#72 "Gettin' the Band Back Together II" In Color! September 18, 2013

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Wolf Credo

Respect the elders

teach the young

 cooperate with the pack

Play when you can

 hunt when you must

 rest in between

 Share your affection

voice your feelings

 leave your mark.

This has been hanging in the Men's room of the Cafe Loup for as long as I have been working there. It has probably been up there for 20 years. Most people think it is a charming addition to the place, or at least, an amusing thing to read while you pee. Guys like it so much that they sometimes get carried away and steal it. This is unnecessary as we keep copies behind the bar for those same guys who love it so much as to steal it. The saddest time that someone heisted the Wolf Credo was probably about eight years ago. The Loup was being repainted, head to toe, and the guy who was painting was a friend of Lloyd and a fine artist. He, as a gift to Lloyd, made a beautiful hand-made Wolf Credo on a repurposed piece of wood. He hand painted the credo and even hand painted the wolf peeing on the tree. It was all lacquered and sanded down and looked incredible. He probably spent as much time on it as he did painting the place. Well, it was promptly stolen from it's place above the urinal, and so we went back to having the photocopied version in there. One hopes that it has a nice home now, but I fear that whomever stole it, did so in a drunken stupor and once awoken to the hungover light of day, looked at it with mild bemusement and then promptly forgot about it and now it's in some landfill in New Jersey. Truly a shame. And it goes against the teachings in the Wolf Credo itself.

I never really wondered about where the Wolf Credo had come from until recently. I thought it was some ancient saying, possibly stolen from the Native Americans of the plains or some other such place where wolves are held in high regard. I was wrong. The saying comes from a woman from California named Del Goetz. She wrote a book called "Life in the Pack," all about raising and living with Siberian Huskies. According to her website, she has raised over 25 dogs and up to 12 at a time. She says, “I chose to raise dogs instead of kids because you don’t have to buy them a car or send them through college — and, they don’t do drugs. They show their appreciation when you feed them and show their affection constantly rather than conditionally when they want something.” She seemed like an interesting person so I decided I would find out a little more about her, and see if I could get a connection with her and the Cafe Loup, if there is one. However, she has proven pretty hard to find. Googling her gets you her website and the Amazon link where you can buy her book. The rest of the results are Marin County board meeting minutes praising Del's community service in the Muir Woods Park of California. She seems like she is an outstanding member of the community and I wanted to know more, so I emailed her. She, sadly, has not written back. I figure she's out in the woods raising dogs and helping with the community fire department. If she ever writes back and I can set up some sort of dialogue, I will certainly add that to this post. 

 Del certainly did leave her mark. Although she seems to be living the quiet life somewhere outside of San Francisco, at one time she penned a poem that has lived on in the Cafe Loup Men's Room for at least 20 years. It is so popular that we keep copies of it behind the bar for the guys who come out laughing and talking wildly about it. Some guys have even memorized it. It's odd that we don't have one in the Ladies Room, although in the picture, it is obviously a male wolf leaving his mark on a snow topped pine tree. But it seems cruel to leave the ladies of the Loup out of the loop. It's always funny to see a guy come out of the john laughing and talking about the Credo to a woman who has no idea what he's talking about. The guy is usually a little tipsy anyway, and then rambling on about teaching the young and voicing your feelings clearly leaves no mark on his date. She's probably rethinking sharing her affections with this guy, until I come along and say how great the Credo is, and handing him a copy from out from behind the bar, thus saving this guy's night and sharing the Credo with his date as well. 

All in all, the Wolf Credo is pretty solid advice for humans. I hesitate a little with "Leave your Mark," but as a species, that has been done already what with man made substance that may never break down and mutating wildlife. As individuals, everyone does want to leave their mark historically. No one wants to be forgotten, and I think that this little poem may remind people, even very subtly, that they aught to get out and do something with their lives. 

Cafe Loup and the Wolf Credo: Always trying to help out humanity.

#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!

#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. 

#58 "Magic Wanda" in color! May 15, 2013

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(small talk)
Well, it was an interesting summer. In New York, the weather was pretty mild and I only had to turn on my ancient air conditioning unit a handful of times. I don't know if it was a historically mild summer or if it just felt mellower than years past, you'll have to consult some sort of online almanac for that information. Tim and I had an art opening at Hifi bar again in July and the show is still up in the back room of the bar if you would like to go check it out (probably for a couple more weeks, so see it while you can). I opened up a couple Etsy shops, (the one in the link is not for T&J prints, that one can be found here) but I have only sold a couple of things.

(theoretical rant)
However, I thought the summer was successful overall and felt like I made some progress in my life. Sometimes it's hard to see if you have made progress or not in your life. Time, for the most part, seems to drag along and it's not until you turn around and reflect that it, all of a sudden, seems like the time sped by. The day to day grind of life seems to take so long, and then you look back on the summer, and it seems like not only was it a year ago, but it also seems like it went by in the blink of an eye. I guess when you think about the universe in the universal scale, it did go by in the blink of an eye, and actually, much faster than a blink. But we usually don't think of our lives on the universal scale, because it is too big to grasp. That sort of thinking can be depressing, since the conclusion is always that life is incredibly short and that in the universal scale of things, anything that we do, short of super novae, is not going to leave the slightest mark on the history of the universe. Or, you could look at it from the point of view of chaos theory, that believes in the Butterfly effect. This is the theory that states that even the flapping of a butterflies wings can have enormous consequences days or moths or light years later. If we were to believe in that theory, then every single thing we do is affecting not only the space directly surrounding our person, but is affecting the entire history of the universe henceforth. That is kind of interesting to think that even the breath we are taking in and out of our lungs, all day, every day, could have an effect on the future history of the universe. The sad part is that we will never be able to witness the effect that we had on the history of the universe because we presumably won't be around to witness the effects.

(conspiracy nonsense)
I was talking about that over the summer as well, but on a more celestial plane. I mean, it is depressing that we won't be able to experience the future, but the really sad part, I was saying, is that we'll never know all of the secrets that have been kept secret from us. Or all the knowledge that we will never know. These truths are slightly depressing. Take the universe, itself. We will never know how big it is, who or what made it, and what is on the outside of it. Scientists generally agree that the universe is finite and that it is expanding, but what is on the outside if the "outside" is not made up of "matter?" These questions were on my mind this summer. But also, on a smaller level, I was waxing that in my life time, we will never know who shot JFK or ever get any answers to the great conspiracy theories of our time. I guess on the one hand, it's more interesting to live in a world where all of the answers are not readily available, for if that was the case, everything would be boring because you would know the outcome of every event ever. It would be nice from a gambler's standpoint, because you would never lose on the ponies, but other than that, it would be boring. Also, I am willing to bet that even people in power don't really know all of the answers to all of the conspiracy theories. JFK, for instance; I doubt our current president knows or even cares about who shot JFK because he has so many pressing issues on his plate that he couldn't possibly care less about that 50 year old mystery. Now, when he first entered office, he strikes me as the kind of giddy person who's first questions were to unveil all the national secrets, but then almost immediately he had a country to run, so the excitement was probably short lived, if it happened at all. It's fun to think that when you die you could ask someone all the questions and get all the answers, but then you're dead, so what's the fun in that?

(final thoughts)
I guess you have to accept that you will never know the answers to all the questions, so the least you can do with your life is try to get the answers to as many questions that you possibly can. Then, when you die, your brain will be so heavy with knowledge that when you collapse from death and your head hits the pavement, the impact will tilt the Earth off of it's axis and create a domino effect in which the universe destroys itself, thus rendering the rest of universal history obsolete and no longer worth talking about. 

#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.