the artists had to imagine what these gods looked like, maybe dreaming about them, thus making them Surrealists as well.  Anyway, I did a little research about the Garden of Eden and according to the King James version, Genesis 2:22 is when god makes Eve out of the rib of Adam. So I thought that this would be the time of day that this picture takes place. So this picture is exactly what was happening at 2:22 on October 26, 0. Or would this be year Negative One? I think year 0 is cooler, so we're going to leave it at that. Okay? Good.