There are many offensive Americans, but perhaps the most offensive must be those who eat at the famous Parker House restaurant, Boston; see photo taken by a friend of mine, historian Jim Wald. Parker House is the home of Parker House rolls and Boston Cream Pie. It’s also famous for its customers: e.g. the Saturday club of Emerson, Longfellow, Holmes, Agassiz, Dana, and Charles Dickens (Dickens lived in the Parker Hotel for two years). But more remarkable still is that a good number of the staff have so hated their customers that they went off and became revolutionary enemies of all things capitalist and American. And it only took a few months working at the Parker House.
The Parker House restaurant, Dec. 2015, photo by jim Wald, perhaps showing the next world leader.
Among Parker House employees we find Malcolm X, he worked as a busboy under his original, given name: Malcolm Little. We also find Ho Chi Minh, a pseudonym taken — it means, the enlightened one or the one who will enlighten (strangely enough, Genghis Kahn also means the enlightened one — in Mongol) was a pastry chef. he arrived in Boston as a ships cook, and worked in the hotel as Nguyen Cung. After Boston, he moved to Paris where he again made cakes and pies but changed his name to Nguyen O Phap (Nguyen who hates the French). Eventually, he and Malcolm X revolted against America and managed to turn the tables, as it were, on their customers.
Why do Parker House workers go off this way. Perhaps it’s because the hotel tries to hire hard-working, intelligent workers. You’ll notice, in the photo above that the waiters look at least as sharp as the customers and more physically fit. Beyond this, I suspect that the waitstaff are constantly exposed to socialist discussions from the customers. They are then sent off for coffee, or ignored, or perhaps insulted or groped, or not tipped. The Hotel seems to attract liberal libertarians — it was a favorite spot for John F. Kennedy.
My guess is that Malcolm X and Ho Chi Minh became socialist revolutionaries because of what they experienced from the customers at Parker House. So what can you do if you eat at Parker House, or any fancy restaurant? I think it pays to tip. Don’t do it in a way that makes your server feel like a beggar. It would help to chat too, I think. It’s important if your waiter is homicidal — or if your waiter becomes famous some day, or writes a book, or becomes a world dictator. You’d like to get a positive mention in that book, or have a positive story to tell — “I gave Genghis his first $10 bill…” And tipping is important so he/she doesn’t hate you. I’m given to understand that one main reasons people hate Satan so much is you can serve him, but he never tips.
Robert Buxbaum, February 29, 2016, updated August 24, 2017. I run REB Research, and I’m running for drain commissioner. Vote for me.