TIMOROUS

Good morning. I’m finally ready to start my day after listening to records in the nude for three hours and sifting through this blog. Good mp3s, and whoever maintains the site sure loves Leonard Cohen… Well, that makes two of us! I swear, someday Leonard Cohen is gonna make it big. I’m talking Wang Chung, big!

Last night at Hop Devil was alright. The drink selection didn’t wow me as much as The Ginger Man, but it was a chill place to hang out for a few hours. I picked up Ilya on the way, who was already very high. I joked about his state for the duration of the drive as he coughed and chewed through sticks of gum to alleviate his severe cotton mouth. We stopped at Kim’s for a few minutes. I didn’t buy anything. That has to be some kind of record. Least money ever spent in a record store?

We got to Hop Devil and met Ian, his old lady and Ben. First round for me was a Rogue Mogul Ale which was very hop-py. Second round was a pint of Dogfish Head Indian Brown Ale. Ian left early, and the rest of us continued drinking for a short while. Weyerbacher Old Heathen tasted good and pushed me over the edge into drunkenness. At one point Ilya mentioned he had no money, so we started to walk a few blocks towards an ATM machine. After we passed a few, I asked why he hadn’t stopped, and he said something about a $4 service charge if he didn’t use one from his bank. He then said, “which is weird… Because I could’ve sworn I took $100 out of the bank today.” He then proceeded to stick his hands in his pockets and pull out said cash. Apparently he had kept checking for his money in the same pocket, and neglected to remember that jackets come with more than one pocket.

Ilya left shortly thereafter, and me Eddie and Ben decided to change bars. After realizing some people didn’t put in nearly enough to cover the tab, we forked over enough to leave a modest tip and then spent a week deciding where to continue drinking. Eddie wanted to go down to Welcome to the Johnson’s, but since I was parked way north of where we already were I didn’t feel like such a long, drunken hike back to my car. We hatched a plan to march down Ave. A and just duck in somewhere for a final round.

I don’t remember the name of the dive we found, but it was cramped with college kids. I settled on a Rolling Rock since they didn’t have any draught beers, and we scouted the booths for a place to sit. There was a tiny table that looked like it was about to be deserted, so we slipped through the crowd and asked the occupants if they were leaving. They said they were just going out for a smoke but we could sit for five minutes if we wanted. Eddie made some comment about a patch on the girl’s sleeve and, naturally, it elicited some longwinded story about her dead brother. Nice goin’, Eddie!

When they came back they told us to stay with them and drink with them, so we obliged. I don’t remember the girl’s name but her male companion was named Jesse. Jesse was a short guy with long hair and eyes like Charles Manson. He set a bunch of napkins on fire and talked a lot about fighting and killing. He talked a bit about his desire to throw Molotov cocktails in the air to see where they would land. Jesse is the coolest kid I’ve ever met (I hope he never ever reads this or finds me). He rock-paper-scissored me for a round of drinks and I got my ass kicked. He rock-paper-scissored Eddie twenty times or more and Eddie–it turns out–is a much more suitable opponent for Jesse. I’m nowhere near their skill level.

Eventually we moved tables and were joined by Marcus and another Ben, and we talked for a few minutes about music. The girl had written something for Rolling Stone magazine because she works for Keith Richards’ publicist or something. I don’t remember the full story. Eddie tried to impress everyone by showing off his promotional razor blade that his magazine (Prophecy) was giving away, and he cut his finger open on it. Hilarity ensued. At one point we all migrated outside for a smoke and Jesse spilled beer all over Ben’s bag of comic books. Our Ben, not his Ben. Eddie and I stood outside and taunted poor Ben as he desperately wiped the brew from his comics. After our little break we decided to head our separate ways. We were forced into playing another few rounds of rock-paper-scissors and even Ben, who was obviously very scared of Jesse, relented and played a round. He lost. I won my game though! Then Jesse gave us his phone number and watched us carefully to make sure we actually stored it in our phones. Then he went off on a five minute tangent about hating Muslims as we as hating “stupid people,” and that was that!

I drove home and almost puked at 6am. It was really sweet. Next year in Jerusalem!