“I’m gonna be late; I’m gonna be late,” I think, easing the accelerator all the way to the floor. Just minutes earlier, I cranked out a 15-inch story on the County Commission’s latest actions, but already my thoughts are elsewhere.

“Shit, shit, shit.”

I know it’s a 45-minute drive, but every time I think I can do it in 30.

When I finally do barrel into the parking garage, I’m already five minutes late. Walking quickly through the door, I scan the restaurant for my manager’s eyes. Not seeing them, I head to the back room, where I shed my khakis and dress-shirt and don a pair of clean, black pants, greasy, well-worn Wal-Mart shoes and an apron stocked with ink pens.

Just a minute to clock in, say what’s up to everyone, read the nightly special and that’s it. I’m sat with a table of four: time to get the night started.

Like most restaurant servers, I didn’t think I’d be at it this long.

All the bleached-white shirts, the $200 nights, the swinging kitchen doors: They all seem to run together at this point.

But something about the job keeps me coming back.

In at four; done by midnight — Wednesday, Friday, Saturday nights.

Whether I’m tired, hung-over, pissed off at the world or in love for the first time, I have to laugh at the table’s jokes all the same and show concern when a fork is dirty or a side dish comes out cold. It’s not that I don’t care about your experience — I do. I realize you’re paying good money for an enjoyable night out. It’s just that I encounter a situation so many times that instinct generally kicks in before emotion.

I end up repeating the same phrase so many times — “our 14-ounce prime strip, topped with Montchevre goat cheese that’s smothered in peppers and onions and then sautéed in a Grand Marnier-brown sugar sauce”  — that it’s as if you’re asking for my phone number or street address.

“It’s excellent. A little sweeter, but one of our best cuts,” I say.

And the Merryvale Chardonnay?

“A buttery white. For something a little more crisp, try the Villa Maria … nice,  grapefruit scent but really a smooth finish.”

What I’m saying is legit. But it’s a variation of what I tell people over and over again.

So much of what you see at the table, for me, is an endless routine: greet the guests; offer drinks; offer appetizers; recite the special; clear dishes; fill glasses; take salads; clear dishes; bring the steak knives; bring another glass of wine; arrange entrees; fill glasses; clear dishes; etc.

At the newspaper, I have a different story to write each day. The news is always changing. The restaurant is not.

There’s still the Mexican guys in the kitchen playing grab-ass; still the constant mother-fucking we do when you leave us a 10 percent tip; and still the endless trays and tickets and dishes that pile up.

By now, I have Frank Sinatra so tattooed on my brain that I may sing every word to “My Funny Valentine” without even knowing I’ve opened my mouth.

While requests for salad dressing on the side, split entrees and a steak “somewhere between medium and medium-rare” don’t sound that difficult, add them up and multiply them by three, four, six tables and my shift that began with a cheerful mood eventually sours.

You might not realize it, but it’s the strain of waiting tables — not the pressure of getting every detail of my reporting 100 percent accurate — that can wake me in the middle of the night with a sharp gasp and pounding chest. Ask any server about the nightmares. For some it’s a kitchen located two blocks down the street. For me, it’s a cavernous dining room. Before I can even get a drink order for the table in front of me, a group of eight goes down at the far end of the restaurant. I stumble through a maze of chairs and different rooms and, when I finally do get the next table’s order, I return to the kitchen to find that my tickets haven’t printed. Then five more guests walk through the door.

It’s crazy how much the job affects me sometimes.

It’s the couple that orders an appetizer, tells me they “haven’t even looked” at their menus and then inform me they have a seven o’clock show to make when they finally do order. It’s the guest who shouts my name while I’m reciting the special to the table right next to him.

Or better yet, it’s the waking-life nightmare when my manager returns to the kitchen and asks, “What the hell’s wrong with you?” In weaving through traffic, arm extended high under an entrée-laden tray, I’ve managed to drip hot, soupy Fettuccine Diablo con Pesce on three separate guests — not including a baby in a high chair.

You might not realize that, in serving all this food, I haven’t eaten since lunch. Undoubtedly, I haven’t gone to the bathroom in six hours, and I hardly had time to grab a quick smoke or drink a cold soda.

As with anything in life, though, a simple please and thank you goes a long way — whether you’re the five businessmen who tip more than 20 percent and are on your third bottle of Silver Oak, or you’re the sweet, old couple that holds hands on your 50^th anniversary but thinks $5 on a $60 check is a generous offering.

             But for as much complaining as servers do, for all the moments we spend contemplating what we’re doing in life while rolling silverware into crisp, white table linens, there’s actually quite a few plusses to the job. I can pick out a great bottle of wine and uncork it in seconds flat. I’ve meet so many great people — including my girlfriend — in restaurants. And, believe it or not, it’s actually helped me as a journalist, too. I can scribble shorthand as fast as anyone I know, and, chances are, I can remember the last six things you just told me. I can walk up to someone I’ve never met before and jump into a conversation. But the real reason I keep coming back to restaurant jobs is the bulge in my billfold at the end of my shift that wasn’t there just hours before.

            When I finally do cozy into that barstool — a nightly allotted Tanqueray and tonic in front of me — I know I’ve made in three shifts what I did in a week’s worth of reporting. It pays the rent. It keeps me ahead. And it’s enough to bring me through that door the next night, the next weekend — and just like that — the next four years.

Another student in my Media and Politics course made what I thought was a very smart comment during this morning’s lecture.
We were talking about what motivates readers to post political comments on blogs or social networking sites — or just on online articles in general.
We looked at the 800+ comments on a story from a supposed conservative columnist as to why Sarah Palin should withdraw from the Republican ticket.  Other examples were viewer responses to CBS news anchor Katie Couric’s recent sit-down interview with Palin and messages from supporters posted to facebook.com campaign groups.
The student said that people join in discussion boards on various sites, because, in a way, they feel comfortable in that environment, as if they are having a familiar, “dinner table” conversation with someone else rather than the reality of the situation: they’re communicating with someone they’ve probably never met and probably never will meet; someone who might live thousands of miles away and, with whom, they share little in common aside from an interest in a particular news story or viewpoint.
I think the guy’s point was true to a certain extent. Those who do blog, or those who belong to any social network for that matter, take comfort in having their beliefs reinforced by like-minded individuals.
But, on the flip side, too, how often do you see vastly different opinions and refutations showing up on these comment pages?
It’s just like in families like mine where political pluralism is prevalent and “dinner table” discussions are equally diverse. I have parents who will likely vote Republican in November, cousins who supported Ralph Nader in 2004 and another cousin who keeps a conservative blog and sports an “Israel: We are with you” bumper sticker. One of my uncles has voted for Pat Buchanan, one wouldn’t dream of voting anything but Democratic, while my grandmother says she won’t support John McCain because she doesn’t think a woman should be vice president.
As is the case in my family and in the wider digital community, no matter how much we hash out different political topics, our opinions aren’t likely to change drastically. But through talking things out, we each come to find where it is exactly that we stand.
All this being said, I don’t think my ideas and the idea of the student who spoke up this morning are completely disparate.
Whether conflicting or similar viewpoints are shared around the “dinner table” or out there in the blogosphere, I think blogs, social networking sites and comment boards — if used effectively — have the main purpose of simply fostering communication.
Whether you agree, disagree or are undecided about someone’s comment that is posted, there’s a chance it is something you haven’t heard before or hadn’t thought of yourself.
At the very least, the conversation is continued — sometimes to excruciatingly long ends — to points the original reporter could not, or dared not, go.
So as a cheap plug for this Missourian blog, if you — the reader — see something that you like or don’t like, if something rubs you the wrong way or tickles your funny bone, tell us about it. We enjoy the feedback; trust me. Even if it’s just to tell us we’re a $*&@∆ and that we’re full of %&#@!!! It’s still moving that conversation forward …

– For past blog posts by Joel Walsh click here.

Like many Americans, I took time last week to watch the spectacle of national political convention round two. In case you missed it, it was the Republicans this time around.

I was able to garner a first, real live look at vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin; I heard statements from “Independent Democrat” Sen. Joe Lieberman, Conn.; and while driving to Kansas City Thursday night, I listened to as much of John McCain’s nearly hour-long acceptance speech as my car’s antennae  would allow.

Balloons poured down at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn., last week.

I won’t dwell on how the two executive heads of the current administration were noticeably absent in St. Paul.

I won’t go into my impression of Palin, the “pit bull”-esque hockey mom, and what I thought of the hoopla surrounding the pregnancy her 17-year-old daughter, Bristol.

And while I’d like to delve into so many issues surrounding both the Democratic and Republican conventions, I’ll instead stick to one sharp image that, for me, has remained long after the flashbulbs have faded and the confetti has been swept up.

That image came during a speech Wednesday by former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Like many of his Republican cohorts and Democratic counterparts, Giuliani shared his views on what could be the key issue in the 2008 bid for the White House: “energy independence.”

After relaying his party’s “all of the above approach including nuclear power and, yes, off-shore oil drilling,” Giuliani laughed, clapped his hands and echoed the chants of the GOP faithful, exclaiming, “Drill Baby Drill!”

Posters on display at the RNC displayed some attendees' clear feelings on how to solve America's energy crisis.

The reaction of the crowd reminded me of what a Beatles concert must have been like during the British invasion.

I guess I just don’t understand what all the excitement was about.

Guiliani, Palin, McCain and other notable Republicans talk about ending our addiction to foreign oil. You see the television ads over and over.

I get it … to a point.

It does seem to put our country in a compromising position when we’re forced to rely on oil from non-democratic regimes in the Middle East and Venezuela or from countries that can be bullied by Russian competition.

But what I want to know is where’s the talk about ending our addiction to oil in general?

Americans consume 389 million gallons of oil each day. We live in sprawling cities where walking or biking to work is admittedly difficult and where public transit is often either inconvenient or non-existent. Semi-trucks and 4×4s cloud our highways and interstates, while the price at the pump — I think most would agree — is outrageously high.

I don’t want to cop out here and not suggest a solution but, at the same time, I don’t think I’m educated enough to offer one.

I do know, however, that times are tight. Many people are looking for work, and this thing called global warming is all around us.

Maybe Palin’s husband, Todd, has an answer. Until recently, he worked as a production operator in a facility run by multinational oil giant BP.

Maybe offshore drilling and tapping into Alaskan oil fields — while clearly a stopgap solution — is viable.

I just couldn’t help but feel last week that there was a lot more Republicans could have done to address American demand for oil. Why not emphasize more efficient automobiles? Why not talk about making bigger strides toward mandating cleaner, more efficient energy alternatives?

Would steps like these create jobs or take them away? Would they benefit the American consumer or cause more harm to our pocketbooks? Is climate change as drastic as it sounds and, if so, what can we do to reverse its effects?

Until I hear these types of questions being asked, I’m afraid “Drill Baby Drill” just isn’t the answer for me.

Toward the end of Barack Obama’s acceptance speech Thursday, I leaned over to ask a fellow reporter who — like me — was covering a watch party at the Blue Note in downtown Columbia what her thoughts were.

“He’s too big for his shoes,” she replied.

I assumed she was referring to the Illinois senator’s pledges to: 1) end the war in Iraq; 2) make health care accessible to all; 3) put America’s youths through college, 4) end U.S. reliance on oil from the Middle East and 5) create 5 million American jobs over the next decade — all while still managing to “cut taxes for 95 percent of all working families.”

Barack Obama, the Democratic nominee for U.S. president, smiles during his acceptance speech Thursday night in Denver.

As a college student who relies on student loans to pay for school, as someone who hasn’t been able to afford health care on my own and because I had to wait tables for two years while earning a meager hourly wage as a newspaper reporter before coming back to school, all of this financial support sounds great.

The more than 300 Obama supporters at the Blue Note Thursday sure seemed to agree. “Yes we can!” they chanted amongst banners that read “hope” and “change.”

Maybe it’s the cynic in me, or maybe — in an attempt to remain an objective journalist — I was consciously trying to distance myself from all of the political rhetoric. But the question keep lingering in my head while watching Obama’s historic address: How’s he going to pay for all this?

I certainly don’t think health care premiums should break a working man’s budget, and I agree, it’s a shame that today’s minimum wage is hardly enough to pay the rent, let alone feed a family.

But at the risk of sounding like my father, I wanted to know how the smiling senator would manage all of this “change.”

Sure, we could use a portion of the $9 billion the U.S. spends each month on the war in Iraq if the troops are withdrawn, but what happens if we’re attacked again while Barack’s in office?

How far would an effort to end tax breaks for mega-corporations go?

How much of the bill, should someone like my father, a strictly middle class guy, a self-made man of sorts who put himself through school, be footing?

What about someone without “boots” currently who wouldn’t pull themselves up by their “bootstraps” even if they had them?

Are we talking about giving handouts to the undeserved or truly helping all Americans, many of whom, admittedly, are in great need?

These are questions for which I don’t have any good answers.

I’m reluctant to criticize Obama’s grand ideals, but perhaps he should have spent more time Thursday explaining how he will accomplish them instead of telling us what John McCain doesn’t know.

But, I guess, we’ve got two months for all of that …right?

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