Well, folks, I’m back in San Francisco, shifting and adjusting, breathing in the cold air and looking for work.  It’s been a dream to shuffle around town, have a glass of wine in the park and poke around my beloved city again.  But no one likes looking for work and in an exercise in Action I will be applying to nearly every single restaurant on Michael Bauer’s Top 100 Bay Area Restuarants.

I will say a few things without being too specific.  There are a ton of restaurants on this list that would never hire me.  I’m just too J. Beaman most of the time and am light years away from compromising my constitution.  And, there are a few restaurants that I would never work at.  But, I will apply to them all

The Resume:

J. Beaman
San Francisco, CA 94110
415.200.7344

The Point (the cover letter)

Resumes.  Even in the good times a million of them come over the fax and (now, more and more) in the email but now that things are a little rough all over it’s a staggering proposition to sift and sort and categorize them all.  Reading them.  Writing them.  I wouldn’t be unique in saying I hate writing them but it has always seemed to me such an exercise in narcissism, an advertisement for yourself.  “Hey look at me!  I’m awesome!”  Distasteful, yes.  Necessary, yes.  I’ll keep it short as to not bore you.

I am not an architect.  Or a unemployed graphic designer.  I am not a writer or a painter, nor do I have secret dreams of moving to New York and opening up a boutique gallery.  I am a waiter.  A bartender.  Restaurants are in my blood and there are not words to describe the joy I feel, the rush of comfort and warmth, when I walk through their doors.  Dining or working.  I would at times find myself in a foul mood bumping through the this and that of a normal day of normal living but watch it magically turn around with the cutting of limes and stocking of wine.  By the time the first customer walked in the door, it was a whole new world for me.  And it’s about service.  I love making food sound desireable.  I desire fine food (Well, I desire bad food, too) and I think that passion is contagous.  And it’s about the joy a customer experiences trying something new, of relishing something old and learning and relearning the singularly unique joy that is dining.

Curriculum Vitae (from now to then, sort of)

Brazil 2008-2009
Ok, it’s not a job but it does qualify in some ways, right?  I lived in a gorgeous blue collar city in the interior (yeah, no beaches) of the country for almost a year, learning portuguese, trying to figure out the culture and drinking cold beer in the sun.  The siren song of SF hummed ceaselessly and I finally came home.

Firefly Restaurant - Bartender/Waiter - 2005-2008
www.fireflyrestaurant.com
Maybe the best job ever.  I’m honestly not sure if I’ve ever worked in such a magical place with such a delightful and charming group of folks.  It is without exaggeration that I tell you that this joint, this little unassuming restaurant in Noe Valley, singularly changed my life, made me a better man and infused my soul with a some kind of something that I will carry with me until the day that I die.  Food that will make you believe in Love again and conjure fond childhood memories that you didn’t have.  All of this with no pretense.  You may not believe it; I don’t believe it either sometimes, but it’s true.  And in your best third grade voice maybe you’re saying, “If you love it so much, why don’t you marry it?” and that is a great question.  They would like me to rejoin the team but I think it’s time for me to move on, to learn something new and to expand, stretch and morph my love of food in San Francisco.

Karen Lo (Manager) or Brad Levy (Owner) - 415.821.7652

Alamo Drafthouse Cinema - Austin, TX - Waiter - 2002-2005
www.originalalamo.com
It’s a movie theater, with food and buckets of beer.  Every other row of seats has been removed and replaced with a row of tables.  What to say?  I waited tables, was charming and efficient with the people, got along well with my co-workers and employers (managers and owners), and loved my job.  It is missed.   If any new job, and any new bosses (read: you), are half as great as these fine folks I will do a dance in the street.  It will be a funny dance because I dance kind of funny, but it will be one from the heart.

Karen Davis (General Manager) 512.422.5771

Hole in the Wall - Austin, TX - Manager/Bartender/Booker/Enforcer - 2001-2004
holeinthewallaustin.com
Mid-2004 I was behind the bar on an afternoon shift and noticed that a beefy, wobbly drunk with the high and tight hairdo usually associated with cops and marines was wandering from woman to woman throughout the bar. I walked over to one of the women and asked, “What is he looking for?” “He offered me a hundred dollars to go home with him.” Oh, Jesus. I watched him for another moment. He was clearly offering money to all the women in the bar. I walked over, put my hand on his shoulder and said, “Hey, man, you can’t be doing that here. I think it’s time for you to go.” He left, dejected and head down, as drunks are wont to do, and I thought to myself, “Wow, if it were always that easy.” Forty-five minutes later, the door slowly opened, and my new friend came in, hunched over, with leafy branches in his pockets and tucked behind his ears. He dropped to his hands and knees and crawled over to the far side of the main room, and I said, firmly, “Dude, you cannot be in here.” “You can’t see me,” he whispered. “I am wearing camouflage.” He was knocking over tables and chairs as he was crawling and striking fear in the hearts of the patrons. Mine, too. I handed the phone to a glassy-eyed regular and said, “Call 911,” and walked over to Puck. He immediately picked up a pool stick and swung it at me. I spent the next five minutes trying to calm him down, waiting desperately for the cops to arrive. When they finally showed, they just stood in the doorway and watched me talk to him. Eventually he decided to leave and made it all the way out the door before he took a swing at one of the cops and it was over for him at that point. After he was subdued, I asked the police why they hadn’t intervened. I was obviously in harm’s way. “You were handling it well, and we thought if we stepped up and made a scene it would go poorly. We try to let you do your job, and we’ll do ours.” I think that was the nicest thing a cop ever said to me.

Brooks Alan Brannon (Day Manager) - 512.477.4747

Ken’s Christmas Trees - Black River Falls, WI - Worker - 2000-2003
(or the great escape - the short version)
In the summer of 2000 I ran from my big-city life, my big-city job and my big-city problems (you know, rent, dating, car insurance) to chase the bohemian dream of freight-train hopping, eating beans from the can on the roadside and maybe, if I was lucky, doing some migrant farm work.  I would write it all down, and clove-smoking teenagers would read it in suburban coffee shops in twenty years.  Fate led to more fate, and I met Dave Guenther, owner of Ken’s Christmas Trees (Dave, son of Ken) in Black River Falls, Wisc.  Courtesy of Dave, I learned how to use a chainsaw, how to load a semi full of trees, and more than anyone would want to know about firs and pines.  I loved the work so much, I was lured up north to sell trees three years in a row.

Two Note Solo - Austin, TX - Creative Director/Co-Founder - 2001-Present
In addition to sorting through the massive slush pile of submissions, my tenure at Two Note Solo has had me developing my own skills as a writer as well as harvesting the words of other talented people. Of course, there’s more to printing a magazine than what goes on the page, and the severe lack of talented art directors, web designers and personal assistants who are willing to work for free forced many of those tasks on me. There is also the challenge of finding money to reproduce those pages, and through Two Note Solo I’ve been a part of special events ranging from Open Screen Night (think open mic night but with crappy movies instead of folk songs in the pre-YouTube days), the Drunk Film Festival and Chemistry 101 (a home-grown dating show).

Henri Mazza (Editor) - 512.297.7269

And today’s applications go to:

A16
Acquerello
Aqua
Aziza
Bar Bambino
Beretta
Betelnut
Bistro Aix
Bix
Bocadilos
Boulevard