nanowrimo 2k9

It was another evening, another business trip, another anonymous tourist bar. The lounge is filled with tables of alcoholics dressed in subdued casual wear chewing through happy hour drinks and vying for the next discount, trying to beat the clock for another cheap drink. Opposite is the lower bar, people waiting for tables, couples stopping for a drink on their way home from some other tourist dive. In the middle of the bar, is the service area, two bronze guides and a rubber mat on the bar.

On the upper half of the bar, a clean homeless man sits chatting up the waitresses who smile and give the same lukewarm chit-chat they would to anyone. He is past middle-aged, with a large beard and a green jacket, covered with stitchwork patches. Next to him, a disheveled derelict sits brooding and switching between electronic devices and booze. Next to him, a middle aged man, with a shaved head sat and talked loudly around the corner of the bar, to another middle aged man, who smiled confidently with each gesture. They would take turns, one gesturing, the other nodding. They would always laugh together at the end. The air reeked of anbesol, a chemical that makes your gums numb.

In the middle was a younger man, but looked just like the bald man, only with hair. He wore a polo shirt that was the color of Pepto Citrus, a recent flavor, but the logo was a much subdued ocelot. They had been there for a few hours, drinking pisswater beer and trading war stories.

“Naw, I’m telling you, I was out in Billings for a ten-thousand dollar deal, just trying to close the damn thing, seems like it almost wasn’t worth the plane fare, but this was back in the old days …”

The words blurred again, the stories were pretty much all the same, the endless trading of tactics or selling marketing to groups of people. These weren’t people who sold products, directly. They sold at a higher level, anything that could be transferred for money. Neither the technical bluster of the traders who ran wall street, or the arrogant confidence of the execs who ran ad campaigns; nor the illicit ruthlessness of car salesmen or drug dealers, these were a strange new hybrid of hustlers: the marketing assholes.

All business involves sales, and marketing, and trying to create or provide something that will somehow be useful, if frivolous. In capitalist markets, this grows to many levels and there are always sharks who will try to control and crop what they can from the hoses; similarly, there are people who look to manipulate the end of the system, by creating a known presence and convincing people to consolidate their money into a single channel and drive volume to the outlets. The salesmen are there to close the deal. Everyone takes their clip at the end, each of them drinking from the revenue stream, each trying to fatten the artery so they can skim more off. This structure is nearly fractal, resolution only determined by the size of the hierarchy. As the hierarchy builds, the byproducts accumulate, waste, inefficiencies, the human condition. These variables all burn in the structure of the ultimate organism, the artery grabbed by the money suckers and the body of this parasite just grows either to cancer, or continually self-immolates and molts, to tighten  its hold on the money stream. In the end it falls over from its own weight, strangles its source of life, or finds a balance and clutches at other arteries until it can completely reproduce. This is not necessarily a bad thing, this is an executed system of greed, and a surprisingly well-managed human creation.

This structure tends to manifest itself regardless of the “revenue stream”, in actuality, it is depending on a resource. In modern society, most civilizations have abstracted resources to a single currency, and have managed to work out ways of exchanging, generally from a hierarchy of revenue parasites. Throughout history, most of the opportunity and misery has been related to some kind of resource, be it water, salt, oil, or food. Whatever is required to keep people alive, hydrated, fed, transported, lazy, intoxicated and stupid (not always in that order), will always create a “revenue stream”, or an imbalance in resources. As the economists call it “supply and demand”. Humanity’s survival instinct ensures that they will continue to buy into a similar situation, until those needs are met.

I won’t say there is anything wrong with that, simply that it is human nature.

These marketing assholes were a different breed. Instead of the productive activity of latching onto a revenue stream, building a bureacracy and hoping to sustain and reproduce successfully. marketing assholes were less concerned with attaching to a revenue stream than they were with simply attaching. Instead of predatory deals to take a dominant stranglehold on an actual stream, they formed predatory relationsuips with anything, creating deals where very little was to be gained, and always harvesting.

Chuff was a marketing asshole in training, and still learning the trade. Mostly he just sat at shitty bars and listened to exaggerated stories. Of course, the exaggeration was meaningless. The dream was simply to be a bald old man in an ascot bragging in a shitty bar in some city you didn’t actually live in. That was the high life, in some ways. Of course the venues could change, and be more decadent, even a moderately successful marketing asshole could afford hair plugs and viagra. Chuff was a bit indifferent to this, though, he was learning in the brood that had raised him, and loyalty could help him bring his whole tribe up an echelon. For now he just needed to sit there patiently, feeling honored that he was a part of this average exchange. A few steps past the rite of passage, he was still new in his skin, and the blase tone of his company aside, he had really never been anywhere. He was just beginning his personal journey as a marketing asshole.

The bar was an odd mix of tourist and old people. Based in the city center, it had a lot of historical capital, but most of that was only appreciated by old timers. Instead of a kitchen, there was a cafeteria like line that sold “hand carved sandwiches” and authentic colas. The front was made up of small tables to look like a cocktail bar from the front, but after the stretch of the bar was a well lit room full of tables, waitresses, and tourist families. Past that was a more wide open room filled with big TV’s, picnic tables and old people, in no hurry, possibly the same people going to it when it was a hep young speakeasy. At the other end right near the exit, was a small piano bar, that didn’t open until nine, which was unfortunate because that is when the really old people said good bye to their old people children and cleared out of the tv room. Seeing the same velvet rope by the cafeteria line made them forget which way they were going, so a swarm of old people always belligerantly pushed their way through the single file line, pushing the late-eaters and winos crashing over the barricade and running head first into the asses of the people sitting at the bar.

It was usually the highlight of the night for the bartenders. The low point was often when the goddamn piano started. Not that they had anything against Gus, he was a fine piano player, and the locals who did like the lounge were at least respectful, and the old people stayed squirreled away. Only occasionally did a lonely one walk up and sit smiling with his eyes closed. And, of course, the occasional letch. Even the letches were old, though, and the waitresses could keep them in line with a gentle smile, and most of them knew better than to hassle anyone else with anything more than a friendly hello.

The tourists were the problem, as they usually are. Not because they were particularly roudy, but because they all had the same damn idea of what they thought was funny. A forty year old man turning his saints hats backwards and ironically trying to slip in the words to “rock you like a hurricane” into a sintra song was comedy murder for their troupe, but a twice nightly bore for anyone who had to be there. Gus, always played along, never complaining, and letting the bartenders deal with anyone unruly, but you can’t stop someone for singing along; even if they are a moron.

Chuff and his elders were barely aware of any of that, they kept on: the haired man described some deal for 5 million dollars that involved a very complicated set of distribution streams, value propositions and a bunch of other crap that didn’t mean much, but were part of the currency he sold. The deal finally closed — after so many close calls, of course — that he was able to keep his minimal commission and kept on another day, with more deals to close. Of course.

“And thats it, Chuffy”, slapping him on the back, “that all there is, you just make the deal, make the connections and get enough to keep doing it. If you stop or dont manage to keep it up? Well, I hope you never have to know, boy. Its in your blood, and you’re doing the right thing following along with us, you’ll get to see the world!”

He motioned at the waitress, “3 more pabst, lass!”

It was an “irish” bar after all.

“That’ll be 18 dollars, please”

The haired man threw a prepaid visa on the counter.

“Close it?”

“Yes, of course, dear.”