Tip the veal, try your waitress.


In case you didn't already guess, this blog is about gratuity, tipping, alms for the poor, whatever you want to call leaving money for a food service professional. As a proud waiter/bartender I feel the need to educate the ignorant masses in the art of leaving a proper gratuity.


Let's start off at the bar. Provided you are not a regular at the establishment you are in tipping at a bar is pretty easy. A safe bet is to leave a dollar or two for each drink brought to you (we'll say a buck for beer, two bucks for mixed drinks) Feel free to let the dollars accumulate in front of where you are a sitting, a polite bartender will not pick up any cash until you leave. Now, when you decide to leave you must leave a tip for the time you spent there. Never less than five and you should adjust for how long you spent occupying a seat. Let's say you and your significant other come see me at beautiful place where I work(there is an advertising deal in the works until then I shan't use my employers name). You consume four beers and your significant other has 2 martinis over the course of one hour. You should leave 6-8 bucks of the drinks and at least another five for the time I had to spend enlightening your live with witty shit you would never have thought up on your own. If you are a regular somewhere tip over the amounts I have stated or you will be talked about behind your back and we will give you the skunky batches of beer and shittiest liquor imaginable.

Now while eating at a table tipping etiquette is far simpler. A flat 20% will just fine. Now I hear you all saying "what about double the tax?" This is fine for small checks (under $150) once you start getting into the $200 plus are 20% is what is expected. As always please feel free to leave more if you feel the service is exceptional. Remember I live off of your generosity.

Britney Spears. You all know who she is, you all know what she has become. Essentially she has become a punch line for late night talk show host and those vapid douche bags on the fucking E! channel. I for one think its a sad commentary on American taste if we can find humor in this young woman's disease. I am not saying I like her music or her whorish image, but to pick on a sick person with a legitimate disease is just fucking lame. If you think she looks fat at the VMAs, fine, run with that. Hell, I hate fat people and I am one of them. If you think she is a whore and want make fun of that, fine. I have no problem with whores, in fact I think slutty chicks have a better outlook on life than those repressed uptight bitches (plus promiscuous girls are more likely to let me fuck them) But making fun of her alcohol/drug problem, that's week. Its like making fun of a cancer patient for having no hair. The fact that the general populous gets such a sense of Schadenfreude from seeing this one bright starlet fall so far into the depths of addiction just sickens me. If seeing someone else in such a bad state gives you joy please slit your own fucking throat and do us all a favor.

What I think makes this such a great tragedy, in the Greek sense of the word, is that she has so much to lose. Fame, money, two kids, and a great career, all down the shitter because of coke and booze. I can only think so many people jumped on the Britney Hatin' because of sour grapes. Sorry about your menial job and shitty family life but some people are bound to have more or do more with their lives and if you can't handle that and feel the need to pile on them when they are down, well that is as much a commentary on the state of affairs in your life as much as Britney Spears'.

So far I have only seen one late night comic who has taken the high road and not used Britney as joke fodder and that is Craig Ferguson. Mr. Ferguson has had his own problems with alcohol and realizes what an awful disease it can be. Kudos to Craig Ferguson for being a classy chap.



PS I could give a fuck about Britney Spears, I just wanted to use Schadenfreude in a sentence