Friday, April 27, 2007

3/28/06; or, After changes, we are more or less the same

At Lodge again. Joe and Jeff are in the middle of a staff meeting talking about drinks to their servers off to the left; I miss the waitstaff camaraderie. It's definitely a group business, something the publishing industry lacks -- the room of one's own, the inky wretch, smells of the lamp; it's all solitude.

Whereas in the table-waiting game, and on the Ice, there was a real bonding, Us vs. Them mentality. Standing out on the back loading dock after Thanksgiving, passing the bottle of wine 'round the circle of blue shirts, with that white, sharp Antarctic sunlight making us all squint -- that was a killer moment, one of my all-time up-theres.

It's that camaraderie I miss, that maybe we used to have at the start of Rough Guides, at least in the beginning; and especially after 9/11 at the Afghan place on St. Mark's and the Grassroots Tavern next door.

That's part of the reason I like coming here -- to be, if only in a peripheral way, and only for a bit -- part of that club.

What does it remind me of? It reminds me of all the things I've been a member of: high school, ROTC, Collins' parties, the JYAs at Oxford, the SPIers at NYU, the DAs on the Ice, going over to John's roof after work all those days, drinking beer and looking at the Empire State Building. Knowing people and liking most of them, being part of a community.

Perhaps this is part of what draws me to being a cop.


Editor's note: I no longer want to be a cop.


3 comments:

Joe said...

Collins' parties...true dat. I might add the annual trips to Memphis in May when friends from near and far would assemble for a weekend of festival beers, trading licks with an open hand, and other troublemaking activities.

Jake Freedom said...

You wanted to be a cop? Interesting - I wouldn't have expected it. Wait - was it just to highlight your magnificent cop-stache???

I get it now.

scram. said...

What about Chick-Fil-A? THAT was a community. It even had it's own Kizer.