By Ardin Lalui
Imagine a world without waitresses. Who'd want it? There's some men have no use for a world like that. For them a life without waitresses is no life at all, no life worth living.
Take Tom Waits and Charles Bukowski. Waitresses have left a deep mark on the art of both and have helped shape and add meaning to some of their best work. They have both drawn waitresses as romantic and mysterious. Waitresses have altered the landscape of their worlds, made it a wistful place, and full of longing. Maybe it's because they're lonely, but it's a certain kind of loneliness, beautiful and tragic and poignant. It's a strange loneliness comes through in their lyrics and poetry.
Closing Time, Waits' first album, talks about this loneliness in track nine,
"Lonely." It's a short song, a lament, it doesn't say much but it says lonely like no other. "Lonely eyes, lonely face, lonely lonely in your place." It's a loneliness that's unexpected, "I thought that I knew all that there was to," and it's unfair, "Melanie Jane, won't feel the pain," but mostly it's just inevitable, self-inflicted, and almost welcome because its your own refusal to let go that drives it, "I still love you, I still love you, lonely, lonely...."
It's a very specific loneliness of which Waits sings. It doesn't depend who you're with, it's carried on the inside, and its reasons can only be found on the inside. It might be the most beautiful of human emotions. It doesn't come without sadness. For every real thing there's proof, and the proof the human heart is made to love is loneliness. There's not always a girl in mind, maybe there's no girl at all, but there he is, loneliest living man in the world. That's the loneliness that has a man walking into a diner at 2 a.m. looking for a waitress.
This longing for a waitress has nothing to do with looks. That's not to say there's any problem with a pretty waitress, nothing in the world like a pretty waitress, but that's gravy, a bonus, like having a pretty mom or sister.
Bukowski had no problem with pretty waitresses. He once had an affair with a cocktail waitress, name of Pamela Miller. He said, "she'll be the death of me but it's worth it." She was a knockout, red hair, Miss Pussycat 1973. They called her Cupcakes because of her 38D chest and Bukowski said "each time I see her she looks better and better, 200 years ago they would have burned her at the stake." That's a pretty waitress. She worked at The Alpine Inn.
But this waitress thing isn't about sex. It's more important, and fills a more basic, innocent need. An old, 300-pound waitress has the magic soon as she puts on that dress. She's apart from other women. Don't underestimate the dress. In Septuagenarian Stew Bukowski says:
"I should not have blamed only my father, but,
he was the first to introduce me to
raw and stupid hatred.
he was really the best at it...
...when I left that ... "home" ... I found his
counterparts
everywhere ...
I was simply the target to their discontent
some old fat waitress bringing me a cup of coffee
is in comparison
like a fresh wild wind blowing."
He's talking about his father and growing up and being unhappy and all it takes is a waitress and bang, "fresh wild wind blowing." And Bukowski is not exactly given to looking on the softer side of life.
That's waitressing. That's why waitresses are important. They're a fresh wild wind to every afflicted soul. You need a waitress sometimes and they're always there. Wherever you are, whoever you're with, and most importantly, whatever you've done, they'll be there waiting for you.
