Zachary Quinto for Wear Many Hats
While secretly working in Times Square, I learn how a divorce develops, Complex, Cult of Love, and that Broadway is alive and well with Zachary Quinto
I decided to work back in service to get the hang of interacting with people beyond Wear Many Hats since I do it over Zoom. In case you didn’t know, I started a CPG brand called Matsar, and that I’m forward facing, chatting with people at Pop-Ups and needed to see if I still had that dog in me, coming up with improv on the fly.
I wanted to find a place where I would not run into anyone and that it would be all kept underground. Turns out the first week I worked at this establishment, I run into a friend I used to party hardcore with in Philly. We used to go to this party dive bar called The Barbary, which reopened last week after closing it’s doors for 3 years, and works for a frail old artist in Hell’s Kitchen. A Design Director at Complex who lives in my old neighborhood in Bedstuy and we have so many mutual friends in the design world. Then there’s Zachary Quinto.
It’s been a whirlwind to say the least. My old friend from Philly comes in one morning and I immediately can tell something is wrong. In my mind, I called it but I didn’t want it to be true. He tells me he’s getting a divorce. We talk about what went wrong, the paperwork, the texts, and now he wants to hang out with me outside of this basement shop. I’m not sure if I want that.
I send an email to my low to medium friend of the Design Director at Complex to see if he can get me an in there to do some side work but he’s giving hard to be friends with and work with. We chat about our mutual friend that lives in LA but we don’t hang outside together. I think the big issue is because I don’t party hard like that anymore and because I’m not a “Director” in my field.
If there is one thing I have to plan for in my late 30s it’s that I have to see if I can obtain the role of being a “Director.” I do have a plan but I have to work extra hard to get to the level. It doesn’t get any easier for someone like me from Southeast Asia to get to that position but every time white tears come across my desk saying that life is so hard, I roll my eyes back into my head.
First star that I get to serve and meet is Zachary Quinto. He’s been coming in because he had a play off broadway called Cult of Love featuring Shailene Woodley and Barbie Ferreira. Quinto would have a conversation about his order but I really wanted to know what his process was. Sometimes he would come in reciting lines like he was holding a walkman.
In true NYC fashion, it feels like 90s New York of real grit of hustling and bustling. It felt like I was living during the days people spoke drugs on the street but it’s surreal to go to Times Square every week. I enjoy riding a Citi Bike after my shift down to Canal St. because I want to feel the full experience of being in Manhattan again and ride through Hell’s Kitchen into Chelsea then the West Village.
I don’t care about working there anymore. I got my fill. I have an end date. Will I miss working here? Running into celebrities all the time? Probably not. I have no ties to this place. I don’t like the product, the clientele, and the employees are more rough around the edges than I would have thought. Sure places aren’t perfect and I’m far from perfect but there is a difference between far from perfect and time to close up the shop after being there for almost 10 years because the place is falling apart.
I have been meeting older guests in their 50s-60s who have given me life lessons. One is a life coach who told me he didn’t get his shit together until he was 37, suggests to read The Success Principles by Jack Canfield and orders 2 pour overs in one sitting. Another gentleman who’s from Seattle that loves coffee and Broadway plays that he comes to NYC 5 times a year just for that. He tells me to check out the off Broadway play, We Had a World, tell stories about our lives and my writings and wanting to be an artist. I hope he’s reading this because we had the best conversation about our worlds.
I thought working there was a way to curb my grocery budget but the real reason was because I needed a place to go. Work away from home. Also the support that they carry Matsar has been a nice gesture.
I haven’t used any of the earnings for anything yet. It sits in a Philly bank account and the cash tips have been going to my haircuts and film development.
So many reasons why I should quit now but the coworker who is leaving me this week discusses with me at the bar that I got a lot of content out of it.