The Majority Will Not Rule... In This Case

While I was setting up the restaurant the other night, the host came over and told me that he had just received a phone call. The caller had asked if I was working. No, they didn't want to talk to me, but did ask to please pass on a message that Ryan was coming in for dinner with a friend.

Ryan!

Things didn't work out for us romantically, but what we were left with was the most remarkable friendship ever since. He and I truly love each other. It was an absolute case of this-is-someone-I-should-know. He is singularly my greatest champion right now. He was the one who accused me of being Neo.

Goddamn it! There are too many people sharing the same goddamned name in this world! I am grateful to my parents that my name is rather unusual; or rather, you don't come across it 16 times a day, or even twice. (Thanks Mom! Thanks Dad!... I always wanted to be a Dave or a Bob or a Mike or a Tiffany.)

I was disappointed because it turned out to be my other friend, Ryan, who called and who subsequently came in, not my champion, not my supporter, not my great new friend.

So just after the state of realisation, which felt not unlike being picked up by a giant, plastic, carnival hand, by the back of the shirt, arm and legs flailing, lifted 10 feet in the air and unconscionably released onto unforgiving concrete, I felt a bit more than wounded. Tender. Bitchy.

Hungry.

I devoured a rather large caprese salad, bread, bread, bread, pasta, sautéed chicken livers, pistachio cheesecake. I ate until I couldn't eat anymore. Still, I felt like ass.

Fridays have turned into Introverted Fridays for me. Sometimes all I do is fantasize about being back at my apartment, alone, and cranking music, my music, as loud as my ears will allow and/or suffer. Sometimes there's no real proponent. Other times there are.

Every Friday, since my return back from summer holidays, something I'm starting to save up for so I can do it every year, I've been working with the most excessively flamboyant gay guy named Glen. Poor Josh, my favourite comrade at work, once got poked in the eye by Glen in one of his flamboyant tyrades. Glen's in his 40's. Bitter. Is working simply for the dough. When he's in a "good" mood, it's because he's on blow. Customers spot it instantly. When he's in a bad mood he's recovering from a coke binge from the night before.

And it ain't pretty.

In addition to his wildly unpredictable moods, he gives people *notes*.

If people he works with aren't doing what he wants them to do, in the exact manner in which he wants it executed, he loses his mind and LOUD, caustic, unreasonable hissy fits ensue. Publically. No one is happy when he's working. Mogwai's Hunted by a Freak video is a metaphor for what he does to other human beings, on a nightly basis, just with his mind and with his mouth.

I don't come across "bad humans" too often. I'm not talking about people in bad moods, or the occasional outburst, or even the consistent outbursts of many. I can still see the humanity in the person. I'm talking about the people in this world with, not just tarnished but, Black Souls.

If I were granted those abilities we dream up, I would summon up my super-powers and commence with the immediate removal of this sub-human from our biosphere, for he contaminates the air good people breathe.

One of the worst things a generally dumb person does is complain about a situation and not offer any potential solutions. Case in point: I don't know where he finds the time, but Glen unceasingly complains about the music we play at work. It's not as if he's brought in any of HIS disks from home. First off, he's selfish. Secondly, anyone who presents something as personal as music is subject to potential judgement and ridicule. He alone holds the mantle in judgement. He couldn't possibly open himself up to any reciprocal action. The best, safest place for him to be is to lord over us and berate us our choices.

Personally, I don't hear the music played at work, unless it's something I am very familiar with and/or feel tremendous love towards. OR is some Eminen disk that got slid in under the radar. Then I retaliate. Since Glen is a little older, and gay, he grew up with disco. There's nothing wrong with disco, but a person cannot subsist on the diet of fluffy, happy, unchallenging, repetitive stuff all the time. I liken it to popcorn. Yuck... currently imagining the smell of entrails on just a steady diet of popcorn. Unless disco or house, a refined derivative of the former, is playing, Glen will bitch.

Bitch is what bitch does.

And then I noticed the Others.

I noticed that night there was a slightly older crowd, though not chronologically; mentally they were geezers. Also they were a corporate set, a visually aging lifestyle, on their day off. All of them wanted to hear

Disco! Disco! Disco!
Familiar.
Safe.
Unchallenging.
Nothing new.
Comfortable.
Secure.
Disco!
Happy music for the terminally unhappy. Smiles plastered onto vapid faces.

The Arcade Fire was was turned off.

I lost it.

I turned to my boss at the end of the night and told him we, as good humans, have an obligation to bring our knowledge of what we think is good and righteous and honest and fucking amazing to educate those that are stifled and stilted in their everyday experiences.

"But they wanted disco."

In truth, I mostly got mad at his pandering to the majority.

I also told him about all the times I've ventured into new places, alone or accompanied and heard music I'd never heard before, music that seemed to speak to me alone. I would ask who the artist was, or the title of the track, or if the album title was available. Everyone obliged me. I discovered Vivaldi's Four Seasons, The Last Emperor soundtrack, and The Arcade Fire that way. I remember everything surrounding those aural experiences. I remembered who I was with, or the mindset I was in at the time if I was alone. I remembered all the venues vividly.

I get that all the time at work: people asking, people discussing music. It starts conversations too, which is a goal.

There are some that embrace it; the wonderful, the open. And there are the Others.

Who will retaliate
It's their lot.

But fuck it, I'm not stopping.