#66 "The Dirty Shirty Gang" July 17, 2013

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Being a server or bartender in America, you are dependent on the system of tipping. We make a hourly wage, but it is the minimum wage, so in New York, it comes to about $5.00 an hour. That's double what waiters are making in 19 states, the lowest being $2.13 an hour to wait tables. That is not a lot of money, to say the least, so we depend on the system of tipping. A lot of people are against this system and think it should be abolished completely, with servers then making a salary like any other profession. I am of the school of thought that this is not going to happen any time soon, as it is not something that anyone ever thinks about unless they are working in the restaurant business. People who have never worked in a restaurant know that they have to tip, and so many times it becomes a power trip for them, or a discriminatory act. Some people hold the tip over their servers head nearly from the get-go, saying some things like, "we're going to be a pain in the ass, but we leave good tips." Other people warn you, usually in a joking manner, like when you spill a little water, or worse, some of the drink; "That's coming out of your tip!" It seems to me that at the end of the night, the tips have a way of equalling out, so you'll get those awful tips, but then you'll have some great tippers, so the two offset.
There are some instances in which the tip is entirely lost because of the way people divide up the tip. These days, most people pay by credit card. I don't mind this although our tips are then taxed, but most places these days also collect the cash tips at the end of the night and put it all in the pot so it's all taxed anyway. This is not the case at our place, so our cash tips are tax free. Again, since most people don't pay cash, or tip in cash, this money is usually just a couple bucks here and there; enough to buy a round of drinks, essentially. What really irks me though, and this was the point of this rant, is when people divide the check between each other using cash and credit card, because the majority of these people do it incorrectly. I am here to let you know the incorrect method and hope that in the future, you and your friends will divide it better. So, the incorrect way, and the way that is most commonly seen is as such. Two (or more) people will be dividing the check, I will come over to the table and one of them will hand me a bunch of cash, a card or two, and say, "put the rest on the card." That is incorrect! What usually happens in this case is, I do just that; I count the cash (9 times out of 10 it is more than half of the bill because people are "adding on the tip" as part of their cash payment) and then I run the card. Most times, I pick up the credit card slip and the tip that has been left is only counting the money on the credit card slip, so I am only being tipped on half of the bill. This happens all the time. For some reason, people don't understand that this is happening. They think that since the cash payer "included" the tip in their part of the bill that we are going to get that "extra" money as a tip. But, when someone asks to "put the rest on the card" they obviously know how much they owe. So, if you take out the cash tip, and put more money on the card, they accuse you of overcharging. Some of the time, the people who are paying with credit cards will leave the right amount for the tip, but most of the time, in this scenario, the waiter gets half of the tip that is standard. If the credit card payer is a lousy tipper, then it is sometimes even less.
The correct way of doing this is so achingly simple, it makes me crazy each and every time I get the line, "put the rest on the card." Before I get to that, let me just preface this statement with the following. I realize that not everyone who comes into the restaurant has a lot of money on their debit card. I realize that a lot of the people paying with credit cards are behind on their payments and drowning in debt. I understand all of this. But, this does not excuse you from paying for your meal. So, with that said, here is the correct way to divide the check with cash and a credit card.

Whoever is paying cash in the party gives the cash to the person who is paying with the credit card. The person paying with the credit card keeps the cash and puts the whole bill on the card.
 Boom. Simple.

This way, the whole bill goes on the credit card, the credit card payer can leave tip in cash or credit form, and everyone is happy! The cash payer can feel good about his "tip included" payment, the credit card payer now has some cash on their person, and the tip is correct. Unless, of course, the credit card payer is a bad tipper. But t least they paid correctly!

#64 In Color!!! June 19, 2013

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When Tim and I started this project 5 years ago, we had no idea how far it would go. We were essentially just messing around, drawing pictures at work like we had been for years before that fateful day where we liked a picture enough to take it home and work on it outside of the restaurant. That first picture that I took home is pretty simple, but has all of the insanity of later drawings in it. Take a look at it here.
Tim and I would draw on the Triple Dupe Pad nearly every day we were at the restaurant, always adding (and sometimes subtracting) to the whole thing. We would draw on them while we had our evening coffee before the rush, and then again at the end of the night while sitting on Table 8 drinking beers and talking about the evening that had just recently ended. As time went on, Tim and my schedule became less and less intertwined. We used to work three out of four days together, and so we were working on these drawings a lot during that time. As the years passed, our schedules changed so much that Tim and I only work together for a couple hours on Friday evenings when I come in to wait tables in the evening and he finishes up his shift as the dar bar tender. I am not sure if that fact of not working together has slowed down our output, but we have certainly slowed down the production of T&J drawings.
 I rarely draw these days during the pre-shift coffee break. This is usually because I am much better friends with the bar regulars now, and so instead of turning my back to them and drawing insane pictures of aliens harvesting heads, I catch up with them and visit. Then, at the end of the night, it's usually the same thing. Instead of the staff sitting on Table 8, like the old days, we all hang out at the bar and visit with our favorite regulars. It almost seems wrong to call these people regulars since a lot of them are friends who happened to be customers first. That is how I would describe these people to outsiders. Yes, we met in a server/served environment, but we have gone beyond that relationship and developed a full-on friendship. This happens sometimes in some restaurants and bars, but it happens at our place more, I think. The way the restaurant operates, and the longevity of the staff makes it the perfect place to become really good friends with the staff and regulars.
For instance, years ago, a woman named Karen started coming in to eat. She would come in and sit at Table 11 or 12 (depending on which one was open at the time). She would read on her Kindle and have a glass of wine and eat a little something. Well, after a couple of times waiting on her, I asked how she liked the Kindle (they were new at the time), and from that question on, we became friends. She would come in every Wednesday and Friday for years and years. We became Bookface friends, and we would talk for hours about everything from technology to the Opera and everything in between. Now, you are probably thinking, well, obviously a young waiter and a single woman becoming friends in a restaurant is nothing out of the ordinary. That sort of thing happens every day. The only difference is that Karen and I are completely different people from completely different times. She could be an aunt of mine or some distant relative that would be a peer of my parents. But, because of the restaurant, we are now friends. In the outside world that never would have happened, but in the restaurant it happens all the time. The fact that I have so many friends my parents age and older is directly related to working at the restaurant. And so, I guess it is a little sad that the T&J production has gone down but the reason for the slowdown is a positive thing. I mean, friendship is more important that productivity any day of the week.

#62 "Blue Shirt, Period." In Color!!! June 6, 2013

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Picasso's Blue Period only lasted for 3 years, but the name will live on forever. It is said that he was severely depressed at this time, as his friend had just committed suicide. His subject matter turned to the fringe members of society; beggars, prostitutes, and thieves. At the time, the paintings were not well received by the public or by Picasso's own art dealers, although now they are some of his most popular works and the name itself is synonymous with "the brooding artist." I'm sure every artist goes through a "blue period" of some sort, even though the artist might not be actually painting in blue. In Tim and my case, I doubt this could be considered our blue period, but when I posted it to Bookface, I did mention that we were now entering our blue period. I was merely making a joke about this two-headed artist's choice of palette for his little masterpiece (that and the heavy use of the color blue throughout the picture). On top of that, the title of this drawing is a play on the uniform we wear at the restaurant. When I first started, the uniform was a blue, button down shirt with a tie of your choice, jeans, and a bistro apron. For the most part, the uniform has stayed the same, but we do have a couple people on the staff now that have taken some creative liberties. Phillip tends to wear a lot of color and a lot of patterns both on his shirts and on his conservatively wild ties. He has real style though and his shirts are always pressed so he can get away with it. I still maintain the original "uniform" most of the time unless I am behind the bar, although Dien has been wearing wild shirts behind the bar for nearly 20 years. There are waiters in this picture, although they must not work with us as they have some crazy attire.
It's hard for me to pinpoint when Tim and I had a "Blue Period," if we have had one at all. The thing about an on-going project like this one is that a lot of the work is done at such different times and over the course of so many days that there is probably blue period aspects in many of the drawings. But, since there is other "periods" in the same picture, you can't tell the difference. Also, 2013 was an incredibly productive year for me and the whole "Mind on Loup" series. Since I had essentially taken 2012 off to work on children's books, 2013 saw a huge increase in production in the "Mind on Loup" drawings. Not that we were drawing them faster, it's just I had a ton backed up from 2012 and colored them in at a furious pace. In fact, I put out about 30 colored versions in 2013, so that marked the most productive year ever. To put that into perspective, this year I have only put out 18 and the 3 years before that I put out 52 combined. It's a lot of numbers, I know, and I will stop with all this math. The long story short is that the Blue Period for the "Mind on Loup" series is impossible to trace. I'm sure Tim could show you some of his drawings from a low point in his life, and I could certainly show you some pictures that I drew while depressed, but they would probably be on different pictures in different time periods. Also, since the drawings remained uncolored for sometimes almost 2 years, the original drawing and the colored version would have almost nothing in common as far as mood is concerned. I may have been depressed while drawing the purple cloud or the orange mechanical fish(?) but by the time I got around to coloring it, I am not even sure I remember what the thing is that I am coloring.
In a lot of these drawings I can remember drawing the subjects and I can remember specific events surrounding the drawings. This is not one of them. The only thing I vaguely remember about drawing this one is the thing on the far right-hand side, because Edie could not believe it and questioned me tirelessly about what it was. Even then I had no real answer. Now, looking at this drawing, I could not tell you without the help of my records when it was originally drawn. Anytime between now and 2011 would be my guess, although I kind of know that it was much closer to the latter. Not that any of that matters. I think that once this project runs it's course there will be good ones and bad ones and ones that are just part of the project. I think this one will be the one that will symbolize our "Blue Period." Why not, right? If we really did have a blue period, why not have it be this one? This one will be the stand-in for our depressed, brooding period where all we worked in was blue ball-point pens on blue tinged Triple-Dupe pads whilst drawing pictures of Smurfs, blue prostitutes wearing Craz-berry Ring Pops and only listening to the artist Blu.

#61 "Richard of XIII Street" May 30, 2013

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Working in the Village in New York City puts you in pretty close contact with all walks of life. You come across the salt of the earth as well as the pepper. I have seen and heard things that most people couldn't dream up, and this picture is about one of those instances. This story happened to Tim and I sometime in the fall of 2011, I am guessing, based on the date that I scanned this picture into the computer (that date is January 18, 2012. That means it took me a year and a half to color it in. Looking at the timeline of these drawings sometimes makes me think about the years that people would spend on one painting. I never understood that until now). So, Tim and I were standing outside of the Loup and Tim was complaining. He had this thing on his hand, a swollen, red bump that may have been a spider bite or a rash of some sort, but it was painful and itchy. As we are discussing this, a man walks right up us and says, "what's the problem?" To this, Tim shows the guy his hand and the guy whips out a switchblade and says, "I could lance it right now!" To which, Tim and I backed off and said something along the lines of, "Whoawhatareyoudoingdudeputthatknifeaway." The guy chuckled and said he was just kidding and that he just wanted to use the bathroom. We let him in the restaurant because we were a little shell shocked and maybe thought we didn't have a choice. This guy only looked a little homeless and the stunt with the knife had caught us off guard. Well, we were laughing about the whole thing, and then we thought, "Oh no, this guy is probably robbing the place, and we let him in!" so we look through the window, and see him coming out, so Tim decides to retaliate with a joke of his own. As the guy is coming out the door, Tim pretends to rob him! We all laugh and the dude starts telling us a story. His story goes like this: His name is Richard and he lives in the neighborhood. He's been carrying the switchblade on him for 30 years, since back when the neighborhood was a little dicier than it is today. Back then he thought he needed a little extra protection, and then when his kids were born, he thought they might need a little extra protection. I realize that there are people out there that believe they have to be armed to walk around the city, but I had never been confronted like that. I have been jumped, but those dudes were just kids without weapons, and sure they made me bleed, but the incident didn't make me think I needed to arm myself to walk around the city. So, we hear all of this talk from this dude, and then we invite him in for a drink. He says he'll come back another time, and as we are exchanging our farewells, he leans over to Tim and says, "Oh, and your hand? That'll clear right up tomorrow." And you know what? It did!

Well, I was amped after that whole thing. I went right inside and broke out this triple dupe pad. It already had that Batman rip-off guy on it, so I thought Richard would be a good foil to that. If the Batman character was Good, then Richard would be Evil or vice versa. I think I got his likeness pretty spot-on, from his shit-eating grin to the army surplus jacket. The only thing I did wrong is he is holding his knife backwards, the lock should be on the top. My favorite part about the drawing is the Tim character whose hand is all swollen up and Richard is about to lance it. Tim drew the face of "himself" earlier, and I merely added the arm and body. It worked out perfectly. The rest of that drawing filled itself in pretty steadily over the course of a month or so, until I finished it up in mid January, 2012.  We never did see Richard again. Maybe he cut his hair or trimmed his beard. Maybe he was really just a well-maintained homeless guy. Maybe he moved. Or, probably, he was just one of the 12 million people that cross your path every day in this city. Only, this one time, he stopped to talk and give us a little scare with a switchblade. 

#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. 

#54 "The Ones That Mother Gives You" In Color! April 11, 2013

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Speaking of drugs, let's talk about coffee. Most of my life would not be possible without coffee. I feel like a lot of Americans share my love of coffee and would agree that caffeine is hands-down the best drug around. It's legal, accepted, and you can get it almost everywhere. Now, what bugs me is decaffeinated coffee, but we'll get to that in a minute.
As a waiter, I like to have a nice double Americano before I start working. I used to drink a double iced latte to start the evening's shift, but then I decided I was lactose intolerant and I had to cut the milk out of the equation. That was bothersome for a while, but now I have learned to like black coffee and black double Americanos. I will agree with true coffee purists that all of these names, Americano, Macchiato, Cappuccino, are supremely annoying. Then, put Starbucks lingo on top of that and you have reached the pinnacle of obnoxiousness. However, I don't work at a Starbuck's and I rarely go into one, so I am relatively safe from them. But not really, because they have infected the minds of the American Consumer, and that affects me directly as a waiter. When I first started waiting tables, there were two options for coffee; regular and decaf. Now there are seemingly endless combinations. And none of them irk me more than decaffeinated cappuccino. I get one or two of these orders during a shift, if not more. It used to make me physically upset. I would grit my teeth and be so mad at the person who ordered it from me. I would think that they were doing it to spite me, like they knew how much I hated hearing those two words and they were getting joy out of my misery. Not only are they a pain in the butt to make, they are time consuming and when I have a full section on a Friday night and I have to stop and make a couple of these drinks, it can send me directly into the weeds; do not pass Go, do not collect $200. I realized one night after someone ordered a decaf cappuccino that it was affecting me so much and I thought that was a bad thing because people are not going to stop ordering the darn things, so I had to stop being such a baby about them and deal with it. I didn't know how to deal with it at first, because it was and still is an annoying beverage. I realize that people don't always want the delicious buzz that regular coffee gives you. I realize that some old people can't drink regular coffee any more and that after a lifetime of drinking it, they still get the pleasure out of decaf, because it actually tastes like coffee. I get this. I realize that some people don't drink coffee at night because they'll stay up looking at the ceiling in the dark and think of things like last years taxes and did they say the wrong thing at that party last week? I understand all of this. But I don't have to like it.
I finally figured out how to deal with the situation using reverse psychology. I now offer people decaf cappuccinos. That's right, I beat them to the punch. How can I be angry at them if I am the one who brought it up. By that logic, I should be angry with myself for even broaching the subject, but I like myself so I am not going to be mad at myself for something so trivial. I have much bigger issues to be mad at myself for, so offering a sweet old lady a decaf cappuccino is really low on that list. I have even been stepping it up a notch by offering decaf macchiatos, the crowned champion of obnoxious coffee beverages. I mean, really people, a miniature cappuccino? Get a life! I find that using this technique truly works, and I am no longer physically angered by orders of decaf anything. I may still find it annoying and time consuming on a busy night, but I am no longer shaking with rage when I hear those two bitter words. There are so many annoying orders that people come up with, and so many annoying people in the world, it's best to just accept this fact and try not to get so upset by these people. I mean, they have to deal with themselves, which must not be fun, so why let it affect you adversely? I understand that this is sometimes easier said than done, especially in the heat of the moment, but it's good to step outside yourself every once and a while and remind yourself that eventually, everyone will eventually go home.
But you order a "hot water with lemon" and so help me....

#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.