12 February 2007

Anna Miller and Tom Waits 

Still feeling the effects of last night in a bad way, I needed some big time help.  More often than not, a burrito has sufficient hangover killing powers, but today was an entirely different animal.  Not sure of what to do, I put on 'Nighthawks at the Diner'.  For some reason, listening to Tom Waits makes me either want to drink or eat breakfast, sometimes simultaneously.  Deciding that drinking would not be the best option, I opted for the breakfast for dinner.  Now, there is only one place on the island that really satisfies this requirement: Anna Miller's 24 Hour Restaurant.   

Basically, this is the Hawaiian Breakfast King.  I took my place at the bar and was immediately greeted by a cup of coffee that would make Agent Cooper shit himself.  The food was cheap, greasy, and plentiful.  Plus, I get 20% off my bill for the month of February and the bar is right in front of the waitress station, so I get to check out all the pretty girls in their cute uniforms.  Anyhow, as I'm waiting for the food, I glance over to my right.  There sits Alvin, an old Asian fellow drinking the shit out of his coffee and writing.  Upon further inspection, he is really just scribbling and making what appears to be flow charts on at least 10 sheets of loose leaf paper scattered about the bar.  He keeps shooting me paranoid glances like I'm going to steal his papers.  Eventually, he starts mumbling about how he has to mark his real estate with an 'X', always with an 'X', in the general direction of the waitress station and then to nobody.  I think this is when he just started mumbling about the letter 'X' in general until he left. 

To my left is a middle aged woman who brought her portable TV complete with rabbit ears.  She didn't really do anything worthwhile except sit there and my food showed up.  If you've never tried Portuguese sausage, I would recommend that you seek some out immediately. 

BLOW 

Last night began innocently enough with me at the bar eating dinner.  I do this thing now where I sprinkle salt on the napkin that the beer goes on so it doesn't stick to the bottom of the glass.  Usually, I get some salt on the bar and toss it over my left shoulder to ward off evil or what not.  I took this a step further and shot a few grains over my right shoulder to see if I could get that good angel to tear up.  I'll keep you informed of any consequences of this action. 

I got invited to a house party (finally).  The guy lives with a couple of civilians and one of them came to the barracks to fetch bodies for the party.  He turned out to be really cool and in to things like drugs.   If someone ever says to you they have taken DMT, listen to them. This is the chemical that your body produces on birth and death.  So, he smoked it for a week and saw all kinds of cool shit.  From the description, it seems on par with the adrenal fluid that was ingested in “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas”.  Yeah.   

So we get to the party finally and I take many shots of vodka while professing my Polish heritage and berating the inferior Finnish product.  It turns out to be a typical party where someone got caned across the back Singapore style and a rabbit almost bit my finger off.  The civilian guy has to work early in the morning, so he did a few lines of coke to stay awake.  Well, it turns out that he was doing it off the cover of the book on Taoism.  He poured a line and got up to get something.  I, being drunk and not knowing any better, picked up the book and started thumbing through the pages.  He comes back and starts up with the “Where the fuck did my line go?”, etc.  He figures out pretty quick that I am the culprit since I still have the book in hand.  Thinking fast, I notice a white spot on his pants.  “It's on your pants, man” I cry out to save what I can of the situation.  He sniffs his pants, all the while giving me the stink-eye;  “Crotch sniffer”, I mumble, the stink-eye continues.  At the end of the night he lent me a bunch of Cd's and it turns out he has pretty good taste in music.  I'm sure there will be many more blow influenced evenings to write about.

Shit 

My bathroom lights burned out.  After three days of showering and shitting in the dark, I realized that I could just switch out the bulbs from another fixture.  The other night, I got really drunk and listened to 'Mother of Pearl' by Roxy Music like 20 times in a row.  My roommate tells me that I was whisper-shouting to the lyrics the whole time.  Rock.

Inaugural Post – Earth Date 05 February 2007 

Don

I went to my favorite bar on Sunday to watch the Super Bowl and possibly collect some winnings from the friendly pool I entered a day previous.  I arrived early to take advantage of the brunch specials and secure a seat at the bar.  The only seat left was next to Don.  Don is a regular who I have met on several occasions and is a nice guy.  Grandfather, war veteran, drunk, what more could you ask for.  He's also got “final stage” emphysema and should be dead by now, but as long as he can “get fired up down below” by a pretty girl, than he's not going anywhere.   

So we start talking about the kids and the grandkids and the house, etc.  Naturally, the conversation turned to the game.  We went on about that until he told me that his psychic friend predicted the outcome of the game.  Interesting, I say, what else can you tell me about this psychic.  "Well", he says, "she communicates through his deceased wife about various friends he has around town".  Mind you, it's almost 1100 and he has been there since 0900.   

We continue to talk and drink until I notice the three-ring binder on the bar.  I had thought it maybe belonged to the bar as it was near the menus and fruit station.  On the spine it says "The Afterlife" and the title, oh I can't recall the whole thing, but it basically comes down to that this is his novel-in-progress to scientifically prove the existence of the afterlife/parallel universe/alternate realities.  "Hey Don", I say, "what's with that three-ring binder?"  He goes on to tell me all about quantum physics, as he understands it, and how many human minds wishing for the same thing can influence the outcome of an event and how religion fits into the picture and even goes so far as to tear up a napkin to demonstrate his point.   

Somewhere around the middle of the third quarter, Don gets up to take a phone call.  I got up a few minutes later to go take a leak.  Who should I find in the head but Don, leaning on the trash can talking on the phone.  A second later, another regular walk in and the conversation goes something like this: 

"Don! You old motherfucker! Get away from that trash can!" 

(Don leaves and the guy starts talking to me) "Gah, that old motherfucker, I should bust his balls and stuff him in that trash can" 

Some days are just too perfect.