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3:32 a.m. - 2004-11-11 How many weird conversations I get into in bars? Everyone who knows me knows I have a story for just about everything, from houses exploding to small woodland creatures attacking me within major metropolitan area limits. But many of the good stories take place in establishments that people flock to, to socialize, to relax, to retreat from the stresses of life, to play pool, darts or Don Henley on jukeboxes, etc. I've got stories ranging from dating former professional football players who commit suicide (whom I met in a bar) to meeting Tony Hawk while sipping a beer in a nearly deserted pub in an ocean town in Maryland during the off-season. Tonight, the lovely Kelly Cooke and I made our way to not one or two, but three bars. Not like we were doing the Court Street shuffle (for you non-Athenians, the shuffle is when you and your twenty seven best girlfriends don Hanes t-shirts and embark upon attempting to consume a drink at every single bar along Court St. which is probably like 15 or so...and you have the bartender sign your t-shirt, write on the walls of bathrooms the "name" of your shuffle...such as "The Men Stink Shuffle", "The Ladies Only Shuffle" or the "Jenny's effing engaged Shuffle" and get really drunk and only make it about 2/3 of the way down Court St. before half of you are screaming and stumbling around and the other half are puking in the alley.) Let the record stand that I have never done this, nor has anyone I associate with... The reason Kels and I reported for duty at three different pubs this evening is that the first was too loud and had too many people we know in it. The second closed early. The third was fine and relatively quiet at first, but soon became teeming with the usual half drunk collegiate crowd...some girls wearing what passes for lingerie, frat boys doing shots of Jeigermeister, a couple of non-American exchange students who look sort of bemused and bewildered at all of the drunken merriment, and then of course "Mr. Conversation Interrupter." I attract these guys like flies on a corpse. He kinda leans over and says much too loudly "YOU girls have not MOVED for HOURS!" And we're like "Yeah. We're chatting." When it becomes clear he's not moving on, I (we) do what I always do in these situations, which is sort of begin to conduct a sort of sociological experiment. I like to listen to these people. They're drunk and sometimes annoying...but they're surprisingly honest and vulnerable. It helps me keep in touch with what the general population is thinking about, afraid of, concerned with, depressed about, appalled by, etc. Well, of course he spouted all sorts of "Fuck Bush, Fuck the Republicans" rhetoric, and then moved on to telling us about his bi polar tendencies and his major which was some environmental science thing...then he moved on to asking us three times if we were students, and telling Kelly that people who have psychology majors (which her undergrad degree is in) are all "in it for the money." Throughout the "conversation" he made us chuckle a few times (with him, and also at him a little) but the crowning moment was when he broke out of some rant about "people" in general...to sort of focus his vision on me and say "So what do you do around here, teach retards or something?" You know, you occasionally meet some people and you can kind of immediately wager a good guess regarding what they do...programmers, social workers, actors, activists, engineers, models...apparently, I give off that "teaches retards" vibe. Sweet. I guess that's a step or two up from reality, which at present moment is "Unemployed." |