#hospotality

Hotel JK Place, Capri

Growing up, i always admired the fanatic devotion and commitment a chef dedicates towards his profession, like a god, creating something beautiful, pushing it towards the peak perfectionism one could best achieve or only dream of and always going one step beyond.

Because the fascinating thing you learn as a chef is there is always something better, something you can improve on, just something else... something more!

There is never really a limit or boundary, you learn that a good chef will always ask themselves or tell themselves that “it can always be better” “what can be improved?” “what can i do next that will give even a bigger WOW factor?”.

its these questions that push us to strive to improve ourselves constantly towards a never reachable goal f perfection or fulfillment. because there is always something else or something better which can be done.

Almost done with smoking. I smoked so much last night. For no reason. Just back to back darts for NO REASON. Today my throat feels kinda like a vacuum cleaner tube with a kink in it, my lymph nodes floating up and down my neck like a lava lamp. It doesn’t feel good. Feels like there’s been some damage done. Sometimes my in-breath sounds like a cutlery draw falling out of its sockets. Or a bin bag full of smashed glass being dragged along the ground. And sometimes it sounds as if I’m conjuring up metaphors from my hospitality experience. And I am. 

Looking for hospitality jobs in Melbourne you see many ads like such…

What I’ve realised working on and off in hospitality for the last 5 years is that for us introspective, sensitive, op-shopping, incense burning, Nietzsche reading, beer garden dwelling, backyard henna tattooing, postcards from the library collecting, brick phone using, rollie smoking, happy-hour pint drinking, bus catching, Unknown Pleasures t-shirt wearing, magic mushroom refrigerating, dips with more than one ingredient purchasing, couch surfing, open mic bombing, busking, art gallery wine sipping, dole bludging, Yoga posing, brunch eating, tiny house aspiring, earlobe stretching, short course on remedial massage taking, South-East Asia travelling, VICE watching, Robitussin drinking, friendlyjordies watching, nang inhaling, blog writing, creative, wannabe, artist, muso, dancer, juggler, wankers… you must learn how to craft and develop your hospitality persona. Because for most of us it’s not inherently there. Because as much as we are all whining babies sometimes we are, overall, more honest and call bullshit on more things. And we find it wrong to present a falsely nice demeanour to some shit customers at the café where you work, that underpays, pays only in cash while you’re surrounded by co-workers that say things that drift towards racist. And because you need the job you say nothing and then they think you’re weird.  

Because if you’re one of these ‘artists’ types mentioned. You most likely don’t spend a lot of time in the ‘real world’. You might spend a lot of time alone, doing etchings of people having sex with animals at 4am, listening to New Order records, or you might spend 3 hours in an open mic, waiting to perform some comedy for 3 minutes to an audience of 3 people and someone’s dog.

If you’ve Bukowski’d yourself into a position where you’ve never learnt how to pretend to be a ‘bubbly, outgoing and enthusiastic’ person you may struggle. I remember feeling very dysfunctional as I attempted to deal with customers after not working for 1 year. I’d watch my co-workers be so natural and comfortable and it killed me. I began developing a complex of superiority. I’d think - ‘wow I’m so much more aware of the inherent dishonesty in these interactions with these customers than the people I work with’. Which’s such an ugly thought and nothing but a reflection of severe insecurity. This thinking only hindered me more as I isolated myself further into a cocoon of intellectual self-righteousness and distaste for modern life.

Now my hospitality persona is drenched in a personal sarcasm that’s ever so subtle. I’m playing a caricature of myself but the people I’m serving don’t know who I am, they believe I’m like this and for me this’s continuously funny. It’s undetectable unless you know me. But if you only meet me at the place we work, you won’t know the difference unless we hang out privately. It’s the way to go for me because I’m a cheeky cunt. I’m just harnessing some of that cheekiness in a more professional, functional, career-based sense. I’m playing to my internal repertoire of inner cuntyness. But to be clear I’m not talking about traditional, mainstream sarcasm. You can’t get away with that. It must be subtle and personal.

In Mark Manson’s book The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A Fuck (A great book that collects a massive variety of philosophy, life experience and history to give a practical guide to following your ‘dreams’, navigate life and ultimately be happy) he talks about how the West has monetised bubbly, outgoing and enthusiastic personas. Using an outer layer of forced positivity as an advertising tool. Travelling in Russia he was bewildered to find that shit didn’t exist. He recalls having a date with a girl. Midway through chatting she interrupts him to say what he’d just said was very stupid. Initially he was taken back but curiously realised it wasn’t an attack, she wasn’t trying to hurt him, she was simply being honest. False niceties aren’t part of Russian culture. Why? Well he explained it dated back to times of war where people needed to be able to trust people and they needed to able to do it quick. No fucking around, no small talk, just honesty.

Asking –‘Hey how are you?’ and not expecting nor wanting an answer must fuck us up somehow.

Maybe it’s why English’s so hard for foreigners to learn. We keep twisting it in ways to hide our emotions and feelings. Maybe we are more repressed than we even know.

***

It’s better to be bored than distracted. I miss being bored. But it’s a foreign concept now. Every time you’re bored you look at your phone, jump from App to App, then repeat. I’m even starting to think listening to music a lot on a portable device isn’t great. I’m starting to think most podcasts aren’t helpful. A real irony because this whole blog is based upon a podcast I neglect to work on and/or release.

Take for example some of my favourite podcasts, The Joe Rogan Experience and WTF with Marc Maron. These are great podcasts, but they can give the illusion of education. Apart from conversations about comedy and/or practical life advice things like The Joe Rogan Experience or WTF are merely surface level information. It has great depth in emotional information. But ironically, I don’t think Joe Rogan himself would recommend listening to his 3.5-hour podcast instead of working on something important. May’ve said it before but the people that make Grand Theft Auto probably don’t play much Grand Theft Auto. They’re too busy trying to make the next Grand Theft Auto.

I’m not shitting on podcasts or entertainment. I’m just saying some things can give idiots (like me) the impression they’re learning when they listen to Joe Rogan talk to a scientist. It’s inspiration for more extensive learning not deep learning itself. I’m saying this shit because I feel like they’re many others like me that have a brain that’s constantly thinking of new ways to procrastinate. One of which is to make me believe certain things I do are ultimately ‘research’ or ‘educational’.

Just like your nutritional diet’s important. So’s your diet of art you consume. But also, sometimes it’s good to fast for a while.

I’ve been spending time recently walking distances, sitting on trams, sitting in chairs with no distractions and allowing myself to truly think. Thinking for extended periods of time and fully fleshing out thoughts. This may sound weird. But for the last 9 years I’ve been doing anything in my power not to leave my brain on its own for too long without stimulation or distraction –  in other words; to think. It started when I was 12 or 13. I could never sleep and had terrible insomnia. Lying in bed with a racing heart that’d increase the more I tried to calm it down. I couldn’t handle it. I’d lie in my bed and make a child sized bird’s nest, wrapping the blankets around in a circular fashion and curling up inside. Don’t know why but it made me feel safer.

Other nights I’d prop myself up against the wall and these waves of darkness would surge through me. It’s still brutal in retrospect. I imagine it’s just a part of being a young kid. They were abstract feelings. Weird jangled story lines that’d play out in my head, set in a world resembling where the Shinigami live in the anime Death Note. I’d rock back and forth like a mental patient. I don’t know what the fuck was wrong with me. It’s weird to look back. I know my brain’s just looking for excuses or connections. Some sort of connection where I can be like - ‘SEE I AM FUCKED UP INHERENTLY! ITS NOT MY FAULT! SEE THE PRODUCT WAS FAULTY! IT WASN’T ME, I DIDN’T FUCK IT UP, I DON’T HAVE TO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR MY ACTIONS’. Look, I’m aware of what I’m swaying towards and relax. All I’m doing is noting these strange neuroses.

I also used to wet the bed like a mad cunt. I was one of the best, ahead of my time. I was versatile and did well during away games (I could piss the bed at any sleepover at anyone’s house). I could’ve had it all. I had big dreams of dishing out golden showers on king sized beds while being showered with actual gold. But my Mum took me to the equivalent of bed wetting AA. They gave us this metal box that was connected to a rubber mat that I put under my bed sheets. When I inevitably pissed during the night it’d trigger the metal box, making it ring like a fire alarm. I’d wake up thinking the world was ending and turn it off. Soon after I didn’t wet the bed. I could’ve been good you know. I had a scholarship lined up at 40 Winks, but alas, I had to hang up my plastic sheets.

Funny how embarrassing it is when you wet the bed as a child, but you hit 18 and pissing the bed due to Jack Daniels or XXX Boags is almost cool in some circles. It’s a symbol of someone that knows how to party. Then 8 -10 more years and it becomes, not embarrassing, not funny but edging on sad. And then after about 30, (I can only imagine) it’s consistently sad. But then after 80 it’s normal again and, I’d like to hope, funny again. It’s always good to close on a joke.

Life’s worth living. I’m gonna live it. At the end of last year, I thought I was going to kill myself. But I didn’t. Now I’m looking at my life like a new toy you get when you’re a kid. It’s got that new plastic smell. You keep getting it out just to look at it, and you run around to all the adults you know showing it off.

I’m getting a little better, but I need to figure out how to stop distracting myself.

How to focus. How to focus. How to focus. I want to learn to focus. I want to control my basic impulses. But I lack the discipline and I lack the drive. And that’s fine. At least I know. Because for the past 21 years I’ve been denying it.

Unfortunately discipline from the exterior world isn’t worth shit personally. It works though. Enrolling in the army and getting screamed at like it’s an American movie will force you to do certain things. But you take away that cunt shouting in your face and you’re back to normal, back to your own impulsive self.

‘It’ (what you want to achieve) itself doesn’t get easier or harder, it’s constant. It’s you that’s the variable. ‘It’ stays at a constant level of difficulty, whatever that thing may be, it’s consistent. YOU are the variable. The task’s the same but the weather’s everchanging within the field of you. You don’t have control of the weather. But you do control how you navigate it. This makes following your dreams seem so hard; your goals like impossible moving targets. Because some days you’re great and some days you let slip by in a re-watching-of-peep-show-for-73rd-time malaise.

Fear and love. Bill Hicks. It’s always an available choice. And I like to bring it back to this - 2 choices; fear and love.

My brain likes to fuck me over and think of the worst possible scenario where fear is viable. And then it doesn’t really make me feel as theoretically invincible. I repeat in my head, sitting on buses – Fear and love, fear and love, fear and love. Then I think about if I accidentally got someone pregnant, or ended up in jail, or got a horrendous disease, etc. Then I think about the rational option of suicide. How that is viable. And I truly, still, consistently believe that. And that’s something I’m going to change.

I swear it to the Old gods and New, if I ever see Walder Frey in the Twins, I will never accept any hospitality from him, nor any of his sons, daughters, or grandchildren. I sneaked a view on Game of Thrones season 3 episode 9 and once again my shocked emotions came out pouring in front of the laptop as I was in the A Storm of Swords! 

It was, at least, easier to imagine Starks (Catelyn and Robb) dying than seeing them suffer and die in the television. I felt betrayed by any hospitality coming from the Lord of the Twins and I would never trust old man such as him! 

Now the urge of rereading book 3 feels like an important need! And I swear breathing is hard when you read the characters you've loved most need to sacrifice their lives but end up in the same circumstances.