Old Men with Sticks: D. Lynn

I have been exceedingly busy being a sycophant. It's funny how much motivation money brings; it's enough to help me transform into a smiley-faced douche. Yet, it is the "most important" event of the year at the country club I work as a bartender at: The Triton Financial Classic (old-pro golf tournament). The whole financial quarter - perhaps year - is saved thanks to the revenue the tournament brings to the club.

Unfortunately, because this week is the it week for my bosses (you know, for that promotion they will never get), they really can't control themselves; they effectively have become micro-managing "Rain Men: they believe their ideas to be savant-esq in their brilliance, repeating like a mantra. In reality, they really are stupid things like ways to get Irish Coffee for that one "Golf-pro" faster, or easy access bev-napkins. Thanks for that.

Yet again, one learns to grin and bear it. Twice the hourly wage on 60 hours (20 overtime) while waking up at 4AM for 5 days this week has already been exhausting. The mind has to be willing. The saving grace is that this week also happens to be my last week there for the summer before switching jobs. Though I'll probably be on the verge of a mental break thanks to the delirium of no sleep (ala this kid in Deadliest Catch), the days after when I am resting and relatively rich will only be that much sweeter.

Probably the only thing I'll take away from the club experience are funny stories based on the hilarity of its members:

(In no particular order)

• An old lady losing her dentures into her gin and tonic.
  
• A wheelchair- bound member sent a legally almost-fucking-blind friend up-stairs to find a ring she may have dropped on the carpet. She ran into the banister twice...
• Being there and serving drinks (rapid fire) to coach Mike McCarthy of the Green Packers, who was attending his daughter's Lake Travis High School Women's basketball gala. It was also the night that Brett Favre called him to retire. Awkward!
  
• Roger Clemens

Actually I met Clemens today at the tournament. Apparently he tries to make it every year (last year when I worked it, he was conspicuously absent - *cough*steroids-scandal*cough*). The great thing about this meeting was that I had the privilege of staring at some of his memorabilia that they tournament crew had set up in a silent auction in anticipation of his possible arrival; these items had "The Rocket" in various stages of his career and juxtaposed with some other native legends like Nolan Ryan.

So all of these pieces had Clemens' autograph, but really it was just a printed reproduction (thank you fine print). They were trying to sell this shit, basically a nice picture/poster with a fake signature, for $300 first-bid.

Though there is much cash that flows out amongst these old-money Republicans, me and the rest of the staff agreed that no one would ever bid on that, especially not after his steroid scandal.

So in walks Roger Clemens.

There were the rumors that maybe he would show up - the tournament staff had counted on it . He immediately sauntered over to the bar and requested a shot of Jameson and a Miller High Life (what an asshole - like we carry that swill). He noticeably had dropped a lot of weight.

He also had the look of a broken man...

Of course it begs the question: what does a broken man look like? To me, it will always be the contorted face Roger Clemens made when he was confronted with his own memorabilia - his shattered legacy.

In an attempt to get the fuck out of dodge, Roger practically roid-raged through the buffet in record time. After he had cleaned his plate, he walked up to all 3 of the displayed pieces and put in the top allowed bid, effectively buying them out. All he had to do was leave his phone number (which I erased after some qualms) and his name.

The tragedy of it was that he obviously couldn't put his own name down on the paper. What he left instead was a pseudonym: "D. Lynn." Who the fuck knows? Though he publicly maintains his innocence, everyone at the club today found out the crazy shit that guilt makes you do.

Just so those pieces would immediately be taken down, an ashamed D. Lynn dropped $1000 for his own memorabilia that had a fake signature. Living the dream Roger!