I think of Rodeo baby I think of Rodeo

For three years I worked in a country western bar in NYC. Yeah I know it sounds ridiculous and silly but it was true. For three years and well until I left New York to move to LA whether I wanted to admit it or not it was home. Those that worked there where my family and friends. I knew it was always there if I needed a place to hang. And now, like a lot of things that where a part of my New York experience, it ‘s gone. 

I had gone into the place a couple times usually for theater meetings and such. It helped that a girl from our theater company worked there and could get us a deal on drinks. It was loud and was basically in many ways a frat bar where Jewish cowboys from Long Island and New Jersey could live out there Johnny Cash fantasies’. I didn’t hangout there too much because well I was broke 90% of the time in my early 20’s and didn’t want to spend money on booze. But after the fine dining place I worked at closed due to the owner’s stupidity I needed a job and was desperate. So one night while hanging with the theater friends,I asked my friend if this country western place had any openings. She laughed and said “You don’t want to work here trust me”. I said” I don’t care I need money I’ll even be a busboy”. She said we’ll see. A month later she called and said “I can get you on as a host, you want a job?” I said yes.

I realized in the first hour that this place was different. I was helping taking tables for the lunch rush. A customer was complaining asking why there food was taking long. It had only been maybe six minutes since they had placed there order. I ran back to the kitchen and said to the GM, a sassy Brazilian woman, that hey the customer was asking where there food was. She told me to tell them to go fuck themselves the foods coming. I thought wow that’s cool. Because in fine dining the customer no matter how idiotic, how mean, how wrong they are is always right and that well it was always the waiter’s fault. But to hear the GM back me up was liberating.

See that’s the thing people who have never worked in a bar or restraint have trouble understanding.  Things go wrong and in a rush at a small place the staff is trying to get your food out to you as fast as possible. But they also have to deal with eight other orders coming in at once. Some person decides they’re going to order off the menu or make the order complicated so it slows down the whole dang process. At the same time more customers are coming in and they want service right away. The waiter has to remember that that person ordered a coke no ice, the friend wanted an Arnold palmer, the other friend wanted a beer with three limes. Make sure there is extra guace on the burrito they might ask. Of course when you mention that we have to charge extra they get mad. That table behind you wants the check now and wants to split it three ways and so on. 

So the server deals with shit from customers.  At the same time the bartender has to deal with not only there own customers who all want food and beer but also the service bar because hey they also have a beer and burger special.  If things go wrong the bartender or server takes the blame. Management usually blames you.

But this time not only did the GM have my back but so did everyone else. We didn’t pool tips but everyone watched over each other. From the GM down to the bouncer we had each other’s back.  I think that was the thing that made it a fun place to work. We were a family.

We supported each other’s plays, art shows, concerts or whatever. When one got married everyone would try to go. When one had a kid we all tried to see the baby at the hospital. When someone got mugged we collected money to help the person out. When someone lost a loved one we were there.

 During my first thanksgiving working there the GM asked what I was doing. I was going through a breakup at the time and was probably just going to work. She  told me to come over afterwards to her place. She was cooking for everyone who was staying in town. I did and the food was amazing and I felt at home. Of course it wasn’t always perfect and we all did fight but it was like how a family fought. You still loved the person no matter how crazy the other person was acting.

Of course outside the family aspect of things there was always hilarity. Whether it was the fight with the drunk Irish guys who tried to gouge out my eye, pretty boy Ryan Gosling hanging in the office, famous Yankees smoking weed outside, the customers who tried to steal all of the cowboy memorabilia, me streaking or dancing shirtless on stage with the bands, the famed Phil Korshak spitting fire. It was a circus so much so that when my mom visited even though I wasn’t working there anymore I had to bring her there so she could meet everyone. 

Yes the place had a reputation of being kind of a fratboy place and was kind of like the cantina scene from Star Wars, but the regulars, the real ones also became our friends. Whether it was Czop telling me what I was doing wrong with women, Rodney telling me to always take a chance in life, Pablo telling us to fuck every person we meet, Tom and Pete being well Tom and Pete. Johnny the doorman and Pond Scum telling me life lessons and so many others who became not just customers but friends.

I left after three years from a combination of burn out and also because the owner and I did not get along. The GM from Brazil had left and she had protected the entire staff from his mood swings.  I am not going to go into details or do name calling, but I saw the writing on the wall and knew it was time to move on.  I would still come by and me being me,order maybe two beers and hangout for a couple of hours. During Hurricane Sandy, I hung out there as the storm raged in the street.

The night before I was to leave New York for LA I swung by one last time.   A lot had changed. Most of the staff I had known at the beginning of my time there where gone. But it didn’t matter because when you worked at this place you where in a special club forever. I said goodbye to everyone including my best friend who I had gotten a job there. I looked up at the stuffed buffalo above the bar and walked off into the night.

Now it’s all gone. It’s funny I haven’t been back to New York in almost two years. But according to everyone it’s changed immensely. Almost everyplace I worked at is gone. McCormicks the hangout for the crew from work and where I worked for almost a year is gone replaced by something else. The Madhatter another favorite place is now a gastro pub. Even the theaters I performed at are now something else. But I always thought that this place with it’s country western style would be there. I always figured I would come back and walk in on a Monday night and surprise my friends and see all of the regulars drinking and arguing about something ridiculous. 

My mom talked about how she lived in Seattle in the 70’s and what an amazing town it was to live in. She talked about the bars, bookstores, little places that gave it it’s character. She also talked about how two years after she left it was all gone. I never fully grasped it until I left New York.  It’s funny it’s like a whole part of my life that had a significant impact has just faded away. But that’s part of life. Things are supposed to change and grow and evolve. If they don’t , well they become stagnate.  But I hold onto the memories.

Like the narrator in the Road Warrior said at the beginning it’s gone but the memories remain. Memories of Super Bowl parties. Scumfest, Of blood wrestling, Margarita Fridays, climbing up to the roof, illegal Shinerbach, people falling in love, bands that where good bad and ugly. Of friendships that will last forever even though we’re all scattered in different places. Of a Kentucky Grizzly and the Pope of Murray Hill, the Swede and Butch, Handsome Phil and Sara, Eric and Bia, Walt and Leslie, Aaron and Jenny Star, Ash and Rick, Lillie and Marconi, Jill and JD, Michelle and Andrea , Chris and Anka, Scott and Tristan the Jersey Redneck, Sid and JT and Stephon, Trey and Nadine, Tracy and Emily, the guy’s in the kitchen, Amy Wood and Thea, JoJo and Charlotte, Meg and Andy and Sam, Jack Grace and Daria,  Johnny the doorman and Ritchie, Scum and Czop and so many others. I sit here now in LA,a place with it’s own certain bizarness but I remember a place, a bar with peanut shells on the floor and a stuffed buffalo . There where moments I wanted to burn it down but now I find myself sad that’s it’s gone.  Things evolve and change,but the memories and friendships remain forever.