This One?s for Jennifer
Monday, March 5, 2007Dateline: Ocean Beach, California
Jennifer was there. Need I say more? - - - - apparently, the answer is ?yes? if I expect to be paid this week, even in the currency of the ?mannequin-bucks? which are honored only on other planets where the City buses do not venture yet. But on the bright side, it just goes to show how creeping capitalism with its brutal workplace goon-bosses, plantation psyche and negative-balance employee automatic payroll deposit accounts has infected the formerly establishment-free zone we all knew as OB, but I digress. We were talking about Jennifer?s guest appearance this recent Monday night.
Never mind that the guest list last Monday included the likes of Ace, Julian, Bob Caffeter -- an esteemed albeit rarely-appearing member of SDPOTARTO (?San Diego Patrons Of The Arts, Roving Table One?), Cheerful Chad, Solomon the Great, the Incense-Hummel-Angel-Whose-Name-I-Decline-To-Learn-Nor-Will-I-Ever-Utter-If-Learned-For-Fear-She?d-Shatter-Like-Imported-Porcelain [?IAWNIDTLNWIEUILFFSSLIP?], Dave Carrano of Wise Monkey, an unidentified female who was awarded the title ?Cloning: Good? - and yours truly. It was Jennifer who joined us for one night only all the way from freakin? Connecticut or Nova Scotia or Latvia or somewhere east of Interstate 5. For those of you who only vicariously enter these episodes via this column, Jennifer was a wistful working waitress at Winston?s way back when (whew!) Like then, she still stands at least fifty (50) feet tall (without heels), and yet it never frightened anyone nor brought out the National Guard. Jennifer had a unique penchant for finding ways to party with the Monday night patrons -- with or without the cocktail serving tray in hand -- that truly defied everything that is sacred about wages and tips and the whole labor-remuneration dynamic. Many of us recall giving Jen our money and not really giving much of a damn if she ever came back with drinks or refunds until one day she suddenly and inexplicably fled the jurisdiction.
And the place rocked in her honor. I can prove it. I took photographs this time. With my own camera. No, I won?t be reimbursed for the film or the developing costs. Yes, you can sign my ?EWB Website-Management-Screws-Labor? petition next Monday night, but again, I digress. The Happy-To-See-Jen Waste Band launched set one with what else: Here Comes Sunshine, closed set two with an after-hours encore of Shakedown Street at Jen?s personal request, and filled the in-between with many, many personal ?Days-of-Jen?-honoring favorites, including but not limited to Run for the Roses, Foolish Heart, The Loser, West LA Fadeaway, Tangled Up in Blue, just read the official set list on the website?s homepage. To quote the eclectic and politically correct Rockin? Rob Harvey, it was ?great blankergy, blankers!? (not the formerly divisive ?great energy, rockers.?) Good old Harv: offending no one; excluding no one; affirming everyone. Gosh, if only they treated their website staff like they treat their patrons. Gosh, Natalya, if only I could learn Russian merely by listening to radio station ?KGB.?
Sorry. I?m sorry. That?s three disgruntled employee slips. This one?s supposed to be for Jen, a former member of the local Winstons/Waste Band rank-and-file, who having escaped the whip and chains of the MNM ("Monday Night Master"), returned to make merry with us, and yet to embolden those of us who, though our wrists be still tethered to the oars, our ankles shackled to the galley?s floor, and pulling our paddles in total non-unison [thanks to Fletcher?s all-over-the-board drum solos], we say: thanks Jen, and please come back soon.
Bill?s