The Chronic Complainer Profile

Remember those "Meet Bob" Enzyte commercials? I loved Bob's big smile, and all the big props used to communicate Bob's "biggerness" thanks to taking this male enhancement drug. And then I thought about the biggest d**k I know in this business, the chronic complainer:

Meet Bob. Talk about a major tool. Bob's a bigtime member of the constant complainer's club, and he makes us hard-working restaurant stiffs wince over the thought of having to accommodate him.

Bob's friends and family insist he's just hard to please. Every time he pops up, everyone with him seems to take turns apologizing for his condescending and contentious demeanor.

"Don't take it personally," someone in Bob's enabling posse will say. "Bob always sends his food back. He's just picky."

Bullshit. Bob's just a prick. Bigtime. He couldn't care less about what's on his plate. He's more about dishing out attitude and eating up the attention acting like a jackass affords him.

So, Bob always goes balls-to-the-wall with his routine. He returns drinks to the bar unless and until they look and taste just so. He belittles everything from portion size to service, making it plain that nothing about the restaurant measures up to his standards.

And he returns regularly to do so.

"Bob's hard, I know," Bob's wife will whisper to me as she walks out three strides behind him so she can slip me a little extra tip money for my trouble. Not surprisingly, Bob comes up a little short in that department. "Thanks for putting up with us," she'll say, time and time again.

For the record, guys like Bob are what they are, but they're no big deal, because comparing the personality package of a "Bob" to that of the dining population at large, I have to say, Bob; you're hung like a housecat.

You're Now Free to Roam About the Classifieds

Playing hooky from work is risky business. If you're calling in sick to enjoy a day of fun in the sun, you can't go back to the grind with a tan the next day. You have to cover yourself.

Triggered by an invitation to spend an impromptu weekend in San Diego, I once conspired to kill-off a fictitious Aunt Martha and fly back to my native Michigan to attend her make-believe funeral. I broke the sad news to my manager, who fell for it. I informed him that my family had found me a bereavement fare on a Southwest Airlines flight departing late that evening. He offered his sincere condolences and covered the shifts I said I'd have to miss.

The day I returned to work, my manager called me into his office.

"How's your family?" He asked.

"My mom's taking it pretty hard," I answered, straight-faced and somber. "She and Aunt Martha were so close," and- I thought to myself- probably out shopping together at that very moment.

"How was it flying Southwest?" My manager wanted to know more about my trip. At that time, the airline was new.

"Fine, no complaints." I avoided any specifics.

"Well, there's always something we can take away from every experience." He looked me in the eye, sighed, and levelled with me. "Southwest doesn't fly to Detroit."

He was right. In those days, they didn't. I was fired.

"There's a bright side to this." Mr. Manager finished up, showing me the door. "Aunt Martha just made a miraculous recovery."

So I Named Her "New Year's Eve"

The old joke goes like this:

Two doctors are sitting at a bar, talking shop.

"So, why proctology, for God's sake?" One asks.

"I know, I know." The other answers, holding up a hand with his thumb and forefinger just an inch or so apart. "I was this close to being a gynecologist."

That gag fits for bartenders, too. If you're going to work with wildlife, why not be a zoologist? The medical and travel benefits are better. Still, having hung my shingle as a drink-slinger, I've had the opportunity to observe many an interesting creature prowling the watering holes where I've stood post. And where the imbibing social animal's concerned, it's less about wandering in for simple sustenance than it is sniffing around for some excitement.

Consider my encounter with a half-dead kitty I'll call "Eve," who curled up to my bar on a New Year's Day some years ago to lick some self-inflicted wounds.

"May I have two double Bloody Marys, please?" She appeared out of nowhere, smiled and ordered ever so sweetly, still gorgeous in smeared makeup and last night's party dress.

"Want to see a menu, too, Sunshine?" I asked her, thinking she probably needed a little something in her stomach.

"Don't think I could eat, Sweetie," she confessed.

"So, you want two doubles?" I double-checked.

"Yep. Boyfriend's in the bathroom," Eve explained. I made the drinks and she downed them both before boyfriend showed up.

"Sorry," Eve apologized either to him or me or both of us. "May we have two more, please?"

"We're dead-ass hung-over, dude," Boyfriend barely had the breath to explain. "Haven't slept yet."

"Been there," I offered some obligatory sympathy. I served them a total of six drinks. Eve drank four and rallied. Boyfriend faded.

"I'll be in the car," were the last words I heard from him.

"So, how was your New Year's Eve?" Eve, suddenly all by her lonesome, flirted in conversation.

"New Year's Eve's always a crazy late night for me, Sunshine," I bandied back. "Sadly, the party's over by the time I punch out."

"Poor Sweetie," she slurred just a little. I made a few rounds of the other barstools, then she called me back over.

"Got any book matches, Babe?" She asked me, sounding downright affectionate.

"I've got a light." I shot back, reaching for my lighter.

"I need book matches," she persisted. Assuming she wanted them to take with her, I found some. She asked for the tab as I handed them to her. I was working the other side of the bar when I heard her call me again.

"Hey Sweetie, Happy New Year!"

I spun around to see her standing arms-raised behind her barstool: a bare-breasted vision alight with two paper matches she'd wedged wishbone-style onto her nipples, beautiful smile twinkling, waving me a wondrous goodbye. It was a topless dancer's trick I'd witnessed once before, and an encore performance which dimmed the face of its first perfomer forever from my mind.

She was my once-in-a-lifetime New Year's "Eve." And among the many extraordinary creatures I've encountered in the wild world of bar and restaurant work, she burns brightly in my memory.

The Story of the Presidential Visit to Dick's Hideaway, as told to me by Richardson Browne

On October 13, 2004, in an act some might consider tantamount to cannibalism (shame on you), President George Walker Bush dinned on turkey enchiladas at Dick's Hideaway, the venerated New Mexican-inspired speakeasy on 16th Street in Phoenix. The former Commander-In-Chief had worked up an appetite debating then-Democratic Party nominee John Kerry at ASU's Grady Gammage Center in Tempe. Some seven years later, the President's dinner host that evening, renowned restaurateur Richardson Browne, can still reflect profoundly on his Santa Fe-style summit with the ex-leader of the free world.

"About thirty minutes before he showed up," Browne recounts, "I got a call at home from my manager saying, 'I think the President's coming in.' I just hung up, horrified. I was more than a few Maker's Marks into my evening. She kept calling back. I kept hanging up, but it occured to me at some point that she was fucking serious, so I put on a clean shirt and came down."

When Browne arrived at his restaurant, it was everything but business as usual.

"After twenty-plus years, I know my crowd," he explained. "But I found guys in suits just sitting in the dark in the PDR (the Hideaway's private dining room) who definitely didn't fit the picture, and a few more dressed like lumberjacks- for God-only-knows what reason- ordering my staff to remove all the steak knives from the property. It was like Men In Black meets Fargo."

With things heating up inside, Browne stepped out for a little fresh air.

"Now I'm pacing in front of my own place, shaking like a leaf." Browne shakes his head over the recollection. "I'm just standing there terrified, with my plastic Solo cup of Maker's on the rocks rattling like a marraca."

In minutes, according to Browne, the advanced guard of the Presidential motorcade rolled in.

"Suddenly, at least thirty motorcycles came rumbling up the street. War wagons (armored SUVs) and police vehicles started emptying loads of manpower into the street and closing-off every route imaginable to the restaurant. By the time I noticed the protesters, the satellite trucks and the sharpshooters lining the rooftops across the street, I was pretty much out of my mind."

Then the Presidential limo targeted Browne, pulling up at his feet.

"So, Bush pops out," Browne takes a deep breath, recalling that breathless moment. "He's with Laura and Mr. and Mrs. McCain. He takes a look at me and asks, 'You alright?' I said, 'Frankly, between you and me, I'm a bit fucked up at the moment.' But he smiled, told me I'd be fine, and complimented the belt I was wearing. My belt, for Christ's sake. And for whatever reason, that relaxed me. After that, we just starting shooting the shit."

Still, Browne remembers the moment Bush walked through the front door as the most remarkable of the evening.

"The place was packed, but you could hear a pin drop. Then the President just walked into the crowd shaking hands and saying hello. He broke the tension himself. Security didn't shield him. I could have strangled him myself at any moment."

"During dinner," Browne recalls comically, "CNN tried to interview Alberto, our non-English-speaking cook, enlisting our barely-English-speaking busboy as translator. Of course, those were pre-E-Verify times, so I don't think the network skirted any existing labor laws."

After dinner, Presidential photographers snapped some pictures. A commemorative photo and official White House thank you letter were hand-delivered to Browne by an anonymous government suit some days later.

"Granted, I look a little twisted," Browne confesses, "but McCain's pained expression takes the cake. You'd think he'd just finished a prostate exam rather than dinner."

As always, Richardson Browne exercises his right to be irreverent.

"Without fail, I look at that picture at least once a day," he laughs. "It's hung over my toilet."