December 2, 2004
More tipping fallout from last night's wine tippling at Java:

"I've just read your journal entry for [Monday] and it really pained me to see that you only gave a 10% tip on the two glasses of wine. Now Bob, as you must know, these people make their living on tips and 10% is just not acceptable. Then again, perhaps the service was poor and the dollar conveyed that to the server.
—Brett

No, the service was fine, but I just have an extreme aversion to standing at a bar, and the bartender goes over and fills two plastic glasses with wine, puts it on the bar and says, "That’s ten dollars." And I'm thinking to myself, "You know, the poor kid at Dairy Queen does twice as much work and we don't tip him anything, but here we are in a trendy bar, and a guy fills two glasses and I'm supposed to tip him $2?” Seems mighty dumb to me. So I tipped him $1 and felt that even was too much. And I almost pulled a George, a la Seinfeld, where I started to take it back and changed my mind, then held it up so I would get the credit. Pathetic, eh?

Mike Melrose told me that he was talking with Bill Walsh, the owner of The Franklin Hotel in Deadwood and according to Bill they have people flying in from South America to visit and it's all because of the HBO series Deadwood. Walsh went on to say that visitors to the Black Hills were down last year, but Deadwood's numbers have "skyrocketed" because of the HBO show. Bill also told a funny story about being back in Boston recently wearing his cowboy hat and he went into a bar and someone said, "Where you from cowboy?" And Bill said, "Deadwood, South Dakota," and the bartender said, “Welcome to Boston you c--- s---er.” Now there's a bartender I wouldn't mind tipping $4, just for being so damn funny.

Theresa from Tri Star called yesterday to tell me she got a call from a satisfied mama from Illinois on Monday. Evidently, her son is dyslexic and has never read books until he found one of my heavily illustrated Old West books. She said her son has memorized them, and that she was so impressed, she fought to get the books in the local school. Got to call my mom and tell her that story, but I’ll probably change the books to Arizona Highways, because she doesn’t quite get why I’m so tied up with killers and such. Probably has something to do with my tipping psychosis.

Tomorrow is the deadline for the $100-incentive-deal and Gus assures me that several employees have asked him to sabotage the effort so they can get the $100 party. I think he's about half-kidding. Late this afternoon, the two of us went over the holes in the book and there are nine, including the Gunfight Behind the OK Corral. Ha. That's funny. Need to slam some copy in the breech on that, and on Johnny Ringo, whores and ice cream, Geronimo, Milt Joyce and the Gray Ranch, among others. Going to go down to the wire. Stay tuned. Could get pricey (and I may regret giving that bartender anything!)

“For every action, watch out for the unintended consequences.”
—Steve Zagaris