Things, Covers and 5 Nights at Jillian's: Bad With Women

There’s a new Here’s the Thing… is up. This one tells you to stop wasting your time.

The fifth book from Chicago I was planning on talking about, Doll Parts, I didn’t get to read yet. Honestly, I bought it for the cover – much like I bough the first two in Philly for the cover. The interiors – story and art – did nothing for me and I can’t seem to read the third issue. I need to get in the right mindset. But that book is the perfect example of how a good cover can sell a book. I honestly needed those covers. Of course, I’m not going to track down any other work from the rest of the team but the covers…

A lot of times you hear some aspiring creator say “The cover should match the interior”. Bullshit, it’s two different things. A lot of guys that do interiors can’t do covers and a lot of guys that can do covers can’t do interiors. You want a cover that’s going to make people notice the book – it needs to pop. Let’s talk Elk’s Run. I love Noel’s art – love the fuck out of it. I can’t see Noel doing covers. He’s a storyteller and his art works well sequentially, when it has room to breathe and build and evolve. Datsun makes DOPE covers. Check it – I like red heads but couldn’t care less what color they rock on the skins. Two different things, the red hair brings me in, the skins make me set up shop and live with her for six years.

Speaking of dope covers (and Datsun):



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Jillian’s, like all night clubs on Lansdowne St, employed some of the flyest women in Boston and put their asses to work waiting tables. There are waitresses and then there are waitresses that know how to work it and these girls were equipped to work it and had no shame in doing so. Low-cut shirts, short skirts, hooker boots – it was like a fucking a candy shop.

A candy shop which I was not allowed into, obviously.

Not to say I was an outcast or anything but I never fit in well with the blue-collar sexy crowd. White-collar sexy, sure, I know a bunch of those. But the blue-collar sexies and I never got along.

I tried to talk to them, tried to be engaging. But I already had two strikes against me. The game-tech thing was strike one - I wasn’t no bouncer, I had the baggy uniform and the walky talky clipped to my shoulder that said, “Can I get a game-tech to skee ball, someone shoved a condom in the coin slot” every two minutes. Every once and a while I had to get on the floor and go inside a game and it’s almost a guarantee my ass crack popped out. Game tech = not attractive.

The second strike was the fact that, for some reason, these girls somehow made me more awkward than I normally am. And I’m not talking awkward as in stuttering, uncomfortable silences and the occasional nervous fart, I’m talking awkward as in:

1) One time I was fixing a game before the crowd rushed in. I ordered up some chicken fingers from the kitchen and the waitress was nice enough to bring it out to me. I took it, smiled, paid and then just sort of dropped the plate. But, defying all laws of physics, it was this weird projectile drop that hurled the plate right at her and drenched her left breast in honey mustard.
2) Some drunken idiot threw all of the basketballs from the Shot Clock game on top of the netting. I come out of the back room with a ladder, in a rush because I’m getting calls like a maniac on this particular night, check the back room to make sure it’s locked and without assessing my surroundings I just start moving. And, you know, shove the ladder right into this one waitresses’ face. Luckily I didn’t get her too hard, but she certainly fell back and landed on her ass.
3) The third floor manager called me up to talk to me about some stuff. The greatest concentration of waitresses were on the third floor, where the pool tables were. So we’re over by the bar talking, I turn to leave and I trip on the carpeting and take a table down with me. I get up, embarrassed, and see them all trying really hard not to laugh.
4) And my favorite of all. We occasionally played pool after work, had the place to ourselves and we shot some. I’m not a good pool player. I completely suck. We were playing doubles and I have an easy shot lined up in the corner pocket. One of the waitresses I’m playing against bends down behind the pocket and starts talking trash. And, of course, the ball leaves the table and flies towards her face. She moves in time, the ball hits her leg, but she thought I did it on purpose and tells my boss that I tried to hit her with a pool ball. After explaining to both of them that it was an accident and I’m just bad at pool, my manager let’s me off but the girl, and all of the other waitresses, hardly even looked at me again from then on. I was the guy that threw pool balls at girls.


Anyway, that’s it for this week. I might do another themed week next week but I think I want to back to Brooklyn for a few stories. Have a good weekend, all!

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