THE TRIDENT CHRONICLES OR THE DISHDOG CHRONICLES
Oh! Goofeee
I don’t know if this is true with all vocations but I know from personal experience that there comes a time in every struggling musicians career when you just have to say “this is the shits…I’m tired of constantly being broke” and go find a “day gig”. Well….armed with a lofty resume and a great opening interview line..” Hi! I’m a 20-year-old struggling musician, high school drop out w/ a grand total 3 yrs. Dishwashing experience”……fortunately for me the girlfriend of one of my bands mates had taken note of my situation and said “hey, why don’t you go apply at the Trident in Sausalito where I work. They take applications on Mondays and they’re lookin’ for dishwashers”. So I went the very next Monday and applied & was hired on the spot. Little did I know just how drastically this “career choice” would affect my life’s path…even to this very moment. I learned an incredibly diverse array of skills in a relatively short span of time (and no, it wasn’t the fine art of de-glazing a brandy snifter after some asshole had demanded a “Spanish Coffee” or the art of not actually getting in “The Big Soup Pot” after they cooked up that God awful cold fish soup. I don’t know how to spell it but I’m sure y’all know what I’m referring to but still getting it spotless and w/o smellin’ like a huge dead tuna). Most of the kitchen staff were pretty cool about showin’ ya the ropes. Especially the sauté (or “hot side”) guys. I think mostly because they wanted their stuff prep’d just so. I got proficient with an assortment of cutlery along with diversifying my budding mechanical career fixing “Old Hobart” at least once a week (until that time it had been strictly automotive skills born of the 16-year-old need to drive: Father to son “if you can make that POS run I’ll buy it for you”….all of $175 for a ’48 Ford F1 flatbed w/ a Chevy 283 V8 in it….what a mutt!) and if you wanted extra work, you could come in on Mondays and work w/ ace handyman Chuck Fallo on all kinds of stuff.
All that was and still is useful, but the knowledge gained and experiences I value the most are from the interactions with the people that I worked for & alongside during my 8-year career at Trident. Christ! What a character study! Like a Goddamn Fellini flick! From Pierre the chef to Iraj (aka Roger), Terry Lawson, Bobby Lozoff at the bar, Lou Ganapoler & Dagne to Big John, Mike Toomey & the late Jim Sassani to Richard L, Marshall Bloomstock, Dennis Wright & Lisa Sharp……..and the supporting cast in the kitchen and on the floor the names of whom will undoubtedly arise somewhere in the following text. And then of course, there were……the women. Ah yes…the famed “Trident Waitresses”. This, I have to admit, was definitely a new development & addition (and a welcome one boy howdy!) to my food services employee experience. DAMN!
These weren’t just “good lookin’”…no, more like….exquisite……stunning… ….ravishing………….WOW! Needless to say, this could be heaven or some sort of cruel torture for a 20 yr old walking hormone. I probably could have made a fortune selling my “dry side” shifts as well! For those of you who never got to experience the commercial restaurant dishwashing environment, “dry side” was the dishwasher’s station where the 180-degree clean dishes came forth from “Ol Hobart” and if you were the “dry side” dish dog this is where you really had to be on your game. Managerial types really don’t care to hear breaking…Ummm …whatever and this stuff was steamin’ hot. The station also happened to be parallel with and had a direct view of the waitress station side of the kitchen (Summer, scantily clad babes…Nuff said). I’ve often wondered if the amount of dry side breakage increased substantially during the warm summer months.
All adolescent hi-jinx aside I have to say that their physical attributes notwithstanding, most of these ladies were and still are some of the sweetest, most caring human beings I have ever known.
I’m pretty sure I didn’t start until the following week that they hired me, but I am sure that it was late June. I opted for all-day shifts because of my musical obligations. Even though I was broke, the group I was with at the time was starting to work quite a bit (hindsight realization here…in the music business, at least at this particular level, more work = less pay). Outsmarting myself as one of this age group does on a daily, sometimes hourly, mostly moment to moment basis, I figured “ah! the day shifts will be a piece ‘o’ cake”……..well, as anyone who worked those shifts can testify, I don’t care if you tended bar, waited tables, espresso bar, bussed, hot side (kitchen), cold side (kitchen), managed, inside or outside on the deck…you were slammin’ sometimes right when you walked in the place till you sat at the employee table at the end of your shift and had your “teriyaki steak” or “veggie-burger” or just sat there starin’ out at the bay. I mean this was bar none the busiest restaurant, club, or bar that I had ever set foot in much less worked at! And when you started at the entry-level (dish maintenance technician 1…….okay…I made that up) as I did, by the time you got to that employee table at the end of your shift, you had thawed, peeled and veined 50 lbs of prawns, peeled anywhere from 3 to 5, 5gal. buckets of potatoes, as many half-gallon buckets of husked garlic as Pierre (Yup that was his name…and besides, you couldn’t have an ultra-hip restaurant with a head chef named “Homer” now could you?!) had ordered, shallots, onions…and this was usually before 10 am. Then, after the place had opened, you took your turn in the rotation with three other “dish dogs” doing pots, bussin’ the incoming dishes, hustlin’ dry side and as we liked to say (a direct link to the Lou Reed hit at the time) “take a walk on the wet side”. The latter required a full complement of classic fisherman type rain gear…well that’s a slight exaggeration but the point is, you didn’t smell really great by the end of your shift and there ain’t too many things more demoralizin’ than sittin’ down at a table with a whole bunch of great lookin’ women smellin’ like a dead fish….(mental image here: A big wooden table with a semi-circle bench type seating arrangement….one skinny, stinkin’, drowned rat lookin’ dude at one end and about 4 or 5 ladies crammed towards the other end, quickly finishing their employee meals and nearly falling off the other end in exodus (Another slight exaggeration…very slight). Did I mention “the big soup pot?”.
Ah yes, the famed “big soup pot”. This is a phrase that, to the untrained ear, could possibly muster a “what?” response, because it described well yes, a big pot they cooked soup in. Ah, but to that well seasoned (literally), well-trained, master Dishicus Cleanupicus Techniciacus (wow! I just drove spell-check crazy!) it brought the fear of God to your bones. This was due not only to the fact that this meant physically getting into this enormous stainless steel pot unavoidably becoming drenched in fish guts but also due to the fact that you were summoned by means of a plotting, conniving, sneaky…head chef who would wait for his moment like a large cat stalking its prey, and then pounce…there would be this, what felt like a gun in your back followed by the blood-curdling phrase in an equally chilling French-accented whisper, ”oh goofy guy!.. The big soup pot is waiting for you…”. This usually occurred when you were on “dry side” stacking the clean dishes & glasses. So, it was equally annoying when you dropped a chimney, fizz, or goblet then you would look up to see this slightly hunched over guy turn to walk away with just the slightest hint of a smile while shakin’ his head and again whispering “gooofeee”. This is where I picked up one of those skills I mentioned earlier. In this case, it’s the fine art of “breakage minimization”. This is where you become almost Pele´esque (famous soccer player…..of our generation thank you) with the use of your feet breaking the fall of suicidal dishware. This skill has undoubtedly saved me oh I don’t know….a lot …in dishware costs for myself and/or whatever establishment I happened to be working for. There is a drawback, however. Unless you plan on a career in dish contamination management, it could be detrimental to……well, your feet i.e., while working on autos trying to break the fall of a brake drum or for the last 26 years building and installing components for particle accelerators which can weigh anywhere from 1oz. to 6 tons or more. I can say though that I still retain all ten lower digits. However, the reflex action ingrained in my very being from my experience at the Trident is still extremely hard to control. Oh, Goooofeee guy…..
On The Floor
As it seems to be a natural evolution of sorts, as one gets more proficient and confident with the task at hand, suddenly (well…maybe not too suddenly) you get the itch to advance, try different and more challenging tasks & skills…..hang out in the dining room where the real action is. By this time, I had become the lead “dish maintenance tech” aka King dish dog on whatever shift I pulled. This had definite advantages over being the “new boy”. The most useful was being able to delegate any number of the “not so desirable tasks” to the newer (but not yet wiser) dish cadets. The more significant fact at this juncture was that Pierre & most of the cooks had decided they wanted to groom you for either prep, cold side, and possibly even “hot side”….but that was a stretch ‘cuz the guys they had back there were institutions, they were like fighter jocks with sauté pans instead of machine guns, microwave ovens instead of airplanes (and in top dog Pierre’s case the Enola Gay aka big soup pot) with all the “attitude” and “swagger” one would expect from someone in the ah…restaurant business. So one day I was told that they thought I was doin’ an outstanding job and would I like to “train” to do cold side……but I had already been beckoned by the lure of “the floor” with its promise of actual interaction with the “Trident Waitresses” (as in actual verbal communication instead of the looks of pity you get as a “dish dog”) interaction with consumers, better tips, etc., etc., So yes, I went the way of the college drop out turned pro athlete (a figurative analogy here folks) and turned them down to be a “busboy”. I must declare here & now that my experience working in an industrial kitchen, especially this one, is directly responsible for solidifying my work ethic (originally instilled in my psyche by my mom). These people worked their asses off! And expected no less from anyone else at the establishment and it rubbed off on me permanently for which I am eternally grateful.
But none the less I accepted the offer to get “on the floor” and put that work ethic to use as a Trident busboy! Whoa! I was actually there…….and this job turned out to be just as jammin’ as doin’ wet side or anything else for that matter. But it was different. You were treated differently, not better or worse, just differently. If the hot side guys were fighter pilots, the busboys & dish dawgs were ground support. The waitresses were Vegas showgirls & the bartender’s gunslingers! It was a stage, a showcase that people came in droves to witness while dining, drinking, or just “hangin’ out” (which there was a lot of) and just when you thought you could catch your breath and take in some of this spectacle, the unmistakable sound of “carry out” would find you at the very deepest recesses of the dining room. I could even detect the faintest hint of a “carry out” at the farthest ends of “the deck”. These requests would invariably come when your hands were full and your momentum was carrying you in the exact opposite direction but hey you just dropped what you were doing and did the “carry out”….that was the gig. When there were 4 and I think once in a great while (I may be wrong here about numbers) 5 busboy’s on the floor and they were all hustlers, the room ran like a well-oiled machine. You worked your tail off but it was rewarding when you knew you had kicked ass and “run the room”. I think that is one of the main factors that made working at the Trident so unique. Instead of just going through the motions and waiting for that paycheck at some funky greasy spoon, you actually strived to make it easier on the waitresses & bar crew (this is my opinion of course). Of course, I’d be full of BS if I claimed that I looked forward to going to work at the “Dent” every day I was scheduled but I never felt that it was boring or useless. And I think the diversity of the staff was what kept things interesting. All walks of life, with lots of different takes on the whole scene. And low and behold if you were an artist….of any type you were openly accepted and even encouraged to pursue your art. I never felt I had to conceal the fact that I was carving out a life as a musician and that the “Dent” was just a stepping stone for a lot of us. So, if you “got hot” as the saying went and did your job everything was cool. Though every now and then there would be someone who would test the strength of that institution but that was fairly rare.
You want me to what?
Bussing was not without its hazards though. There were a lot of “events” that occurred on my watch but there are but 4 that really stand out in my mind.
One: Picture a summer Sunday brunch with beautiful weather……place is packed, we’re slammin’ and all of a sudden a manager beckons me over to the phone booth (popular rendezvous spot for secret conversations…among other things) and in a slightly shaken whisper announces “I need you to go look for a bomb”…….Well, you can imagine the multitude of questions running through my head, not the least of which was “you want me to what?!?” which I asked in no such whisper. But when asked again I had grasped the situation and like a trained robot went off to look for what I thought a bomb might look like (visualize Wiley Coyote here). As I was walking around all the places where I thought someone could possibly put such a device, the police had been summoned and the restaurant cleared, and no bomb was found by either yours truly or the police. This happened one more time in the same year I think which made it obvious that it was some disgruntled former employee calling in these threats to wreak havoc during the rush. Not funny.
Two: One year, I forget what triggered the idea, it was decided that someone had to “streak” through the restaurant at the height of the rush. I think it was the opening day of yacht season and possibly to compliment our annual topless woman in an Indian headdress buzzing the deck on an awfully expensive-looking yacht. Anyway, I’m not sure how it came about but Eric Shuggar was to be the “streaker”. The plan was for him to bolt from behind the cashier’s box run to about mid-room, execute some complimentary pirouettes then exit to the bench at mid-deck where myself and I think two other streaking assistants were waiting to toss old Eric off the deck into the bay. This was all fine and very trendy until I realized that I hadn’t really thought about how we were gonna grab a naked dude with enough grip in a place where we wouldn’t hurt either him or his pride, to “toss him up and over the bench … clearing the deck railing and the flag poles that stuck out every few feet or so. As he came racing out from behind the aforementioned cashier’s box and towards us, I just kept saying to myself “self, if ever there was a time for you to be extremely accurate this is it”……..and so into the drink, went Eric… maybe not as gracefully as he could have but to our relief, all handprints were accounted for on his back and lower legs and his voice retained the lower register…….whew!
Three: There were just everyday type hazards associated with this type of work as well. Cuts, burns, etc, and even if you’re as careful as can be there will be something that gets ya sooner or later. One of the most feared hazards was the ever-present “black holes”. These were small pools of water on the floor from spills or plants draining, any number of causes. Because the floor was wood and coated with an incredibly hard thick plastic finish you couldn’t always detect them. One fine summer day I happened to find one of these little buggers as I was coming out of the kitchen doing the “One-handed goblet tray balancing while running act” passing just in front of a packed dining table. Of course, it was the height of the rush….and I did not see the large, multi-pronged “black hole” directly in my path. The table referenced here is one of two very large tables capable of seating at least 10… anyway, down I went. It was so fast that I didn’t remember the trip down, just that one moment I was cruisin’ the next I was on the floor with my right arm buried in a pile of broken glass. The goblets I was carrying were big heavy glass mugs on stems. I think you could only get 12 on a tray but they were heavy so when you were carrying them to any specific place, you wanted to pick ‘em up transport and deliver in as few moves as possible…..which I did…just minus the third or delivery phase. The sound was as though a bomb had gone off. It literally froze the room. You could hear a pin drop and I’ll never forget the look on the faces of my direct audience seated ringside. Picture this: the audience reaction to the number at the end of the first act in Mel Brooks “The Producers” called “Spring Time for Hitler” same look, but some poor patrons were terrified because apparently, it looked by the way I was holding my arm when I got up, as though it were broken and I was bleeding pretty good from all the chards of glass stuck in my forearm.
Four: I will never forget my final shift as a Trident busboy. I had already advanced to the “espresso bar” & been there for almost a year (I think) and was still doin’ some bus shifts when the “Dent” had to close for repairs to the deck or more importantly the pilings that held the whole place up. This was December of 1975 I think and there was a closing party that they needed people to work. Well, nobody wanted to work that shift of course because there was just too much partyin’ to be had. I don’t remember if I volunteered, or they asked me to bus but I wound up working that night which in and of itself was odd because I usually only worked days due to my musical commitments. Now that I think of it I believe it was the bar crew that asked specifically for me to bus. I had always hustled extra hard for the bar guys because the better you took care of them the faster they got the drink orders out and the happier the waitresses were. I would come to appreciate that myself a few years down the line. Anyway, long story short, it was mayhem. The place was absolutely packed. Busier and more crowded than I certainly had ever witnessed. We were just slammin’ all night long..no let up (until it was over) The kitchen & bar staff were trying to empty the place of inventory and it was pretty evident they were going to be successful. The trick was getting to the areas where the stock was when all access across the floor was blocked by increasingly well-lubricated party goers. So Dennis Wright (I think) gave me all the locker & cage keys, Bobby Lozoff who worked the “hot” end of the bar I think all night, gave me the liquor room keys and I traced out an unconventional travel path to the key targets I needed to get to, to keep everyone supplied until we literally ran out of just about everything. It was like running an obstacle course getting’ over all those fun-seekers. It was quite an event! One I obviously haven’t forgotten.
EPILOGUE (of sorts)
Originally submitting this essay early in the evolution of the first Trident website I had planned on putting together a “second act” if you will, trying to name as many of the characters (and there were a bunch) as I could remember. However, after finding the original text and correcting a bunch of dumb mistakes (thank you Dee Bell!) I’ve concluded that I pretty much covered the major events that I was directly involved with and it would be best to leave it open for perspectives from other points of view.
There is one other event that had a profound effect on me. Although this event did not involve the Trident directly, it certainly would not have happened had I not walked into the restaurant on that fateful day, late in June 1973. As stated earlier, I was hired by
Richard Lipfield. When I heard that he had passed away from cancer I immediately flashed on an event we shared back in the day. Richard and I had a great working relationship. We didn’t hang out outside of work but when he asked me to do something I would do my damnedest to get it done. He was stern but fair. I don’t know what his relationship was with the other levels of employees was but as far as the scenes’ workers I considered him one of the best bosses I ever worked for. That is including all the various vocations I’ve managed to eek a living out of to this day.
In the first year of my young Trident career my girlfriend and I hadn’t found or been able to afford an actual apartment/home you know the type: running water, bathroom, kitchen..ya know the basics. We were living in a rehearsal studio/room at the Heliport at Gate 71/2 HWY 1 just off the Stinson Beach/Panoramic Hwy exit between Sausalito & Mill Valley. The band we were playing with at the time was rehearsing pretty much every night (basically in our bedroom/kitchen/living room). When I had the weekday shifts, I would get off at 4:30/5:00 pm and since rehearsal wasn’t until 7 pm I would stop at the pool hall on Bridgeway to practice my game until time to rehearse. Mike Toomey had sold me his que so I decided to pick up the sport where I had left off in that era between high school and eventual adulthood (translation: Bozone = WTF do I do now era).
I still find this odd ‘cuz I just practiced exercises by myself, but somehow it was leaked to Richard that I had gotten pretty good with the ole que stick. Apparently, he was the town pool shark and was not happy about this. So, one day right at the end of a shift he accosts me next to the famed payphone booths and flatly states “ we’re gonna shoot pool…now!” Whoa! I exclaimed (only to myself) and headed off the pool hall. We played a serious game of “straight pool”. It went back and forth staying real tight until the very end when I lost 50 to 48. Well, I thought I had done OK for basically a beginner when he looks at me with those piercing blue eyes and says in all seriousness “you’ll never do that to me again” and turns to walk out of the hall. Slightly perplexed I stood there and that’s when I saw it! As he turned, he tried to hide it but I caught it as plain as day…a wicked smile as he was trying with all his might not to bust out laughing. And that is how I will always remember Richard Lipfield.
END
E.Palmerston
June 20, 2021