Cracked Pot Meditations – So, We Were in the Mood for Pizza When…

Meditation for May 4^th, 2016

So, We Were in the Mood for Pizza When…

Yelp.

You look up restaurants, stores and other places of interest and find out where they are, what their hours are and if they are any good. What did people say about the place? Why did they give them five stars and why did they give them only one star?

The Yelp reviewer is a different kind of person. He or she has a love of the written word, exploring the world and being very specific with what is wanted. A Yelp reviewer pretends that they have a plan for a business, they walk into the place expecting what they have on their business plan and sees that the place is completely different – mostly because it is someone else’s business, and then the Yelp reviewer sits in their car and begins to type on their smart phone.

This is the insurance one gets to never being put in their place when they act like an entitled piece of shit at a place of business. They can demand, be rude and if the service person stands up for his or herself once, they will be completely taken down by their Yelp review like Nixon was taken down by Bernstein and Woodward. I have even heard people threaten a negative Yelp review if they don’t get what they want or the person working at Subway get a better attitude.

Yelp is a graveyard of lonely cat people trying to understand the human condition. They type up experiences, descriptions and bringing to light the failure of each business they have entered. Then they sit there in the dim lamp light petting a cat and wondering what people are thinking as they read these bursts of genius. Maybe knowing that a person won’t go into the Dairy Queen on Division anymore because of the kid not being willing to mix Heath and Reese’s Pieces into a Blizzard from what they have read, and that makes the person a little less lonely.

Prayer

Here are my Yelp reviews of different religions.

Catholics

So I was in the mood for a little Easter service this last Easter and I walked in to this modern looking behemoth room with wood pews. What really bothered me was the lack of tradition at this Saint Whatshisname. There were no stain glass windows or Jesus’s on the cross screaming in agony.

The new Pope is all hippy and trying to be a nice guy, but really, can a cool cat really erase 2,000 years of crimes against humanity. It isn’t like it’ll make the world heal from the damage done by these red-hatted buffoons.

You can take the Latin our of Mass, but you can’t take the Mass out of the Latin.

Three Stars

Lutherans

Hit the service around 10:30 and just felt like I was in a soulless Catholic Mass. It was like James Taylor covering soul songs.

First off, I think that Martin Luther’s thesis really fucked the world up and now they pretend to be the boring ok church, but really they set the foundation for the Holocaust.

If you’re going to burn Europe down to the ground during the reformation, then at least have a church service with some balls.

Two Stars

Non-denomination Cool Young Saturday Night Church that is called things like The Rock, The Bridge or something cheesy like that.

Well the guy with the beard and flannel that looked surprisingly like me said I might dig the non-traditional way they did church, so I came on over last Saturday night after a healthy meal from Buffalo Wild Wings. (See my three star review on Yelp)

I was greeted by a funnel of smiling twenty and thirty somethings dressed normal core but with a little edge like a tattoo or a stocking cap. They were excited to see me since I was the new blood.

I walked into the gymnasium to see about seven acoustic guitarists playing with a bass player and a drummer. They were jamming and laughing.

Every person I saw came and shook may hand and patted me on the back. I got asked a lot about where my wife was, and I kept saying I wasn’t married, and then suddenly sisters and wife’s sisters were brought over and introduced to me.

Remember when I said that Lutherans were like James Taylor doing soul covers? Well the seven guitarists sound like Nickelback doing James Taylor doing soul covers.

I sat down and the sermon began. It was an overweight bearded guy with tattoo sleeves. I felt better because the tattoos meant the judgment was going to be hidden well than at more traditional churches.

The minister kept referring to God as dude and he even swore a few times. He used some current pop references and even mentioned the latest Daily Show.

When it was all said in done I left feeling bored and not wanting to ever grow up. Even though these people had flannels, tattoos and were hip to the secular cultural trends, they were just those boring adults with no real personalities or “spice”.

Won’t be back, but if you need Jesus, this is the best place I found.

Three Stars

Mormonisms

This is the worst xperience I ever had. I waited 86 years living a really boring traditional life, died and ended up not getting my own planet. Won’t ever do again.

One star

Jehovah Witness

Knock, knock. Who’s there? Jehovah. Jehovah who? A God going by His first name but doesn’t want you to even celebrate your own birthday sux.

One star

Atheism

This place is a shithole! The dining area always looks the same – totally greasy and crumby tables with a remarkable amount of trash on the floor. The morbidly obese manager sure doesn’t break a sweat getting that lobby taken care of, in between taking the slowest transactions of all time at the counter register. Good thing there’s another bus every fifteen minutes…

I’d only had the chicken strips for many years now, but I got some coupons in the mail so I was adventurous. Twice, just to give them a fair shake. The extra crispy was extra greasy – or so I thought! The next time I tried original recipe, and it was SO greasy I was disgusted halfway through my second piece and couldn’t finish. No wonder everybody prefers Popeye.

The only reason I gave two stars is because the chicken strips are still really good, and the mashed potatoes with gravy are like crack, and the non-corpulent employee was very personable. The owners need to shake it up at this store! Stick with the drive through so you won’t have to touch anything.

Two stars

Craft

Writing Yelp 101

1. Pick a place. You don’t have to have a memorable experience there, but just pick a place and go. Try to come up with expectations. Pretend that you owned the business and all the things you would have if you owned a place like the one you are going to.
2. Go to the place. Look at it through the lens that only you have the true right idea how places should be. Demand a lot from the store employees. Gauge their reaction and how well they are of service to you.
3. Linger at the place for a long time soaking it all in. Keep asking questions, especially about why they don’t have certain things and why would they have the things they do have. Make sure when you buy stuff, make the buying stuff as complicated as possible. Some on cash, some on a card and some on a check or traveler’s check.
4. Sit down and write.
5. It is super important that you write yourself into the story. Yelping is as gonzo as possible and you will need to find your inner Hunter S. Thompson or Tom Wolfe. Even if it has nothing to do with your experience with the place, put in what you did before and what you were going to do after. “I was done doing laundry, and I was tired because I had so much whites to do, and I think some of the red in my red sweater came out and got some of my whites pink, but I think I can use a little more bleach, so I headed to the Whole Foods on… [The review]…After I left Whole Foods with that in mind I headed uptown to meet my neighbor at the dentist office so we can take the bus back to our apartment building together. We are crocheting little vests for each other’s cats. Mine is going to have some felt and hers looks like it has a New Mexican theme with lots of turquoise.”
6. Don’t worry about editing or proof reading. I’m a professional blogger and I never edit my work. It takes the power out of my words to revise. Anyway, post and know that you are helping consumers make informed decisions because of your seventeen-paragraph review.

Goal

Yelp is terrible and is holding businesses hostage by having sensitive crazy people have access to voice their opinions to people who will believe anything they read on the Internet.

If you Yelp, stop.