Last night at work I was pleasantly surprised at the politeness and conscientiousness of my customers. They waited patiently if I was busy, they thanked me, they tipped well, and they brought their dirty glasses from their tables to the bar. On many occasions I saw different people bring two or three empty glasses from their table to me at the bar. It was great! I reflected on it a little at one point, and it occurred to me that it was because of the crowd that was in there. It was a rockabilly and indie music crowd. Working class folks. Folks who know what it’s like to bust you’re a*s and clean up after a bunch of fu*kers!

The main schtick lately for music at my bar has been hippie jam bands. In general, a bunch of ungratious, pretentious, higher-living, demanding, half-yuppie messy yahoos. (and some full yuppies too- you know, those who need some redeeming indentity outside of the corporate world) Maybe I should cut them some slack, and give them the benefit of the doubt. Maybe they’re so hopped up on mind-altering substances that they don’t see any thing but the color of the music? Baaaahhhh.

Anyways that was an attack, I know. But I have found on the whole that most of these people are not patient at the bar, roll their eyes at you giving this “you’re useless look” while they clearly see you making someone else a drink. We don’t have waitresses, just bartenders, and at the end of the night the place looks like a bomb hit it; unless you get the chance between busy moments to walk onto the floor and collect emptys, which I dread doing because the very presence of you around the tables automatically makes these people think you are now a waitress. The rocker crowd last night? When I went out on the floor, not one person asked me to bring them a drink, they saw my task at hand and left me alone. (I'm not complaining too much about the mess really, because that's part of the job, but it sure is nice when people make an effort to lessen your load)

The social argument here is basically the difference between the upbringings and standards of these two different crowds (or cliques, if you will). I’ve already mentioned that the rockers are more working class. I’m sure some of the hippies are too, but it has been my experience that most hippies I have met and known and observed come from a middle to high class background. These are people who shun the ‘un-natural’ order of society. It is better to be holy and spiritual, live off the land (which you can’t really do here in Atlanta, but you can go to whole foods and buy overpriced organics).

I’m digressing here, but it’s relevant- I know this guy who used to be in the corporate world, his wife too. They decided to drop out of society, take their kids, their savings, and what little else they decided to keep and move to the mountains and be completely self-sufficient. They tried many different ways to build a completely organic, energy efficient home. Among their many failed experiments was to live in a home built completely underground. They had problems with the water table, lots of mud and water. They ended up living in a trailor on their land, and he moved back to Atlanta to make whatever living he could to send back to the fam. That’s when I met him. Even the best intentioned hippiness doesn’t really work.

Anyways, the people who I’m talking about are people who work at flower shops, bead stores, or are college students who will one day be anthropology teachers. I know I am blanketing, because I’ve met watitess hippie chicks, I know some of them work, but on the whole I think these people really do have ‘rose-colored glasses’ on. They are spoiled brats who don't give a rat's arse about anything but looking the part, talking the part, and flailing around like slow-motion epileptics to boring, repetitive, spaced-out grooooovvvvyyyy music. Most of them could use a lesson in their p’s and q’s. hippies give me hives.

I'll take "My Dixie Darling" over "Space is the Place" any day.