Jameson, A Love Story
The newly opened Double Windsor in Park Slope serves Jameson on the rocks in bucket-sized glasses for a reasonable price. If this is how they like to attract customers, I’d say they’re doing a damn fine job.
Here’s to a blurry Rocktober.
Time to Waste
After drinking last night, I crashed out on the couch. I was happy the cookies I ate didn’t quarrel in my tummy with the Jameson and Jagermeister. I normally avoid sweet baked goods when I’m drinking, but it was a birthday party, and they were chocolate chips.
I woke up at 7, fully dressed, in glasses, with the MLB network still on the television—their predictions show that had been running nonstop all night, apparently. I stood awake for four hours.
Upstairs, I laid in bed. It was raining. The light filtering through my bedroom window was dusky gray.
My old bed has seen better days. I’m pretty sure it’s the same one I slept in when I got too old for the crib. The springs in the middle have grown weary of their rigid posture and have begun to slump, leaving a sizeable depression I can just about curl my hindquarters into. This cozy recess often complicates my efforts to get out of bed when my alarm goes off. The weather wasn’t helping.
I couldn’t decide whether to get up and get my day started on just a few hours of drunken Zs or try to get some more sleep. I stayed motionless, drifting in and out of sleep and having brief, hallucinatory dreams: In the downstairs bathroom, I stood at the vanity and watched a series of small moths fly out of a candle placed on a shelf hanging next to the mirror. They moved in a synchronous, geometric pattern toward the door. A group of larger moths followed soon after, flying in unison and just as precisely. As they got closer to the door, I was able to examine them more closely and realized they were actually tiny birds. I looked back at the candle wondering if a large spider would follow next.
CSI
When I got in my car this afternoon to go to work, it still smelled like Friday night. I hadn’t been out of the house since. I spent all weekend in my saggy blue basketball shorts and T-shirt, so my car’s interior was preserved like the scene of a crime.
A cigarette and green Bic lighter on the dashboard, a bag of five empty White Castle containers on the passenger-side floor, but it was mostly the smell that reminded me of Friday night. I’d let them smoke in the car. I was in the back seat, because I was far from sober and someone else was driving. We went a bar on Forest Ave. called the Rusty Nail that will serve you no matter what time you get in there. It was after 3 a.m., and I’d switched over to water. Inside I met an Irish Princess who was celebrating her birthday; and a stumbling old fool kept approaching my pretty brunette half-sister and haranguing her for not playing songs on the juke box.
He said, “I’ve been entertaining you for an hour. You can entertain me for 30 minutes.” But he seemed amicable enough. She’d told him we’d just gotten there.
After 4, I began to think everyone in the room was out to get me. I had been battling paranoia all night. Hours prior, when I had my first shot of Jameson, I had convinced myself the sullen woman at the bar in the Giants hat and sweater had slipped me something. I had only turned my head from the drink for a second, as I handed my sister her beer. Was that enough time? I was tripping balls on anxiety. After an hour passed, and I wasn’t seeing Smurfs, I was able to calm myself down. I didn’t say anything to anyone. I wonder if they could tell. I told my half-sister that it was time to go. She said she was wasted, so I drove her home.
On my way to work today, I drove with the windows open to get rid of the smell.
Purple Mountain's Majesty
The last night of last year’s South By South West music festival, we were in desperate need of an after-hours party. Partying is like any other type exercise: If you do it rarely, than any amount of activity will suffice, but if you’re drinking from noon to 4 a.m. on a daily basis, then greater amounts of activity are necessary to achieve the desired effect.
An old friend had come through with passes to an after-party. There were bands on the bill, but we were more interested in the booze. It must have been free, because I was flat broke after a solid week of partying, and my glass—so to speak—never went empty.
We were stationed off to the side of the stage in an outdoor smoking area. I was involved in a number of conversations, none of which I remember. The spaces in between dialogues was usually filled with whispered asides regarding how wasted we were. At 3 a.m., The Soundtrack of Our Lives took the stage. We went inside to watch. Either the bar had stopped serving drinks, or they’d run out.
Three of us made made our way to the front of the stage. I normally don’t stand that close; I prefer to lurk back just beyond where the people who are really enjoying themselves are standing. Enthusiasm frightens me, when I experience it personally, but I enjoy to see that kind of energy manifest in others, so long as I am at a good, safe distance. However, the sudden urge to get up close and personal with the band couldn’t be denied. All I knew about TSOOL going in was that they were Scandanavian and they played rock music. It was a can’t-miss combination.
The ensuing hour was a blur of color, sound and motion. Lead singer Ebbot Lundburg was dressed in a long purple tunic that fit snugly over his magificent beer belly—head of Hagrid, body of Grimace. He hefted his prodigous bulk around the stage in a clumsy rage. Whenever his gut would hover within my reach, I had to fight the urge to touch it, with both hands. Ian Person’s guitar sound was potent. It shook my arms out of their perpetual cross over my abdomen and sent them above my head. The rhythms shook me wildly, and I was dancing, or as close as I ever come to it.
It was so loud. My earplugs were ill-equipped to handle the volume. Lundberg looked like he was shouting silently into the microphone. I couldn’t hear a single word, but his fist pumps and rock kicks told me what he meant. I left sweaty, still drunk, just after 4, ready to find a cozy corner in our single-bed hotel room that was sleeping eight all week.
I haven’t listened to TSOOL since.
My interview with Steve Aoki for Submerge Magazine.
I was at a party in Vegas that Steve Aoki was going to DJ, but we left before he got on stage. It was a blast, though—my first and only time in Sin City. A mixture of DJ Oxy Cottontail, Jameson and Vegas’s ability to loosen a person’s morals helped me get over my dance-phobia a little. And so did the cute, chubby Asian woman I was grooving with.
This interview turned out OK. I liked the bit in the end when Aoki talks about Yngwie Malmsteem, Steve Vai and Eddie Van Halen. I think it was the only time in our conversation that we were speaking the same language.
Bulls and Balls
The more I wander lower Manhattan, the more I love it. Right now, there seems to be construction on every block. I’m not sure what they’re doing, but I don’t know how they can make it any better.
Tonight, I was further uptown on the Bowery again at a club called Crash Mansion. There was construction there too: They were paving the roads, and the smokers outside were drenched in a cloud of tar steam. The stench was thick, and as I paid the door person admission to the club, it seemed to get thicker. It made our exchange somewhat agitated. She rifled through the cash box for change of my 20—it was a $5 cover—and stood up as she did so. My eyes began to tear, and she became more anxious.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I have to try to close the door…”
“Has this been going on all day?” I asked.
“It’s been goign on all week,” she answered mournfully.
Downstairs, the stink was only peripheral. The club was rather nice; it looked brand new and oddly enough had the warmth of a hearth. There were stones that lined the walls that made me think of fireplaces. Maybe it was the mix of smoky tar and brisk temperatures. The setting, however, was not nearly as beautiful as the people gatherered, namely the women, who looked shiny, new, well appointed and thoroughly sauced on various liquors. I met up with a friend of mine who’s also a publicist for the band I was going to see. He was there with another person, and soon after we were joined by four others. One of the guys was a Brazilian transplant, who, upon learning that Spaten had provided beer for the event, pulled out his iPhone to show us pictures of his recent trip to Oktoberfest in Munich. He said the experience compared favorably to Carnivale in Brazil. One photo showed him happily posed in front of a breathalyze. He blew a 0.25. We all congratulated him.
Other bands played while we all talked off to the side of the staging area, but I don’t remember any of them. I was more into what the DJ was playing between sets. He’d dug out the original version of “Molly’s Lips” by the Vaselines. I’d only ever heard the Nirvana version, which I love, but I found myself singing along to the original before I even realized what it was. Now I know what Kurt was always raving about.
The band went on late. Hypernova (I’m not crazy about the name) is from Iran—where playing Western pop music isn’t such a good idea—but now live in New York, where you can pretty much do whatever you want. The singer was shaky, nervous, and didn’t really project his voice as a result. But the music was good: a dance-friendly, electric rock with big beats and buzzy guitars, and though the crowd wasn’t heavy, it was moving. The beautiful women sauntered away from their Red Bulls and blow to have it out on the dance floor. One such woman took it upon herself to encourage other people to get up off their asses and give them a good shake. She was tall with tight curves and had the look of a prized groupie. She rocked out to the band with the same fervor that her short pink dress clung to her backside. She hopped, wooed, spun, flailed her arms and spirited away whenever her friends fetched her so they could take shots. Later, after the band had finished, Pixie-in-the-Pink-Dress crashed hard. She stretched out her long legs and laid down on the couch with a forearm covering her eyes.
My friend gave me a ride down to the ferry terminal, but since I’d already missed the 1:30 boat (which has been a theme of late), I asked him to drop me off at the Bull. From there, I walked toward the cobblestoned section of Stone St., which is home to one of my favorite bars (basically because I miss the ferry a lot), Ulysses’ Folk House (which is a fancy name for bar, I guess). As I got closer, I noticed the street was surrounded by blinding lights, that I thought marked more construction, but it turned out that they were filming a movie or something. I asked one of the dudes carrying cable if the street was closed, but he said it wasn’t and that I could walk down it if they were between takes. As I got to the corner, I heard the director shout, “Roll sound!” so I sat back and watched the take. Two actors walked toward the camera where I was standing, but the lights at the end of the street were so blinding, I couldn’t make them out.
Luckily for me, the Ulysses also has an entrance on Pearl. I swigged back a pint of Guinness and a shot of Jameson, for just $11.50. A victory for sure, but the best part was, I actually made it back to the terminal in time for the 2:30 boat. When I got dropped off at the Bull, one of the passengers said that he hated Lower Manhattan because everything closed so early. And he’s right. When I wander around the area, it’s like a ghost town. There’s not a soul except construction workers, secruity guards or the odd dogwalker/drunk dude looking for vanilla extract. But I guess even ghosts need a place to drink.
Friday night, I saw Old Crow Medicine Show at Webster Hall. A friend of mine was able to get himself on the list plus one, so I was able to tag along. There was no opener, and they played for over an hour and a half. The acoustics were amazing in that big room, and they just crammed the place full of sound. No fancy amps or effects, Just soaring harmonies, electric energy and fevered musicianship. I’d seen them once before when they opened for Gillian Welch and was very impressed. I was just as pleased this time.
They took an intermission, which allowed ample time for more drinking, and the crowd was juiced. They were loud, excited and singing along. My Jameson on the rocks was served to me in a plastic cup the size of which you’d see next to a water cooler and it was filled to the brim. I spilled out of the show at 10 p.m. in search of booze opportunities elsewhere. My friend and I ended up at McCormack’s, my favorite bar, just 10 or so blocks away. I talked to some confrontational european dude who was drinking what looked like just straight whiskey and ice out of an Guinness imperial pint glass. He bought us a shot of Jagermeister, which I could only finish half of. I cleverly hid the rest. At least I thought I was clever, but not as clever as when I tried flirting with some woman who passed by on the sidewalk. She came up to me. I don’t know what we said to each other, but she smiled and left, which was probably for the best.
I passed out a little at the Ferry terminal on the way back home at around 3:30. I was sitting on the floor with my back up against the window. But I made the boat. At least I must have because I woke up on my living room couch. Did I serenade my dog?
Good times.
Singer/fiddler Ketch Secor introduced the above song by giving a shout out to Staten Island. I jumped out of my seat when he did so.
