Pastis

I trained behind the bar last night at Pastis. It was frantic, exciting and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Everyone looked so beautiful. The bartender who trained me was “Pete.” I think he is from Manchester and the only reason I think this is because the bar-back told me. The bar-back is “Tony,” and I guessed he was from Russia but I was wrong he is from Kosovo. It’s important to be internationally conscious and well read, so to brag, I brought up an article I had just read about Kosovo in Time Magazine…..
TONY: Who?
Me: Ana Ivanovic. The tennis player.
TONY: Oh, yes.
Me: She just won the French Open. They say she ’s got a pretty good chance on winning Wimbledon.
TONY: Yes, but she is from Serbia.
Me: Yes, oh, I thought you said you were from Serbia.
TONY: Kosovo.
Me: Oh, ok.

I got out of that one. I went home and reread the article….

Las Vegas

On Fri, Jun 20, 2008 at 6:49 PM, Ernie Curcio wrote:
What’s up Elan.

Barbara Rollins and I are heading up a single evening of short plays. We’re calling the evening VISIONS OF ELECTRIC PERTURBIA. We wanted to know if we can put up ROBERT & ANNA, one of the plays you sent me for the Rough Theatre submissions. I’d play Robert, and Barb would direct the piece. No pay, of course. The single performance is on Saturday, August 23, at 10 pm, we’re doing it at the Katerine Gianaclis Park for The Arts.

It’d go like this:

VISIONARY by Barbara Rollins

ROBERT & ANNA by Elan Zafir

PERTURBED by Ernie Curcio

I’m including Barbara in this email so you can contact each other if you’d like.

Aliright Elan. Hope you and the family are doing well.

Talk to you soon,

Ernie
________________________
Fantastic. I am not going to get in contact with Barb because I trust Ernie as a playwright and a director. I do wish I could fly up to see the show. If you are in the area. Support, Ernie Curcio. This guy is fucking talented and dedicated. He pumps out more plays than any playwright I know.

Table Tennis

There was a very awkward moment between 2 grown men playing ping pong. Both were muscle bound jerks (not “jerks” but that’s how they looked), dawning tatoos and wearing wife beaters. I was passing the ping pong table toward the corridor which leads to the Men’s locker room when I decided to join these two men and plomped myself down on the bench nearby. They were lobbing the ball back and forth to each other without any gusto and the only reason I knew they were playing a game was because someone said…
Is it 2-1 or 3-1?
The man in the White wife beater was a worse player than the man in the Black wife beater. He hit his ball into the neat. His serve landed off the table. He had a weak backhand and his forehead was nothing to write home about. Worse though, he let his mistakes get to him. A good athlete knows you need to stay positive. Be light. Buoyant. If you’re not making the lay-ups, If you missed your hole, If you struck out, don’t get down on yourself. The man in the White wife beater was taking his poor playing very hard. He looked like he might go home and indeed, beat his wife. After

Ok

Rafael cried in the checkout line of Dagostino’s. Wailed in the checkout line of Dagostino’s. He wails and other people look. Other people look at him. Is there something wrong? Is something squeezing his baby legs? His baby arms? His baby hands? No, so they look at me. Why are you letting him cry like this? Don’t you think he’s asking you for something? Is he hungry? Is he thirsty? He’s probably tired. Take him home. This message is for you woman with panama jack hat, brown dress material made up of a potato sack, who was behind me

31 and he’s still up in my grill

 

Dad,

You called me at 11pm last night. You never call me at 11pm. You’re never up at 11pm. You haven’t called me at 11pm since there was a death in the family. When i reached for my phone this morning and saw I had missed your call, my mind flooded with the message you left. Another death, a fight with your wife, you started smoking again (notice they are all negative things because good news doesn’t travel in the evening). None of those things. You called to tell me the flight I purchased, to meet you in Burlington for our camping trip, was too expensive.