Olympians Want More Water

Part One: My Catering Life

My weekend was eventful. On Friday, I worked for my stepbrother’s father who caters major events in the Phoenix Metro area. I worked at America West Arena on the same night that his company was catering the Pixies at Dodge Theater. America West had the darlings of U.S. Olympic gymnastics. Could have been worse. I was supposed to work the smooth jazz fest the next day. More on that later.
Gymnasts. The stereotypes, as usual, are basically true. The men seem mostly gay (the ones who weren’t had Amazon girlfriends) the girls were cute and stunted. The gold medalist (Carly Patterson?) was only slightly snotty and for the most part they were very friendly and excited to talk to anyone not in the little world they live in and have always lived in. there was a weird dance team though, which I can only imagine was the opening act, that had very snotty “street” girls and some of the more flamboyant boys I’ve ever seen. One of them, a young African-American with red, white and blue tassels tied to his forearms and calves and the look of a guy who could do a back flip over your mutha-fuckin’ head, insisted on throwing the word “holla” in the beginning, end and middle of most sentences. I couldn’t decide if he wanted me to make some noise or if he wanted Jewish bread. I gave him neither. Holla.
My job was just to make sure that the food area stayed full so whenever people came in it looked like we just set it out for them.
Almost more interesting than the gymnasts themselves, were the gymnast roadies. Every show has roadies. The first to come and the last to leave. I usually associate them solely with bands, but every show that travels has to have them. I kept thinking about what the ice capades roadies must be like. Probably a lot like gymnast roadies. Silent, unless discussing very manly things to assert their manhood in this less-than-manly place, tired-looking and tattooed. Is this where roadies get their start? A roadie minor league? Where they begin, where they come to die.
The day ended with a bowl in the bowels of the arena. I should have known that working with caterers would be a pretty likely place to find someone with something. It turns out, the guy I was working with was one of only two in the whole company who actually smokes. He called it chronic. I secretly like it a lot when people call it chronic. Chronic! It made the drive home interesting.
I took the catering van home and it’s a good thing that ten miles under the speed limit was okay by me, because it was just about all that van could do. It was a piece of shit to begin with, plus to was loaded to the gills with coolers, hotboxes, dirty dishes and leftovers. Four things that made for a positively charming aroma the next morning. I chose to drive the van home because a.) nobody would be able to let me into the shop to unload it, and b.) I had no other way home save having my Dad pick me up and I hate to inconvenience the man. The morning’s smell was the first thing that went wrong. About ten minutes in to my forty minute drive, the tread of one of the back tires ripped off while I was doing about fifty. I was to supposed to unload the truck, pick up more food and deliver it to a different venue. Instead, I sat by the side of a freeway and sat in a tire store. By the time I got back to the shop my time was basically over, Swede picked me up and we went to Flagstaff to see a Dan Bern show. Much love for AZ highways. This is one of the prettiest places I have ever seen.

Part Two: Flagstaff -> http://catfishvegas.blogspot.com/2004/10/dan-bern-and-89a.html#comments

why can't i figure out how to make links work? anybody?