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"We were definitely his testing ground," says waiter Andy Martin proudly. "He spoke about the script every free minute. He would toss ideas around and, yeah, we would tell him if something sucked. The script is a good representation of the people who are involved in the business; it's a whole other world."

Friday's manager Bill Dilts is happy for McKittrick, too, but stops short of calling McKittrick's restaurant portrayal "accurate." "I've been in the business since 1967," he says. "And certain instances [in the script] -- the banter, the one-liners zinging back and forth, having fun and making fun -- are very accurate. But we don't have people hanging from the ceiling exposing themselves."

Dilts is speaking about the principal pastime of McKittrick's male characters -- duping each other into inadvertently looking at each other's suddenly revealed genitalia, whereupon the looker must accept atonement in the form of some serious kicks to the backside. Full frontal nudity and unbridled brutality don't quite gel with Dilts' theory on maintaining a good wait staff: "You need to have all the right equipment on hand and then let them have fun doing what they do best, which is wait tables."

But McKittrick's friend and T.G.I.F.'s co-worker Mason Biener doesn't want waiting tables to forever be what he "does best." The script's plot "is just what a lot of us are going through right now. The restaurant business is not our permanent career. We just haven't made that next step."

Of course, if for whatever reason the whole Hollywood luminary thing doesn't pan out for McKittrick, at least he's got a fallback, Biener figures. "He was a good waiter. He entertained his guests; he was real pleasant with them."

"Waiting" producer Shull -- who met McKittrick while he was dining at the Orlando T.G.I. Friday's -- echoes the comment: "He was a damn good waiter. But he's a better writer." Shull pauses. "I hope."

Perhaps being a waiter makes you a better writer. Perhaps memorizing Friday's awe-inspiring, 15-page bible and juggling all 18 appetizers, eight pasta dishes, eight salads (with 12 different dressings), 10 burgers (with 19 different toppings), eight soup combos, nine desserts and 13 margaritas prepares one for a career of juggling complex story lines and intricate subplots. Perhaps dealing with dozens of servers, cooks, managers and customers every night prepares one for a career of perceptive and economical character development.

Or maybe it just makes you ill.

Being a waiter "definitely contributed to my jaded view," says McKittrick. "The permeating sense of the script is one of a sarcastic wit that could only come from someone who's waited tables for a number of years -- dealing with a customer's shit, and 'the customer is always right' idea when the customer is obviously trying to get something for free.

"Once I saw this bitch woman and her brat kids, and they were being so rude to this waitress that I was just livid watching it. But that woman broke the cardinal rule -- you don't fuck with the people that handle your food." Cackling, McKittrick adds, "Her food got tainted in ways that I shudder to discuss."

Upon selling "Waiting," McKittrick splurged on a classic Volkswagen Kharman Ghia. It's difficult not to picture this automobile as a shiny middle finger aimed at the despicable customers who crowd McKittrick's orangeade-refilling, mint-chocolate-chip-milkshake-making, perpetual-beaming food service memory.

But McKittrick is not worried about becoming a cautionary tale. If Artisan fails to make "Waiting" in the contractually allotted time of two years, McKittrick will simply switch to "Plan B": using his newfound cash to produce the film himself, in the name of menial laborers everywhere who are still waiting for that one big opportunity to not have to depend on the generosity of others to make a living.

"You have certain types of questions for a long time," says Shull, "like, 'Shit, I don't know what I'm going to do with my life; all my friends are selling plumbing supplies, maybe I should quit following my heart' ... Thank God something like this is starting to happen for us.

"Because once you start getting close to 30 years old, you start thinking, Oh, shit."
salon.com | April 6, 2000

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