Trials of a Local Artifact

Before I begin: Did anyone else happen to notice the cover of this week's Barron's? The headline was "Booze Is Back." Is it? I wasn't aware it had gone. Where did it go? Wherever it was, it apparently took me along. So I'm back, too, I guess, and glad to be.

* * * * * * *

I want to explain what I mean when I say I don’t like most people. It isn’t that I’m a misanthrope. Not liking and disliking are two different things. (I'm using gerunds! I have Christy to thank for knowing that.) Not liking is an absence of affection; I’ve got nothing against these people, I just have no fondness for them and don’t really want to spend time talking to them. It’s a negative, passive activity. If I don’t like you, I’ll still laugh at your jokes if they’re funny. I’ll feel bad for you if I hear you’ve been in a car crash. I’ll buy you a drink on your birthday (if you promise to drink it with someone else, and yes, I do stipulate that when I offer).

Dislike, on the other hand, is active. It is a positive activity. It’s the feeling that makes your skin crawl when certain people come around, that makes you rude and bitchy to them right off the bat. I’m not saying I hope terrible things will happen to these people, or that I take joy in their suffering; on the other hand, their suffering doesn’t cause me to lose sleep, either. If I dislike you, I will make sure that your unfinished drink is the first one I take at last call. I will warn my friends to avoid you and beg your potential lovers to rethink the huge mistake they’re about to make. And behavior that would usually be met with a contemptuous glare and vicious sarcasm will get you bitch-slapped. See the difference?

When I do like someone, though, I'm pretty devoted. Also, I almost always like someone immediately if I'm ever going to like him at all. It’s very rare that someone I’ve known for a long time becomes a close friend; I tend to form my friendships very quickly. Gerlach was almost instantly one of my best friends; two hours after we met I already loved him. He was so much like me, it was weird; we felt the same way about things, saw the world the same way. I’m used to the way that people who’ve known me for years can sometimes finish my sentences; it’s a bit unnerving when someone you’ve known since...oh, late afternoon can do the same thing. Gerlach and I were doing that to each other. It doesn't make sense, but sometimes you just connect with people.

Christy and I were kinda like that, too, only not as fast. The first time I met Christy was back in late January. She happened to be sitting with a few friends of mine at Hank's when I walked in. I sat with them and we started trading stories. We sort of rotated picking topics, and when it was my turn, I suggested we should each tell the story of the worst insult we’ve ever received. I won’t tell everyone else’s (unless someone wants to give permission…), but I’ll tell you mine:

Rhonda, back when we first moved in together, had a friend who was a pornographic film-maker. Denny was his name; he was about seventy, and was the textbook definition of a dirty old man. He was actually so creepy that Rhonda wouldn’t let me leave her alone with him (I always wondered how she maintained this friendship before she met me).

Anyway, he really wanted Rhonda to do a film for him. Just a short piece, masturbating in the bathtub or some such thing, that would have ended up edited into a larger collection. He offered her $500. When she asked me if I thought she should do it, I said, “It’s your body, it’s up to you. If you want to, go ahead; if you don’t feel comfortable with it, we don’t need the money that bad.”

The next time Denny came ‘round, Rhonda told him that she did not, in fact, feel comfortable with it. He suggested I be present if she was nervous; she stressed that I would have been coming along anyway, with or without his invitation or permission. Then he said, “Well, would you feel better about it if it was both of you in the film?”

This was an intriguing idea, and she and I talked about it, right there in front of him. I thought, well, it might be kinda neat having an actual movie of us, taken by a professional (as opposed to just propping a camcorder on the edge of the bed á la Tonya Harding). Something to show the grandkids, you know? “See, Gramma and Grampa weren’t always old and hideous!” It didn’t make much difference to me that someone would be watching us do what we did all the time anyway (it wouldn’t have been the first time, which is a story for another evening); and frankly, the prospect of the film being distributed seemed pretty cool. I had visions of people coming up to me in the bar, saying, “Hey, didn’t I see you in Trollops of the Midwest?” or whatever he was gonna call it. And, as I told her at the time, “You know, we just moved into a new place, and we’re a little short of cash; we could really use $1,000.”

“No, not $1,000,” Denny corrected me. “The same $500.”

So basically, I was just gonna be a prop. I wasn’t even getting paid. My friends, that is an insult. “Get the hell outta my house, you dirty old bastard!” If he’d been twenty years younger I would’ve kicked him in the ass on the way out, too.

Christy loved my story, and we just started exchanging stories rapid-fire, and have been ever since. She and I started hanging out more and more, and now I see her pretty much every day. I have provided her with a passport into bar culture, and she’s thinking about applying for citizenship. She’s becoming one of us. Christy even got to come and hang out over at Mary’s after closing time. That’s when you know you’re in; unlike Beth Anne, Mary is not in the habit of having people over after work.

Gerlach, on the other hand, has pretty much dropped out of bar culture. He was out a couple of weeks ago, but it was the first time I’d seen him since…well, since before I met Christy, at least. He’s married now, and trying to do the responsible adult thing. He even got a grown-up job (sorta; he works days, anyway). And, as you can tell if you read his comment to the post "Drunks & Alcoholics" (since deleted at his request), for him drinking can sometimes be a bit of a problem. To most of us, alcohol is a friend (though sometimes a friend that doesn't have our best interests at heart), but to Gerlach, alcohol can be a demon. On balance, though we miss him, maybe his immersion in married life, in respectability, is better for him than we were.

So people come and people go in our insulated little society, and I suppose that’s the way of things. I myself have never really been into the responsible adult thing, so I guess I’ll stay here in the culture, and watch folks fall in, and other folks crawl out; maybe I’ll eventually be a sort of landmark, and people will see me and say, “Ha-a-a-a-ang on a minute…this far and no farther.” I'll be the marker at the point of no return.

Not terribly flattering, is it? Given a choice, I think I’d rather not be seen as a signpost, but instead as an artifact: A local artifact of bar culture. You can pray over me and touch the past (or at least buy me a scotch and hear about it).

Hell, maybe I already am an artifact. I am sort of unusual, by nature but also by appearance; the great fuck-off beard, the ragged coat and homemade hat, the torn and mismatched sneakers, the colorful flannel pants and endless array of offensive political T-shirts and zombie shirts—folks that meet me once usually remember me, and in my regular haunts, I become (as Andi said the other night) part of the furniture.

To illustrate: of all my haunts, the most precious was Calamity Café. It was a bar/restaurant, with a big sign behind the bar that said, “Saloon and Salvation.” It’s gone now; the Nazis at the public health passed an ordinance against smoking in restaurants, and Calamity (along with several other joints that, like the Café, had been around for years and are sorely missed) went under. The night they closed the place for good, there was a huge party, which I actually lost my job cooking at the Union for attending. I told my boss that I absolutely could not work, but he had a big ski weekend or something to do, so he told me I had to come in. I did come in briefly (only because I knew that if I got fired it would hurt the other guy who worked there; I’d made it plain that Calamity mattered more to me than my job), but no one was at the Union, of course; everyone was at Calamity. After four hours I’d made three dollars’ worth of food. There was no business to be done, so I left early. When the boss found out, he fired me. I told everyone at the party, “Yeah, we’re all gonna miss the place, but I’m the only one that got fired to be here!”

I’ll eulogize Calamity some other time. The important thing here is that the night of the party the place got trashed by souvenir seekers, and one of the souvenirs they took was the big, garish, rainbow-colored fleece pullover I always wore. It was genuinely one-of-a-kind, because Rhonda had made it for me by hand…she was brokenhearted when I told her it was gone. I was pretty pissed off about it, of course, and in fact still am. But in a way, I’m sort of honored, as well. That place was the heart of the campus area, this whole neighborhood. I thought, I’ve been so much a part of this place that stealing something of mine counted as stealing a part of Calamity...I must be an artifact, after all.

Not a Political Blog

As anyone who’s read my profile or the very first post on this blog will know, I’m an International Affairs major specializing in Eastern Europe. Politics is a passion of mine, whether arguing over GOP plans to destroy the filibuster or trying to figure out how Silvio Berlusconi has managed to keep his deeply unpopular government together so long (almost made it the full five years; way to go, Silvio!).

I’ve been told by some friends that I shouldn’t turn this into a political blog. There are so many out there already that it would be difficult for me to make this one really stand out. They say that most people aren't that interested in politics, and even the ones who are don't care much about my politics, about the Orange Revolution in Ukraine or the struggle for freedom in Belarus or efforts at criminal & judicial reform in Georgia. Perhaps they're right, though it should be noted that most of the people telling me this don’t themselves care about politics, or at least not European politics, and are probably afraid that they’ll be obligated to read my rants about Viktor Yuschenko and Yuliya Tymoshenko, Alyaksandr Lukashenka, or (especially) Vladimir Putin. Perhaps they're right. So far, at least, I've avoided politics for the most part, and satisfied myself with those links (over on the right of the page) to Euro news services.

Nevertheless, I do get into politics. One of the things I most enjoy about spending so much time on a college campus is the profusion of people who really care about politics, who want to talk and argue and learn. These people can be a genuine joy to spend time with, even though the vast majority of them don’t really have any idea what they’re talking about.

And I mean that sincerely. I’ve had many conversations, not only with casual students (who can perhaps be excused for not knowing any better), but with members of the various political organizations on campus. As I say, I always enjoy these talks, but more often than not I come away thinking, “Jeez, go live in the world a little. Or read a book. Or do something to learn what’s actually going on out there.”

When I first moved here, I made some friends in the Young Democrats. They were good kids, genuinely dedicated true believers. They worked hard to get out the vote, to support local candidates, to disseminate information. I liked them. I didn’t join their organization, of course, because I am not a Democrat (I was at the time a registered member of the Socialist Party USA, the party Eugene Debs founded; I was even a delegate to the 2000 convention). I used to love making fun of them, with their insistence on fixing the system from the inside out.

“You understand,” I would say, “that Democrats haven’t been any better at fixing the system than the Republicans over the years.”

Of course most of them knew that, though they were loath to admit it. The Democrats might be nicer people, but they’re just as corrupt as the GOP. You can’t save the country by electing this guy over that guy, though you can certainly destroy it faster that way. The entire system needs changed, and neither party is serious about that.

Once, they (the Young Dems) were having a vote drive and asked me to find them some particularly biting and incisive political cartoons they could use as advertising (everybody knows to come to me for that sort of thing). They were expecting some cheap photocopies, but I found and enlarged 35-40 of them, each big and polished enough to be a sign in itself. They were very impressed. Derek, the president, said, “Wow, thanks! We didn’t expect all this.”

“Well, Derek,” said I, “I never do anything halfway. If I did, I’d be a Democrat.”

Some of them were more nearly radical than others, of course. I distinctly remember one night at TJ's, a local pool hall (which I recommend, by the way; the draft is cheap and the tables are kept in pretty good condition). A few of the members had gotten drunk and wanted to do something to make a statement. But of course they were just kids, so the best they could think of was to go around and egg the houses of rich people. I was enlisted to prevent them from doing this. “This is not a radical action,” I said. “This is petty vandalism, and it will accomplish nothing except that you will get caught and you will look stupid, and the Republicans will have something embarrassing to use against you in the next election.”

One of the Dems, whose name I’ll leave out because he’s actually planning a career in politics, said, “Well, how about we go around and burn down their houses then?” Everyone laughed, but he was serious. So I took him aside.

“Well, isn’t that radical enough for you?” he asked. He seemed genuinely hurt that I wouldn’t let him do it.

“Yeah, that’s pretty radical.”

“You’re not worried about a bunch of dead rich folks, are ya?”

“Shit no,” says I, thinking fast. “The only good rich guy’s a dead rich guy. The problem with killing rich folks, though, is that you gotta kill ‘em all at once. If you only kill a few at a time, they’ll figure out what you’re up to. And remember, they own the police; and if it comes to it, they own the government and the Army as well. There just aren’t enough of us to kill all of them tonight. We’ll have to bide our time.” That seemed to mollify him a bit. I bought him a beer and then sent him home to bed.

Every rich person in Huntington, by the way, owes me a drink for that. I’ll be at Hank’s when you’re ready to pay up.

* * * * * * *

Anyway, I had a blast with the Young Democrats until they got mad at me for showing up drunk at a Meet the Candidates get-together they’d worked very hard on. (As a general rule, if you don't want me to show up drunk, don't invite me.) I harangued a few candidates about living-wage ordinances and so forth for a while, and at least a couple of the candidates seemed to enjoy the wrangling, but the Young Dems were pretty mad. They can be very humorless people.

Not that the College GOP (and I always pronounce that acronym as a word rather than saying G-O-P, which is very satisfying and really pisses them off; you should try it) is any better. I first encountered them en masse during the great public brain-washing leading up to the Iraq War, though I’d known a few of them individually for some time (a few martyrs who liked to see me as a lost soul in need of saving, which, come to think of it, is how a few of the Young Dems saw me as well). The GOP was putting up flyers all over campus promoting the war, and some of the Young Dems (those who also belonged to MAPS, which I think stood for Marshall Action for Peaceful Solutions) were putting up anti-war flyers. The GOP was coming around and tearing down all the MAPS flyers, which is an affront to open public discussion but was also, in retrospect, emblematic of the way the Administration was framing the discussion nationally. A real practical educational experience, that coulda been. Wish I had mentioned it to my PoliSci professors.

Anyway, I hadn’t put up any of the original flyers, but I felt that retaliation was called for, and I didn’t trust the Dems to do it right. I am not the sort of person who goes around tearing down flyers, because everyone has a right for his voice to be heard. No, I needed something more creative. And with the help of desktop publishing, a strong sense of irony, a magic marker, and a copy of Strunk and White, I found it.

I had noticed that the GOP flyers had many spelling & grammatical errors on them, as well as some intensely fallacious logic. I’m not saying that the GOP is stupid, you understand; just, you know, maybe whoever was responsible for copy-editing that stuff before the public sees it was having a bad week. So I went around correcting all of their flyers and then appending homemade stickers saying “I checked the SPELLING…you check the FACTS!” It was fun. They finally caught me doing it, though, and were kinda pissed. However, it turns out that blue-penciling isn’t actually a violation of school rules, while removing other organizations’ flyers is. So, they let it go.

Mostly, I was irritated with both organizations more or less all the time, though I liked many members of each individually. MAPS was different from the other two. It was affiliated with neither party; their only focus was on peace. I know, members of the GOP are saying, “Sure, they say they’re non-partisan…but I bet they hate Bush!” Of course, they opposed Bush’s invasion of Iraq, but they opposed Clinton’s intervention in the Balkans, too. There’s an integrity to that that appeals to me. I attended several of their meetings, and even developed a genuine fondness for a couple of the members, Abe and Maggie.

Even crazy Dave McGee was kinda fun sometimes. But he left the organization, and maybe that was best for all involved. He had a bad habit of getting drunk and belligerent, and in a non-partisan organization that’s dedicated to “peaceful solutions,” a senior member who occasionally walks into Calamity Café and slaps the help is something of a detriment. He’s started a new organization locally now (an arm of ACT UP, I believe), and I hope he does well, though I haven’t seen him for a while.

I mention Dave because he was typical of all the clamor going on the country. Dave really meant well, really felt that the work he was doing was important (and it was); he genuinely believed he was right and that, therefore, everyone who disagreed with him was either stupid or wicked. All the voices we hear are like that, and for the most part, so are our own. A new voice would be refreshing.

* * * * * * *

I’m thinking of all this, of war and politics and the campus organizations and the petty sniping, because of one of the College GOP guys that I got along with. He got sent to Iraq not long after the war began. He’s home now, safe and healthy (barring any psychological scars he might be carrying; there weren't any obvious ones). I ran into him at the bar the other night, and he and I talked for a bit. He began by saying that he knew I didn't agree with our being over there, and he hoped I didn't hate him for going, which I assured him I did not ("We were never mad at you, brother; we were mad at the Doofus-in-Chief"). He had grown a bit since I'd last seen him, in the sense that he had learned to question what was being told to him. He told me he still supported the President, but had developed serious doubts about the war.

He told me stories, of course, as returning soldiers do. He told me about engagements and battles. He told me about liberating prisons; he told me about shelled-out hospitals and schools, too. He believes that the cause was just but the execution was not. He told me about being fired upon in the streets of Baghdad, and how the “soldiers” shooting at him turned out to be young boys. He said to me, “I didn’t return fire. I’m not killing a twelve-year-old just to save my own life.”

And I thought, I wish this had been the sort of voice we'd been listening to all along.

Of Playoffs & Layoffs

I’ve been a cook for a long time now, mostly in bars that happen to have kitchens in the back. I’m good at it, and it suits me to work in a bar: I can wear what I want, I can smoke at work (except when I’m actually cooking), and I work alone. As an added bonus, we bar employees are that rarest and happiest breed, workers with the public who aren’t under any particular obligation to be nice.

I’m finished at Mac’s for good now. The decrease in my income is not yet worrisome, since I’m still working at the library and have always been good at keeping my savings up. What really surprises me is that I kinda miss the work a little bit. Not Mac’s specifically, you understand; I was as happy to leave that place as I’ve ever been escaping from a job. (As I expressed it to Warren, "I can't wait to scrape this place off the soles of my shoes.") But the work itself I miss a little. I guess you get used to things, and as I say, I've been a cook a long time.

Part of it, I think, is just having a skill that I'm not using. I always tell people that a reasonably intelligent ten-year-old could do my job, and it's true in a sense (provided he's tall enough to use the equipment). You, dear reader, could walk into a well-stocked and -equipped kitchen and make yourself a good meal, no matter whether you have experience doing it professionally or not. But could you make six or seven different meals at once, without any kind of help, and have them all come out (and come out well-made) in ten minutes? That, my friends, is a skill, and a fairly rare one at that. There's a great deal of pride that comes from doing something well, even if it isn't an important thing, and I don't get to feel that during the dinner rush anymore.

Also, part of what I miss is the straight-up adrenaline rush. When orders start pouring in and you've got ten or twelve things backed up that you've gotta get made NOWRIGHTNOW!!! you become pure adrenaline. The human body isn't made for this kind of stress; it isn't a "fight or flight" situation, and there's nothing in our evolutionary history to prepare us for it. So after an hour or so of that pressure your body and conscious mind just sorta break down; the adrenaline creates a sort of artificial superstructure to support you, a metaphorical inflatable skeleton and musculature.

It's euphoric in the sense that your subconscious takes over your actions. You've made this food a million times before, and your body just knows what needs to be done. Your conscious mind just floats away. I used to be aware of nothing more than the music I was listening to (Rob Zombie and Jane's Addiction have saved a lot of lives by keeping me pacified at times like these). If anything distracts your attention, though, it takes time to get that zen-semi-consciousness back, so I used to ignore people that tried to talk to me. It sometimes hurt their feelings, but I'd be so zoned out that they might as well have been speaking Cantonese. If they actually managed to get through (and weren't talking about the food itself, which somehow the subconscious would register), a ten-second conversation would cost me two or three minutes in cooking time, which is an eternity under these circumstances. But barring that, everything is automatic. My conscious mind might as well have been asleep (and sometimes, the flights of fancy my mind would take while I worked were profoundly dreamlike). I would cut myself and not notice, burn myself and not feel it. I'd drop bits of food and trample them 'til the floor was a black gooey mess and have no idea.

There are good things about not working at Mac's anymore, though. The best of all is that the NBA playoffs start today, and for the first time in thirteen years I'm going to get to sit in a bar and watch the games, rather than catching a few moments here and there, between making someone a Hot Sicilian and someone else a platter of stuffed potato skins. I'm really excited about that. Basketball isn't like baseball, which moves slowly and you can time it so as not to miss anything important. The bar was packed during last year's ALCS, but I didn't miss a single important moment (and I'm not even a baseball fan). You can wander away for a few minutes, check back now and then, and know exactly what's going on.

Basketball is so fluid, though, that if you leave the set for five minutes you could come back to find a completely different game going on. And replays don't necessarily help, because one big play can be followed immediately by another, and another. Witness the end of regulation in the WVU-Louisville matchup.

Everything changes in an instant. I still don't know how Illinois came back in the Regional Final against Arizona. They were down 15, I went to make an appetizer combo, and when I got back they were tied. How did that happen?

So, yeah, I get to watch every minute of every game this year, and that's the best news I've had in a long time. And this year's playoffs look to be especially interesting, with a fairly open field and some serious contenders that are actually fun to watch. I mean, if you don't excited watching Phoenix play, check your pulse, 'cause you might be dead.

The only thing I regret is that the Knicks aren't playing. That, however, will not stop me from saying the same thing I say every year at this time:

Get ready for New York's improbable run to the Championship!!!

Even more improbable than usual, since four or five teams would have to disband for us to even get into the playoffs. Maybe the Commissioner will give us a special dispensation. After all, it isn't good for the league that neither New York nor Los Angeles is represented.

Anyway, I thought it would be silly to have blog with the word "basketball" in its description without at least mentioning the playoffs on the day they open. And since I've brought it up, might as well talk about it.

With the Knicks out, I'm free to pull for whoever I want, and I'm pulling for Phoenix. I like the way they play basketball, and wish everyone else would play that way, too. This is ABA ball, basketball the way it was meant to be, the kind of basketball I grew up with. If Phoenix can win it all with this flashy, attractive style, maybe things'll change in the NBA.

Outside of that, I tend to root for individual players. Last year I was pulling for Big Ben Wallace and Tayshaun Prince, and that worked out pretty good. Of course, I was also pulling for KG and Spree, but I just couldn't get 'em past the goddamned Lakers.

Ray Allen is a guy I like to cheer for. I love his shot. To hell with the games, man. I could just sit in a gym all day and watch him take jumpers (problem is, sometimes his teammates feel that way, too). I love Peja for the same reason, but this offseason I'm definitely pulling for Ray Allen. I do wish he'd grow some hair, though; he isn't pretty enough or menacing enough to have a shaved head.

Allen Iverson, the great Virginian, toughest and most dedicated player in the game, carried this bunch of rejects and injured retreads into the playoffs on his back. I would've liked for Philly to have gotten a higher seed, but I'll tell you what: Detroit ain't looking past Philly. The Pistons, even as great as they are defensively, got no answer for Iverson. Look what he did to them last month. If Webber is healthy, Philly can do this. With both men on the floor, the Sixers actually have a dangerous offense. But, when one of them sits, everything pretty much falls apart. I expect nothing, but I got hope in this series. At least the Sixers will make them work for it.

I'm crazy in love with Dwayne Wade, and he's got a good shot at meeting the Suns in the Finals, which I'd love to see (although a clash-of-ideologies matchup between the Suns and Pistons would be interesting). This kid made the greatest play I've ever seen earlier this year, and I firmly believe he's only a couple of years away from being the best basketball player in the world.

As the only Knicks fan on Earth who doesn't wish Reggie Miller was dead and dismembered, I'd like to see him close his magnificent career on a high note. At least beat the Celtics, Reggie.

Although there is one outside consideration as far as that series goes. One thing I definitely do not want to see is a second-round matchup between the Pacers and Pistons. Everybody has finally shut up about Ron Artest and the brawl, and I don't want it all to start again. Especially living in Huntington, where almost no one is into the NBA, people here used Artest as an excuse to bash the game. It's funny that no one uses Terrell Owens to say that all football players are thugs, but Ron Artest somehow reflects badly on every NBA player.

Basketball players seem to get shoddy treatment from the public compared to football or baseball players. Even the worst guys in the NBA aren't any worse than John Rocker, Jeremy Shockey, or Jose Canseco, but any time someone gets talking about how bad athletes are, they always start with the NBA. I don't know what it is.

Maybe it's racism to some extent; there is a perception of pro basketball as a black game (I know a lot of people who like college ball but hate the NBA; coincidentally or not, they're all white). This is certainly true locally. Huntington is a town where there's a lot of tension between black and white. So, while people who don't like baseball simply say, "I don't like baseball," if you mention the NBA to them they go off on a tangent about it, as if not liking the pros is an article of faith and they want to make sure no one thinks their devotion is slipping. And they all say the same things; it's chillingly like hearing third-graders recite the Pledge of Allegiance.

Familiarity, too, might breed contempt with basketballers. They are so exposed to us. They aren't draped in hard plastic armor, they wield no equipment, they don't even wear hats. There is no way to compare the intimacy of a basketball arena with the expanse of a ballpark or a stadium. The players are so close to the fans that they seem real in a way other players wouldn't. You can hear Ray Lewis when he's on one of his rampages at the fifty-yard-line, but you can actually hear Allen Iverson breathing. So maybe we see basketball players as actual people (with all the attendant faults and flaws), whereas in other sports there's a sort of distance, and the players perhaps are seen more as icons than as human beings. You look up to Randy Johnson or Brian Urlacher, but you feel like you know LeBron James.

Whatever it is, I'm sick to death of people putting down the NBA, and the Artest incident provided a season-long excuse among the locals (and, I'm sure, folks across the country) to talk shit about pro basketball. Now that it's died down, I don't want it to start again. So, A.I., Paul and Antoine, you guys save us from that, okay?

On Public Isolation

Okay, so something you should know about me right off is that I’m a serious bitch. I’m not really good at anything in the world except drinking, playing chess, and bitching (well, and I’m also the world’s greatest repository of zombie knowledge). And, as my Gramma always says, “Ya gotta go with what ya know.”

And tonight I’m feelin’ a little bitchy, so stand back.

America has become a seriously informal place. In general, I think this is probably a good thing. It fosters a certain egalitarianism, an openness, that’s healthy in society. But there are drawbacks, too. One of these is something that probably doesn’t bother most people, but it drives me absolutely mad: I don’t like people I don’t know coming up and starting conversations with me. This can be a real problem in a bar, since alcohol tends to make amateurs either euphoric or lugubrious, and either way they wanna talk and don't care much who they talk to. I try to combat this by always sitting at one end of the bar, so at least I can be fairly sure that only one friendly stranger can sit next to me and bother me. It’s much easier to ignore one person than two on either side of you. I don’t want to be mean about it, but as a general rule, if you want to talk to me, get someone to introduce you; otherwise, back off. All I want is to be alone in the crowd, and I'm usually pretty good at that. In fact, my last girlfriend said that I radiated "fuck off" vibes. But some people are immune to the effect, apparently.

One such person is the crazy woman who was aggravating me at Hank's the other night. She was with her friends (so why bother me in the first place?) and was quite drunk. She kept coming up and putting an arm around my shoulder, asking me what I was reading (incidentally, I was reading The Great Shark Hunt by Hunter S. Thompson, of whom this woman had never heard; this shocked me and I said so, which is as close as I came to joining the conversation at all), and being generally obnoxious.

She finally left, but before she went she put an arm around me and said, very confidentially, “My mother just died two months ago.”

“I’m sorry,” I replied.

“She died of lung cancer,” she continued.

“Okay. I’m…still sorry, I guess.” ‘Cause, really, what do you say?

She pointed at my lit cigarette. “Those things,” she said, “are bullshit.” I elected not to respond, which is what I often do in these situations; just nod, give a condescending half-smile, and go back to reading. She waited a second or two, then said, “Tell you what: if you quit smoking, I’ll read that book.”

I’m not a rude person, but she had really aggravated me by this point, and the last statement was too stupid to pass on. “Why do I give a fuck,” I said, “whether or not you read this book?” Which brought the conversation to an abrupt and welcome end.
[This reminds me, by the way, of the guy who complained to me that second-hand smoke from my cigarette was killing him. "Not fast enough," I told him.]
I’m not a people person at all. There are very few people I actually enjoy talking to. This is why, although my friends are terribly important to me (as mentioned in the last post), I don’t have very many of them. Part of the reason Bill and I are as close as we are is that we can sit next to each other happily for hours without either of us saying anything. Actually, even some of the people I do know I don’t really want to have long conversations with, and when someone I don’t know tries to have one with me, it makes me extremely uncomfortable. And even if I was friendlier, that conversation wouldn’t have appealed to me. Why on Earth would you tell a complete stranger that your mother just died? What inspires people to share emotional tragedy with strangers, especially in this case, when the woman had friends right there with her? And why do people feel compelled to tell me that smoking is bad for me? Do they really think I don't know? Do they really think I've been living in a cave for the last 34 years?

There’s a corollary to this as well. It isn’t as though I was sitting at the bar doing nothing. I was reading a book, for Christ’s sake. I think that, to some extent, America is becoming a sub-literate society. People no longer view reading as a leisure activity, it seems. I guess most people just read to pass the time when they’re bored. Reading for pleasure has become such a foreign concept to them that when they see someone else reading, they think they’re being helpful by talking to them and filling a few minutes.

For me, though, reading is serious business. I would rather read than talk to most people, and I’m always surprised that they can’t understand this. It should be fairly obvious that if I’m focused enough to read in a bar, in the midst of all the talking and arguing and the jukebox blaring in the background, then it’s probably pretty important to me, and you should maybe leave me alone. If you say something to me and I nod and grunt without ever lifting my eyes from the page, take the hint, alright? If they bother me long enough, I’ll say something bitchy to them, like the guy a couple of weeks ago: “Has it never occurred to you that the reason Camus has been published and you haven’t is that he has more interesting things to say than you have?”

Don’t bother me while I’m reading unless I have specifically given you permission (which leaves out everyone except my bartenders and maybe three other people; Phil, please note that you are not on this list) or you want to talk about the Knicks. I admit, I’ve always got time for that.

And while I’m thinking about it…don’t bother me while I’m watching basketball, either. For some reason, many people seem to think that talking about the game is more fun than watching it. I disagree, and I’ll be happy to argue the point AFTER THE GAME. Think Steve Nash is the Most Valuable Player? Possibly, but I think Allen Iverson deserves some votes too, and I’ll explain why AFTER THE GAME. Think Kobe’s a jackass, T-Mac’s a whiner, Ron Artest is a lunatic? I’ll impugn their character all you like AFTER THE GAME. Think the Knicks can’t win with Stephon Marbury at the point? I’ll kick your ass for that…

AFTER
THE
GAME!!!

Dammit. Now shut up.

Drunks and Alcoholics

I don’t believe in God, as a general rule. It seems strange to me, the idea of a being outside of existence who controls and manipulates events in our universe. Nevertheless, there are times when I think I see evidence of a higher being. These are the days when everything is going so horribly wrong that it can’t possibly be coincidence, and the only way to explain it is the intervention of a malicious deity with a serious grudge.
Last Saturday, the 9th, was one such day. I don’t want to bore you with the details: suffice it to say that it was my next-to-last day as the cook at Mac’s; it was stupid busy; the manager was on the warpath all day; the public health showed up (which did not improve the manager’s mood much); and the customers were all extremely drunk and demanding (including one guy who insisted that he was Puff Daddy’s brother, and therefore deserved food after I had finished cooking for the night). By the time the kitchen closed, I was pretty frazzled. So, halfway through cleaning up, I decided to take a break. I got a glass of scotch and went out onto Mac’s very nice deck to read, enjoy the warm night, and get a little calm-down buzz going.
As I mentioned in my introductory post, I am a librarian as well as a cook. I work at the Marshall University library (the Drinko library, as it happens). One of my more frequent patrons is a graduate assistant, who I see almost every day, and assist with her research. We’ve known each other casually for some time.
This young woman happened to be at Mac’s on the Saturday I mention, and saw me sitting on the deck, so she came over and talked to me. We had a fairly long conversation, ranging from school to what we’ve been reading to how much we hate our jobs. Anyway, at some point in the conversation, it occurred to me that she was making a pass at me. Now, I’m only 34, but I’m an extremely worn-out and beat-up 34, and I am not used to beautiful graduates in their mid-twenties finding me attractive. So, I’m thinking, “Fucking hell, splashy-splashy back.” (By the way, if you don’t know Eddie Izzard, all that was fucking funny, alright?).
She said, “Well, now that I know you work here, I’ll come down and see you more often.”
“That would be great. Oh, wait…I forgot, tomorrow’s my last day. I won’t be here.”
“Oh no, well, when will I see you, then?”
“Just come to Hank's.” I spend time in a lot of bars, but Hank's is home. I hang out there, the bartenders are all among my closest personal friends, I even work there sort of semi-officially.
“Do you go to Hank's? That’s a nice place. When are you usually there?”
“Oh, I’m there every night.” And she looked at me kinda strange, and then I realized that to an outsider that might sound kinda bad. She heard that I was at Hank's every night, and assumed I was a drunk, which turned her off a bit.

* * * * * * *

So, that’s what I’m talking about today. The very first thing you must know about bar culture is that we’re not all drunks. In fact, among the actual residents of bar culture (the people who live in bars), drunks are rather more the exception than the rule. This seems to be a difficult idea for outsiders to understand. Outsiders, after all, go to bars specifically to get drunk, and it doesn’t make sense to them that not everyone is like that. But while drinking is certainly an important part of what we do, the bar isn't just about drinking. It's our home, and we go there to spend time with each other.

Don’t get me wrong. We have no illusions about ourselves (or at least, not about our drinking). We are all alcoholics. No one could drink as much as we do without developing a chemical dependency. But alcoholics and drunks are not the same thing. To us, the idea of alcoholism carries no stigma. In fact, it's sort of a source of pride for us, that we engage in this “aberrant” and self-destructive behavior, and yet are able to hold down jobs, pay our bills, fulfill our responsibilities, even raise reasonably well-adjusted children. We drink considerable amounts, but we’re professional drinkers, and rarely drink to excess (I myself am rarely drunk in a bar). I would no more be offended by being called an alcoholic than by being called a librarian.

Not all alcoholics are drunks. In fact, most drunks aren’t alcoholics; their problem stems from not knowing enough about alcohol, not respecting its power enough. These people are amateurs. They come out, have a couple of shots, start feeling good, and think, “Well, if two shots make me feel this good, how good will I feel after ten?” These are the people who generally don't drink, but once or twice a month go to a bar and get hammered. Since real barflies are, by nature, unobtrusive, and since drunks tend to be very loud and occasionally violent (and therefore imprint themselves more firmly on the memory of those around them), the latter have become what people in our society think of when they think of bars. These are the people who ruin St. Patrick’s Day, Octoberfest, and New Year’s for barflies. I haven’t been out drinking on New Year’s since 1992…I usually refer to it as “amateur night.”

Barflies, on the whole, are quiet, decent people who see the world a little differently from everyone else. We aren’t cynics, despite the way we’re usually portrayed on film. In fact, we’re the least cynical people you’ll ever meet. It would be truer to say that we’re romantics; we want the world to be perfect and beautiful, and can’t bear the fact that it isn’t. In a sense, we’ve slipped out of modern society and created a sort of terra nova, a “place” without precise location that exists wherever a few of us are gathered together around a bottle of wine; a separate culture with its own morality, ethos, and rules, its own measure of success and value. We’re shadows in the real world, and the real world is a shadow to us, intruding on our consciousness vaguely, like clouds passing over the sun when you’re enjoying a spring picnic.

[The last two paragraphs have been deleted by the author, because I'm feeling bitchy. And no, Gerlach, that isn't your fault.]

Ummm...

Well, this is a little bizarre. I created this blog by accident, and now I have to think of something to say. And since I’m incredibly hung over and haven’t had much sleep, words are not going to come easy today. But I suppose I should start by telling my (hopefully soon-to-be loyal) readers who the hell I am.

I’m a cook and librarian (odd combo, there), an International Affairs major specializing in Eastern Europe, a political junkie, a former professional musician (well, semipro might be a better description), and a man of tremendous insight and wit (or so I like to tell myself). I am also, as you might have noticed, a man who is far too inclined to parenthetical statements. I’m a barfly, a voracious reader, and a serious basketball fan. Although I’m more or less settled now, at least until I graduate, I’ve spent a large chunk of my life traveling the country, doing odd jobs and living out of my van, and (fortunately) writing down every experience I had. There isn’t much I haven’t seen or done, which turns out to have been a better education than the one I’m currently spending so much money on.

As I say, I created this blog by accident, but now that I’ve got the crazy thing, I will try to do good by it. I am an amateur essayist, after all, and now that I can “publish” my screeds, I hope to become motivated. I expect that this will be something of an esoteric page, a little politics, a bit of discussion of a life heavily immersed in bar culture, with sidelines into bizarre stories from my travels and a whole lot of Knicks boosterism thrown in. Wish me luck. I expect to need it.

Oh, and my name is straight-up stolen from Skinny Puppy, the greatest band in the whole history of the world. Hope they don’t sue me.

My Profile Picture, We'll Hope

Okay, this should only be a temporary file, just to get this picture on the blog so I can get a URL and add it to my profile. Wish me luck!