Oregon Daily Emerald
Thursday, December 2, 2004
“1 gave up on new poetry myself 30 years ago,
when most of it began to read like coded messages
passing between lonely aliens on a hostile world.. ”
Russell Baker | Journalist
■ In my opinion
RYAN MURPHEY
MR. SOPHISTICATION
Stop being
thrifty and
have some
empathy
The last of the out-of-town relatives have
gone home, the house is clean and the cook
ing is finished. All of the leftovers have been
used up, but post-holiday exhaustion and
tryptophan-induced stupors have left many
less than enthusiastic about preparing their
own meals. Thanksgiving fallout is driving
people out to restaurants in droves. For
those in the food service industry, this is
good and bad news. The good news is that
more customers means more money. The
bad news is more customers.
The traditional job of a restaurant em
ployee is to meet the customer’s needs,
and the traditional job of the customer is
to give the server money. Over the course
of a meal, the server takes drink orders,
clears plates and makes sure that every
thing gets to the table as quickly as possi
ble. Meanwhile, the busser cleans tables,
sets tables, makes sure that waters are full
and that the server and the customer are
both happy. During this time, the cus
tomer relaxes and enjoys the meal while
the server provides the same care for five
other tables at once and the busser covers
the whole dining room. In a perfect
world, this exchange would play out
smoothly, ending with a satisfied cus
tomer and a 15 percent or better tip. How
ever, this is the real world. Restaurant em
ployees are not always perfect and
customers (especially those who have
never worked in a restaurant) are rarely
understanding.
In many cases, customers feel the need to
act in a manner that violates the
customer/server relationship. It is impor
tant that customers who choose to behave
rudely understand that restaurant employ
ees’ servile occupations also give them great
power. After all, they are the ones who han
dle the food between the kitchen and the
table. Those who wish to avoid secret ingre
dients may want to consider the following
advice on customer etiquette.
One piece of advice that should go with
out saying is that never, under any circum
stances, attempt to get your server’s atten
tion with hand gestures or by addressing
them as “Hey! ” This is true in every setting
from the finest restaurant in Manhattan all
the way down to an A&W in the middle of
nowhere. It makes the person being ad
dressed feel cheap, not to mention homici
dal. Anyone who does this should be
slapped immediately.
Another reliable way to increase the
chances of getting food with a dash of bodily
fluids is to show up looking for a table two
minutes before the restaurant closes. What
people who have never worked in a restau
rant before do not realize is that the person
who is closing the restaurant has about an
hour of work to do that can’t be started until
the dining room is empty. If it’s a busy night,
there are exceptions, but people who walk
in to find a nearly empty dining room and
MURPHEY, page 8
■ Book reviews
Behrendt and Tuccillo's candid book answers tough
questions about relationships with humor and adince
look
Men's provocative thoughts
on sex and women thoroughly
exposed in Kelman's 'Girls'
BY NAIASI1A CHILINGER1AN
SENIOR PULSE REPORTER
He doesn’t call when he says he
will. You’re in a serious relation
ship, but he doesn’t want to mar
ry you. You’ve been dating for a while
when he disappears into thin air. There is
one simple reason for all these situations
according to former “Sex and the City”
consultant Greg Behrendt: “He’s just not
that into you.”
“He’s Just Not That Into You,” co-au
thored by Behrendt and former “Sex and
the City” executive story editor Liz Tliccil
lo, is a blunt, honest guide to understand
ing some of the most common problems
women run into with men. Behrendt says
that he “knows that guy you’re dating” —
the one who is too busy with his career,
just went through an awful breakup, has
trust issues, etc. — and convinces you to
can him, pronto. Each chapter outlines a
common, unfortunate guy-girl situation,
such as the ones with the guy who has a
fear of intimacy, the man who cheats on
you once and the dude who’s married.
Advice is laid out in a question-and-an
swer format, and chapters are complete
with examples of “the way it should be”
and workbook exercises.
Familiarity and humor are the driving
forces in this advice book. I recognized so
many of the scenarios it was creepy.
“He doesn’t really call me when he says
he’s going to. In fact, he doesn’t really call
me much at all.” Behrendt’s response?
“They say that they don’t have even a mo
ment in their insanely busy day to
pick up the phone. It was just
that crazy. Bullshit.”
Behrendt’s no-non
sense advice makes
you think that the stuff
you’re used to putting
up with in relationships
Hicks' new collection
sheds light on his
'satirical world view'
BY RYAN NYBURG
PULSE EDITOR
Sometimes it seems as if
there are no interesting
stand-up comedians any
more and the form has regressed
back to the days before Lenny
Bruce when comedians told
jokes about their mothers-in-law
and the uncleanliness of French
men. Since the 1980s, stand-up
has become nothing more than a
farm club for the future stars of
crappy sitcoms, with fewer and
fewer relevant performers every
year.
The new collection of the
works of the late Bill Hicks,
“Love All the People: Letters,
Lyrics, Routines,” brings this
dire situation to light. With a
long career in stand-up but a rel
atively short time spent in the
national spotlight, Hicks ap
peared to most audiences fully
formed. With his razor-sharp wit
and clear view of reality, he cre
ated some of the most astute so
cial commentary of the late
1980s and early ‘90s. He died of
cancer in February 1994, cutting
short a career that seemed des
tined for great things.
“Love All the People” outlines
Hicks’ philosophy and provides in
sight into his satirical world view.
might be a waste of energy. “He’s & I*
Just Not That Into You” asserts
that women are goddesses worthy of un
conditional romance and anything less
should be disregarded. Due to the book’s
comical language and recognizable sto
ries, this argument is, for the most part,
convincing.
Even if you don’t accept the advice that
any doubt in a romance must lead to
“bye-bye,” you’re guaranteed to laugh.
Workbook exercises include coloring in a
red flag to remind yourself that a man
who doesn’t want to have sex with you is
not “The One.” Chapters include hilarious
questions from “Nikki,” a woman who
condemns Behrendt’s strict dating rules
and sticks up for her emotionally un
healthy love life. But the funniest part is
that you’ll laugh at yourself when you re
alize how common unacceptable male
behavior is and how much you’ve put up
with it.
Although most suggestions are self-em
powering, one of Behrendt’s standards is
a bit controversial. He states that a
woman shouldn't date a man who does
n’t ask her out first, stating, “Do you really
have time for a guy who’s so afraid of you
that he’s not even capable of inviting you
for coffee?” While his advice might seem
ridiculous to some (What if he’s
just too snyf j, lucciilo
provides a
A self-de
scribed “misan
thropic humanist,”
Hicks took aim at igno
rance, blandness and hypocrisy
wnerever ne saw it. i ne door is
chock full of Hicks’ barbed in
sights as he discusses the war on
drugs, television (“Lucifer’s
dream box”), the Kennedy assas
sination and the first President
Bush. (“People ask me where I
stand politically. It’s not that I
disagree with Bush’s economic
policy or his foreign policy, but
that I believe he is a child of Sa
tan here to destroy the planet
Earth. Yeah, I’m a little to the left
on that one.”)
“Love” contains just about
everything a die-hard Hicks fan
would need of the man’s writing,
but that is the problem. This is
essentially a book for die-hards
and even on that level it won’t
fully satisfy. The transcripts are
for acts that have been released
on CD, meaning all of the per
formances contain material most
fans are already familiar with.
Ana
since the
performances only cover a peri
od of a few years, material is of
ten repeated. This means readers
have to trudge through up to
three or four variations on the
same comedic riff. The tran
scripts also suffer from the sim
ple fact that you are reading
them rather than hearing them.
Because Hicks’ delivery was just
as important as the material it
self, much of the humor fails to
come through.
Looking through the material
collected for the work, it also be
comes apparent that the subtitle
is misleading. The letters and
lyrics make up only a few pages
of the actual text. Of these, only
a couple of the letters in which
Hicks defends himself against
Christians offended by his mate
rial are of any interest. And
BY DAHVI FISCHER
PULSE REPORTER
If I were to assume that all men thought
the way the fictional men did in Nic
Kelman’s “Girls,” I would probably as
sume that wealthy middle-aged men want
nothing more than to undress and sexually ex
perience young, barely-of-age women.
In his 214-page book, Kelman uses ambigu
ous male characters to take a sexually detailed
look at what really turns a man on and what
really keeps him going during those difficult,
lonely or sexually frustrating moments. The
book consists of a generous-sized selection of
mini stories detailing the provocative thoughts
that race through a man’s mind at any time,
I any place and at any age.
Kelman includes stories of a man who
can’t fight the temptation of a good underaged
hooker, a man who gets turned on by watch
ing his girlfriend fornicate with another man,
a man who is in a foreign country and man
ages to run into a former sex partner and, my
personal favorite, a married man who is hav
ing a secret love affair with the young daugh
ter of his close friend.
While the stories are certainly not boring
and give the mind quite a bit to ponder, many
of them are strange, far-fetched and
g anouv.. l \ia\ai
tionally, many of
the famous quotes
placed between
each story
tended
to not
make
sense or
have any
relevance
to the
theme of the
book.
On the flip
side, however,
“Girls” is enter
taining, easy to
GIRLS, page 11
f because only Hicks’ re
sponses are published, the ar
guments lack context.
A big chunk of the book is
made up of magazine articles,
some dating back to Hicks’ sen
ior year of high school, when he
was one of the youngest per
formers on the Texas stand-up
scene. A few of these hold pass
ing interest, but in general they
provide little that is new and less
that is worth republishing. An
original script for Hicks’
planned-but-aborted BBC series
is worth a look, but overall the
book seems to lack relevant ma
terial with which its intended au
dience is not already familiar.
What the book does offer is a
chance to view Hicks’ work as a
whole. Through this, his views
on life and existence are given a
well rounded presentation.
Though cynical and as bitter as
three-day-old coffee, his outlook
in the end is a hopeful one. One
might even come out of it believ
ing that it is possible for a stand
up comedian to be a relevant cul
tural figure with something
important to say.
ryannyburg@dailyemerald.com