“That Uncomfortable, Awkward Silence”

Whenever I do a show in a city farther than about 3 hours away I usually just stay one more night in a hotel. It’s not that I love hotels, William Shatner books me in some really creepy places at times and even the nice hotels grow old after two nights. I stay the extra night because it’s just not worth the effort and the risk. By the time everything gets packed, it just makes more sense to eat a quiet dinner somewhere, get up early and get home early the next day. It beats the hell out of taking out a family and their station wagon on the interstate just because I couldn’t wait to get home a few hours later in one piece and I couldn’t stay awake on the road. I also harbor a severe contempt, if not hatred of deer on the highways. Vermin with horns and Bambi eyes.

Most shows pack up anywhere between 5 and 7 pm on Sunday. This usually involves taking everything apart and packing everything up as quickly as possible after standing in the sun all day selling paintings after standing in the sun all day Saturday selling paintings as well. Tempers are usually fairly short among some artists – usually the ones that thought they would get rich quick by doing art shows, but also among the ones that are sunburnt, dehydrated, and exhausted. Some pull their vans or trucks right up to their spot and start loading as they take things down. Not a bad idea except for the 14 artists he is blocking that are slowly walking toward him with baseball bats. . . some people just never learn. My favorites are the guys that absolutely have to be the first one loaded and out of the site. They measure their masculinity not only by how big their truck is, but how quickly they can load up, and how obnoxiously they can leave the site. On the other end of the spectrum are the guys that are in no hurry whatsoever. They nurse a beer while they leisurely pack their stuff and somehow manage to leave the show with no stress and no issues. The really funny part is when the hurry up guys are stuck in traffic trying to leave the site and they end up leaving at the same time as the guys that took their time. Some shows leave it up to the artists and the tear-down process is a complete cluster. Some get totally involved in the process and issue “passes” for people to go get their vans and so forth once all their stuff is packed up and sitting on the ground – guarded by old alcoholic men holding crisp $20 bills and false promises of staying on guard until the artist leaves the immediate area to get his or her van. “Load Out” all too often turns into a cluster no matter how it’s managed, it’s a way of life only an artist can enjoy. The later the summer gets, the earlier it gets dark and even more difficult to manage. Jackson Browne sang a song about roadies many years ago, sometimes it gets stuck in my head while I am dismantling the booth and packing up the van in your town in the moonlight.

When I’m in St. Louis, I usually go have dinner with a good friend of mine and head back to the hotel to do business stuff for the show. Sales sheets, books and taxes – that sort of thing. When I leave St. Louis on Monday mornings I love to go to one of those breakfast restaurant places. I am not sure, but I think the one I go to is the one that is farthest north and west of all the others in the entire chain. I love going to them. They are all over the South. They have kind of a charm to them. They’re not clean, but they’re not dirty. The food isn’t bad, but it isn’t good either. The waitresses are usually friendly, but they never stand in one place for more than a second or two. That’s not why I go to there though. I’m an artist, I go to these places because I am watching a living, breathing vignette of Americana. When you sit in these places and let everything unfold, you are given a gift of watching their world in their house for 15 or 20 minutes.

I was last at this little roadhouse place last spring after doing a big show in St. Louis. The ladies tend to have roving or rolling conversations with each other as they bounce from table to table and back to the kitchen area, then to the dishwasher area, then over to the cash register. They carry on full blown conversations with each other over the sound of the grill, the waffle irons, the dishwasher, and the customers. They never miss a beat on what they are discussing – one will stop to ring a customer out, another will leave the area (probably for a quick cigarette), another will have a sidebar conversation with a customer, then they will all return to what they were discussing – all punctuated with “Honey” and “Darlin’”, an inability to conjugate their verbs accurately (“You was”, “we was gonna”, etc.) and quick orders clipped out in code for the cook who usually is the one waitress with the most seniority. They are all like little hummingbirds that can’t stop talking and have to wear nametags with little “things” on them. I love to watch what goes on there. I am exhausted after 15 minutes of it all, and I have to remind myself that this is what they are doing for at least 8 hours a day – every day. Then they go home and attend to their children and families. These ladies are absolutely amazing in their uncanny ability to multi-task and carry on simultaneous conversations. They are very entertaining to watch while they do their jobs.

One conversation last spring consisted of the waitresses all discussing how warm it was over the weekend and how they really enjoyed the first weekend that did not rain and the temperature cracked 70 degrees.

“Girl, I was out sunbathing and playin’ the Frisbee and stuff, you know.”

“Oh that sounds like fun!”

“Uh-huh and we had us some amaretto too!”

“Amaretto?”

“Yep, ’twas dayumm good too. We both finished off that whole bottle.” (This is when I really started paying attention, because it didn’t know what they mixed it with and I was waiting for someone to ask.)

“The whole bottle?”

“Yep, hey it was nice out, girl!” “More coffee hun?”

I nodded for her to warm up the cup and pretended to not be listening while I looked at the newspaper.

“There you go, baby.” “Yes, girl it was so nice out!” “Ready for your check, hun?”

I nodded and reached for my money while still looking at the paper.

“There you go, hun – thank you!”

“Girl, did you have anything else out there at the lake?”

“Like what?”

“You know what I mean!”

The waitress smiled at me as she picked up the dishes and didn’t miss a beat talking.

“Girl, you know I can’t be doing that stuff!”

“How come?”

“I’m still on probation, I gots to stay off that stuff!”

There was an uncomfortable, awkward silence.

No one looked up. As I left the tip and walked out I could hear them talking about water-skiing with the fishin’ boat and so forth. I was there for the entertainment. The place is a classic picture of Missouri like no other. It made staying in the hotel one more night just so much worth it. I would not have dared to thank them for letting me watch and be entertained by what they do while at their jobs. It would have been insulting to them.

I’ve gone back there several times and watched these ladies do what they do. Once this past summer I was there. One of the same girls was there back then. She was a waitress that got angry with a co-worker who took my order because her co-worker “stole” her customer, i.e. “me”.

There was an uncomfortable, awkward silence when that happened.

My official waitress was out on a cigarette break. The unofficial waitress stepped up where she shouldn’t have, but should have.

I left 2 dollars for each of them because I didn’t want to see either of them get in trouble and $2 seemed an easy way to make sure they all felt love for each other again. The both looked at me like I was Warren Buffett.

Talk about an uncomfortable, awkward silence.

This last time, I was quietly eating and reading the newspaper on the Droid phone at the lunch counter when 2 guys sat down a couple of seats away from me. They politely gave their order in between the waitresses’ conversations. One asked for a glass of water when he ordered and the waitress kept forgetting to bring it to him. On his third request, she apologized and was running over to get it.

“Does he want a glass of water too?”

“Who?”

“Your friend.”

“I don’t care about him.”

There was an uncomfortable, awkward silence.

She smiled and brought him his water and continued her conversation with her co-workers.

I sat back and thought for a while. When these two guys leave, the waitresses are going to have a heyday with them. If they tip well, the heyday will be less severe. If they don’t tip at all, the thrashing will be intense and focused.

The waitresses work for sales and tips. I didn’t dare to thank them for the free entertainment. It wasn’t what they were there to do. It would have been insulting to them and would have caused a very uncomfortable and awkward situation. The waitresses were there for sales and tips, it’s what makes their world go around.

Artists work for sales at the shows. Time in the studio is spent making paintings or photographs or pottery or sculpture for people to purchase, to buy, to take into their homes and workplaces.

Almost every show I have ever done brings out at least one and sometimes quite a few people that walk into the booth and look around exclaiming how much they love the paintings, how beautiful they are, how wonderful, how “clever”. Then they look at me – in the eyes – and thank me for sharing my work with them on such a beautiful day and so forth and so on. These people are “Thank-ers”. “Thank-ers” enjoy viewing the art, but don’t have enough sense to quietly view the art. They need to be entertained as well. And they need to let everyone know.

The world is a strange place and we all know how odd people can be. Frequently at shows artists are approached by “BC’ers” (a term a friend of mine told me had heard just recently – “BC’ers are people that come into the booth and ask for business cards – there are plenty of “BC’ers” out there!), or people trying to learn how to be an artist, or people that are “just looking”, etc. When working with the public at a street show and artist can talk to a homeless person one minute and a millionare the next. You just never know.

But the “Thankers” the ones that think the work is on display to be shared with the viewer so the viewer can thank the artist for “sharing” – they are my Achilles’ Heel. For some reason, these people give the impression that artists are thought to be just appreciative if someone looks at their work. I don’t know where the idea originated – nothing could be further from the truth. If a shopper goes to a store for underwear, and decides the store did not have the underwear she wanted, does she say “thank you for sharing” to the clerk at the store? This “thank you for sharing” thing will always perplex me, but here’s what I would like to see: I would like to see a “Thank-er” go into the restaurant I go to in St. Louis, sit at the counter, look around, and then thank the waitress for “sharing”.

There will be an uncomfortable, awkward silence.

The restaurant and the waitresses are not there to share anything, they are there to sell. The art show and the artists are at the show to sell their work as well. Art shows, just like restaurants, bars, hotels, stores, and other businesses are set up to sell their work, wares, goods, and services. Not every artist will be able to sell to each customer and every artist knows this fact. There is really no need to thank an artist for “sharing”. If you want to buy a piece of the artist’s work, please do so. If not, that’s ok as well.

No need for that uncomfortable, awkward silence.

(Crickets chirping)

Umm, soooo anyway……..have a good day, ok?