The Gonzo Wolf

Let’s turn on the juice and see what shakes loose.

My wife is currently attempting to peel some less-than-stellar paper towels from last night’s spring rolls, and it’s a bit of a meticulous affair. For some concentration conversation, she stated that she doesn’t care for Alamo Drafthouse’s new tipping scheme. Let’s discuss.

Check this out.

I sometimes take for granted that not everyone has an Alamo Drafthouse a mile from their home. I was a drunk when I moved here, and it was a much bigger attractant. Typically a patron of smaller-town discount theaters, I heard dreamy tales of a rather hands-on place in Austin who took movies as seriously as I do. As fate would have it, I stopped drinking four years ago, and the gimmick’s worn off.

I still prefer it to traditional theaters because of the seating, but there’s nothing at all special about the food.

Now, if you like to be shit-faced wasted in public and get a DWI on your way home, by all means; this is your jam. DPD HQ is practically across the street.

Now…

About this 18% thing…

I moved to Dallas six months before the pandemic struck. I had what I believed-to-be a surefire hit of a book on my hands and six months of indie bookstore appearances lined up. We were standing in the lower bowl of the NHL Winter Classic on New Year’s Day 2020 celebrating with the home team. I was ecstatic about the year to come.

I side-eye glanced at my new bride and announced that 2020 was going to be OUR year. I finished the Warning Signs script, we had auditions, we filmed the trailer…

Covid.

What happened next is well documented, and be damned if I rehash it here. Y’all know it’s a goddamn masterpiece.

What I’m getting at was that movie theaters went straight to hell during the pandemic. It was so sad to watch Bill and Ted Face The Music for the first time on a small screen. I felt robbed. Also, a lot of people died; some for selfish, stupid reasons. As much as I loved movies, I wasn’t about to subject my mate to the rest of mankind’s funk. She’s immunocompromised, and meant more to me than anyone’s arguments regarding our potential for safety.

Truth, lies, or just plain silliness, I erred on the side of love.

Read that line twice. It’s f’ing beautiful.

Alamo Drafthouse tried to recover, but floundered. Sony saw them – wounded and gasping for breath – and moved in for the kill.

The historic touch of an Alamo Drafthouse is no more. Ordering is done on your phone via a QR code, and you cash out on the app. It’s become an Applebee’s that screens movies, and AUTOMATICALLY includes 18% gratuity on every check.

I guess it’s really not that much of an issue; I’m a jerk, but I’m not that kind of a jerk. I tip a minimum of 20% or more if the staff goes above and beyond. This country treats its service workers like slave-trash and I’m going to make goddamn sure those people (not spitting in my food) know I appreciate their efforts.

No, the real bitch about it is that if you don’t take it upon yourself to close out your tab – which is a minor inconvenience, but an inconvenience nonetheless – they automatically add an additional 5%, making it 23% instant gratuity in most cases.

The hive minds in the underground bunker in New Mexico knows how to manipulate our feeble brains, convinced a mere 3% means dick in the grand scheme of things. It adds up, though.

The canundrum, or how I assign Logic to Lunacy…

I’m not sure how much the average salary is for a typical Alamo Drafthouse line worker, but I imagine no one makes enough to put up with some Gen X, movie-nerd manager staking claims on the conveyor belt of failed, college-grad millennial chicks who’ll do ANYTHING to be his 2nd in command.

It’s that whole ‘throwing people off the ladder that goes nowhere’ hole of depression created by our evil, reptilian overlords. Or not. The Reptilians won’t return my calls.

I’m sure there’s an impressive, impossible to ignore line between Epstein and DiCaprio standards, but they’re blurred at this moment in time.

23% still isn’t bang-your-manager money; if that kind of bullshit even still happens. I know I’ve had to lay-to-play a few times in my career, with lots of unpublished articles to prove it. That said, maybe my additional “convenience fee” of 3% could actually go to save Junior-College Judy from her Ramen & rape-drug 1-on-1 house-warming social.

Six in one; half-a-dozen in the other?

Whatever helps my wife peel these shitty paper towels off the spring rolls. Also, Project Hail Mary was just as good the second time.

Happy Easter.