Post-work post

Sometimes, when you decide to take on a shit job like the one I have, what happens when you first start work is, you're fascinated.

"Whoa," you say. "I can't believe that Guido is dancing like that by himself. Has he no shame? Has he no mirrors in his house?"

"Whoa," you say. "I can't believe that slut just went into the mens room. I wonder what she's doing in there!"

It fascinates you to such an extent that you start telling everyone you know about the things you've seen at work. They're entertained -- you can just tell -- so you start a blog and you write about it all there. You see the shit and you write about it and you leave very little out because you like the release. And the blog's a good read for a while, because you're noticing all sorts of new things at work and the writing is as fresh and new and exciting as your perspective.

Like anything else, though, the whole process starts getting old. You hate your job after a while, and you hate everything that has anything to do with it. You hate the music, and the carpeting, and the Grey Goose and the Red Bull. You find yourself getting more and more pissed off at the customers, and maybe you choke one of them until they're really hurt, like I did last year. And after that's done, and they're helping the kid of the sidewalk, you simply can't give a fuck anymore because you've had it, and maybe you wish you'd hurt the kid a lot worse. Maybe.

But you keep on writing, because the more you hate the place, the better the words come out. You keep going to work, because you can't afford not to, and years pass before you've realized how much time you've wasted in that shithole. You wake up and remember you've been working this shitbag job for three years now -- two longer than you'd intended to in the first place -- and showing up for work is nothing but a reflex action now. It's no longer good. It's no longer bad. It's just there. You go in, you do your time, you pick up your money, and you go home.

The New York nightclub world is exactly what I've always said it is: just fucking there. It's just there, and there's nothing you can do about it. It's there, wherever you look, and it's never going away, and I don't care anymore. I'll never beat it. I'll never get any of these places shut down, no matter how fast I will myself to type. I'll never stop people from painting themselves orange, spiking their hair, threading their eyebrows and saying stupid shit at four in the morning. I put my head down now. Go in, count hours, go home. Wake up and do it again.

The problem comes when the numbness works as a set of blinders. The blinders keep me from paying attention. They keep me from carrying a notepad and a tape recorder and giving a flying fuck about writing down and recording the observations I need to make in order to write about all of it here.

"Hey look," I'll say. "Guidos are fighting. What a novelty."

"Hey look," I'll say. "Look at that slut. I'll bet she's from Staten Island and works in a nail salon. Isn't that something?"

It's life, man. You get bored. Bored and complacent. You worry about money, bills and about people. You don't worry so much about your job when you're numb. You don't think about it when you get home. It doesn't mean things are going badly, or that you're not happy with the way your life's going. It just means you don't give a shit about nightclubs. You don't give a shit about the next generation of assholes who are too ignorant to avoid acting as stupidly as the last one did.

And when you're there, not giving a flying fuck about any of this stupid shit, you'll find it's not such a bad place to be.