The future looks bleak

Here's one from June 2004. Take a look at the weird quote format I used to use -- which I can't really explain. I suppose it made sense to me back then, but I really have no idea what I was trying to accomplish there. The story is still pretty funny, though. I miss working at the place I wrote about here. I made a shitload of money there, relatively speaking, although in one of the other old posts I considered republishing, I was bragging about collecting $20 for letting a guy park his car in an illegal spot. $20? Dude, are you fucking serious? Man, did I throw away money when I first started doing this shit...

Also, "Phil" is now one of my Facebook friends. He can't spell and his grammar is horrendous. Funny guy, though.



The head muckety-muck at the Club -- in a position I believe is akin to being the owner's right hand man -- is a diminutive gentleman whom we'll call 'Phil.' Phil is about 5'5", 125lbs, and you'll see him, throughout the night, zipping through the crowd like quicksilver, flitting from place to place attending to all the various problems with which the night invariably presents him.

As the evening wears on, most of the chatter in my earpiece involves Phil -- dress code and guest list problems at the door, register and liquor supply problems at the bars, and volume or playlist issues with the DJ. I'd estimate at least ninety percent of the calls on the radio come in imploring, "Phil, pick up! Phil, pick up!" Phil seems to suffer from a variety of neuroses, and the constant calls on the radio provoke him to the point where, as the club hits peak hours, he's teetering on the edge of a complete and total nervous breakdown. His responses to radio calls at this point are often hilarious. A case in point occured last night, when I devirginated myself to the phenomenon that is "Phil, pick up."

In one of a series of completely pointless, nonsensical diversions within the club, we evidently employ a psychic, who does readings at a table near my post at the dock. I was unaware of this fact until last night around midnight, when she asked me to call Phil on the radio and inform him that an emergency had arisen, and that she'd have to go home for the evening. The conversation went as follows:

"Phil, pick up. Phil, pick up."
"Go for Phil."

"Phil, it's Rob on the dock. The psychic told me to call you and tell you that she has an emergency and she has to go home."
"Why are you telling me this?!? Why the fuck are you telling me this?!? Do you think I give a shit about the fucking psychic?!?"

"I don't know, Phil. That's what she told me to tell you."
"What's the emergency?"

"I don't know, Phil. She won't say."
"Ask her why she came to work."

"She wants to know why you're asking her that."
"Because she should have known she was going to have an emergency. She's a fucking psychic!!!"