You're in the Bar You'll Go Far

Something dark and tasty of the beer variety
All things and plenty but don’t be hasty
Go slow
Let it ride
Drink it down
Sling back the goof juice ‘tis the season

The fryer went down
The fryer went down

Relax you got your Pabst
And the persistent beats drowning out the patron’s squabble
It’s a long story in a martini shaker
It’s a dry morning buzz and a kiss on the cheek
It’s the syncopated sweat beads
Tap Tapping on the small of her back
Bare bodies bouncing and bending
And you are spent but you don’t know where the floor went
There is no ceiling just endless black night sky

Tonight you’ll smile and stare and run your hands through your hair
She’ll be there and she’ll wonder where you came from and where you’re going
But she’ll know soon that you’re nowhere and nothing
For tonight you can feast one another and lie
Un-focus your eyes and look at your words
As they bleed and you regurgitate them in a meaningless scribble
Mr. Manager sits and lords over it all
We’re all bricked in to our tomb
The Pharaohs of old still begging to be remembered
You’re in the bar you’ll go far

Some of my Favourite Quotes

                                                                 Potent Quotables!!

“You can’t spell fatigue without Fat…”
                                                           …Agatha Flatbottom from The Dirt Diet

“It is always better to give than receive…especially when fists are involved.”
                                                                        …Kato Aktagawa, Ancient Japanese Proverb
“I put the Man in Mantra.”
                               …Painder Faize, from Meditating on Maditations

“Some days you’re the teenager, other days you’re the unwanted fetus.”
                                                                              …Arnold “The Beef” Fishburne, from Selected Letters

“I’m not above scheming if you need somebody to scheme.”
                                  …Some Girl At Crossroads, from a conversation about some girl who totally sucks

ARNOLD W. FISHBURNE

Arnold W. Fishburne awoke one morning and realized he would never be truly happy.  He laid in bed and stared up at his cracked ceiling and listened to the rain beat down on his roof.  Nothing made him happy, but nothing made him unhappy either.  Arnold W. Fishburne had never had a feeling.  He had never felt sad, mopey, or depressed.  He had never felt happy, confident, or joyful.  In fact the realization he just had didn’t really evoke any sort of feeling.  He wondered for a moment what the point of realizing things was if it wasn’t going to affect you in some way.  Then he realized that this was stupid to even think about since he didn’t really care.  Arnold W. Fishburne was a very boring character, he usually woke every day around the same time and began staring up at his ceiling without feeling anything.  He would get out of bed and not feel the jarring cold of the hardwood floor next to his bed.  He would stumble to the shower and not feel the scalding hot water burn the dead skin and the futility of a life without feeling away.  He wouldn’t feel cramped and claustrophobic as he tightened his tie.

Arnold W. Fishburne was a manager at a shipping company who had no feelings.  When he talked of safety, service, and production, he never got the same elation that the other managers did.  When his employees didn’t work hard he wasn’t mad.  When his superiors reprimanded him for not meeting expectations he felt no shame nor want to do better.  He didn’t feel the slow surging ache in his feet from the steel toed  boots he was required to wear while in the operations.  The sharp pain in his lower back that came every time he helped lift a heavy package, did not manage to jar him.  In fact, sometimes Arnold had trouble feeling the ground beneath his feet and thus was prone to falling down.  His clumsiness made him the subject of a lot of jokes, but even this didn’t hurt his feelings, because you can not hurt that which isn’t there.

One night, after a long day Arnold laid down on his bed, not because he felt tired, but because at night you lay down on your bed.  He laid awake staring at the ceiling and didn’t feel the extreme monotony of the day seeping out of him into his sheets.  Arnold could barely even feel the mattress beneath him.  Which was a good thing because it was quite lumpy.  Eventually sleep came as it does for us all.  And then the dream because all men dream.

Arnold was walking barefoot in tall extremely bright green grass.  He could feel twigs crunch as he walked along.  He could feel the warm wet breeze blowing his way from a nearby lake.  He could feel the sun hot on his neck and he could feel little droplets of sweat beading up on the ends of his hair.  HE COULD FEEL!!  He ran just to feel the air in his lungs and his heart pumping harder.  Arnold saw a tree and he hugged it.  The bark scraped his arms and he felt the immovable giant, a century old.  He kicked the tree with all his might and let out a Neanderthalic yulp.  Tears of joy streamed out of his eyes.  Arnold sat down at the base of the tree and smiled the widest smile that had ever been stretched across any face.

While Arnold sat there he noticed a little doe bending down near the lake to drink.  He ran to touch it.  It scampered away.  Arnold chased it but no matter how hard he tried he couldn’t catch the doe.  Somehow he knew it held his salvation, he must touch it.  It looked at him with knowing eyes and stopped to lap up some rain water collected on a rock.  Arnold could barely breathe as he crept toward the strange woodland creature.  His hands outstretched he hears no sound but the deer’s gentle slurp.  He reached the deer his hand outstretched.  He touched her and felt how soft she was.  The deer leaned forward and stood on her front legs.  For a moment her hind legs were in the air.  And then she kicked back with both of them straight into Arnold W. Fishburne’s crotch.

The deer scampered away again.  Arnold felt a deep pain surging from his crotch, ground zero, the epicenter sending hot shockwaves of pain throughout his body.  Through sobs he screamed “I NO LONGER WANT TO FEEL!!!!!”.  Arnold W. Fishburne emptied his stomach as it contorted with a pain he had never felt.  His genitals throbbed and his heart felt as if it would burst.  Just when he thought he couldn’t take anymore.  He woke.  He felt nothing.  The dream was over the numbness returned.  

HAPPY HOUR

HAPPY HOUR WEEKDAYS 3-6  
     Three happy hours in one bar.  Is the alcohol making me happy, or is it the prices?

RAIL HIGH BALLS  
     That sounds dangerously sexual.  But for $2 who wouldn't partake in this discounted sexy danger?

SOME EXCLUSIONS APPLY    
     I'd rather they didn't and save the Human Resources department a lot of trouble.

MONDAY - FRIDAY    
     Escape!

A touch and Breeze

A touch and a breeze
While the Indian summer makes lover’s sweat of us all
The night chills the dewdrop skin while naked shapes caress  in the moon shadow
To be young and gone and turned on and beautiful is living in twilight
Everything is immediate
Fleeting and inconstant
The fire engine red leaves fall and turn brown
Swept up and mulched
The lovers part making way for the cold
Blizzards rage and the lips pressed together are chapped
Dried up and bleeding
Then while the world is quiet and empty and white
There seems to be nothing else and they reach once again
And their lust melts the snow
Hearths and  hearts fogging up windows with their hot wet panting breath
But the wind becomes warm
Marigolds and daffodils bloom
He can’t remember which she liked and they drift apart on the warm breeze
Spring has sprung and the lovers know that another season is just round the bend
A touch and a breeze and it’s gone

Everyone Who Goes to Johnston Willis Hospital Dies

    I remember my mother’s face peering down at me.  My hair is matted down on my left side, and my nose is full of something that stings.  My throat is dry and my mouth feels crusty.  I am wet.  A hand is sliding down the left side of my face.  A furry moistened hand. 
“Joseph, Joseph, Joseph…” There are sobs.

    My eyelid is peeled back and a fire burns it.  Uniformed men are thumping around the tulip wallpaper.  Hands in my armpits tickle as I am lifted.  There is a sharp prick in my hand as a belt is tightening around my chest.

    “Hey honey?”  My moms voice… Where am I? Hospital.  A man in a white coat says that I had a… Grand Maul.  They are all staring at me but not talking to me.  Their eyes look sad.  I have a soar throat.  The other’s leave.  My mom and I look at each other.  There is a thin curtain next to the bed I am in.  My mom squeezes my hand.  “You had another seizure and you wouldn’t wake up.”  My face is hot and I feel different and alien and fragile.  My mom always  said that everyone who goes to Johnston willis hospital dies.  I look around.  My mom tells me I’ll be fine.  “Try to get some sleep.”

    My eyes open to a loud bang.  The doors at the end of the hall have burst open.  A black haired man in a white suit is strapped to a table with people all dressed in green rushing him in.  They push  the table up to a wall and pull a curtain around him.  I can just see silhouettes.  His head had a gash in it and the shoulders of his suit had turned pink.  I close my eyes again as things start to calm down.

    My eyes open my mom is standing up looking worried.  There are loud yells.  One of the nurses comes out from behind a curtain nearby with her hand over her face and blood gushing from her nose.   Doctors come running and grab her and rush her to a bed.  The pink and white suited man creeps out from behind the curtain blood drips from his mouth and he staggers as if drunk.  His pants around his ankles he turns to face me and my mother.  He stares at us and there is nothing behind those eyes. 
   
    My mom moves between him and me and puts her back to me.  I have to lean over to peer around my mom.  The man is stumbling towards us and grunting and hissing like an animal.  A nurse and two uniformed man walk up calmly and grab his arms.  He begins to struggle and he bites one of the uniformed men on the cheek tearing some flesh away.  “Fuck this fucker bit me.”  There are more screams from down the hall and the sound of people running.  A third uniformed man walks up and puts a shotgun to the head of the man in the white suit.  There is a loud bang and I blink my eyes and when they open again the mans head is gone, just smoke from the gun barrel and a pink mist flying through the air. 
   
    We’re running down the hall of the hospital, the emergency lights are blinking on and off.  And there are constant thuds on every door we pass from former patients, now something different.  Its me, my mom, two cops, and a nurse.  We left the guy with the cheek bite behind one of the cops said there was nothing we could do for him.  Something comes into view and the cop drops it before we can even make out if it is human or not.  My mom is crying, my feet are bear and I am in a hospital gown so I start to shiver from the cold. 
   
    One cop is dead or gone the other is bleeding from his arm.  We were swarmed by a bunch of them and began running back the way we came.  My mom falls and I stop to grab her but before I can they get her.  I have hold of her arm as they start to tear her apart there is blood everywhere but I still have her arm, then I realize that’s all I have and I drop it and run.  The nurse and I are all that’s left.

    We are hiding in one of the private rooms we have the hospital bed blocking the door.  She isn’t crying she keeps telling me it is going to be alright.  She asks “ why were you in here anyway”.  I told her I had a seizure and I wouldn’t wake up and she looks at me with sad eyes. 

The Tan Girl In the Bar

“Great minds think alike!” the man with the purple nose said through yellow teeth.  The tan girl raised her glass and gave a smile and a nod.  She sipped her drink gingerly and set it down on a soiled cocktail napkin.  Her hands shook as ripples of delight surged through her body.  Leonard the barkeep made the drinks stiff because that was the way his customers liked them.  The purple man began to mumble to no one in particular.  There were a few patrons at one end of the bar that looked out of place in their sport’s jackets and starched shirts.  The tan girl noticed them and adjusted her skirt and crossed her legs.  She was there to work after all.  One of the sport’s jackets met her eyes and winked.  The tan of her face wrinkled at the corner of her eyes and mouth as she gave them a smile.  The winker walked over to her and asked to buy her a drink.  The tan girl looked down at her full glass and said she was fine.  They began to talk business and she twirled her brown curls through her fingers.  The sports jacket laughed at her caustic humor, and he was hooked.  Now the moment was coming the stars were aligned.  The spider had a fly in her web and was ready to devour him.  The sports jacket began to sweat at his temples and his collar seemed too tight.  Her gaze was like a spot light shining down on him.  For a moment the whole world was silent waiting for this lioness to pounce.  And then she spoke saying: “Well Tom are you sure you prepared for everything.  I mean if something, God forbid, should happen to you, would your family be taken care of?  No one could ever have too much life insurance, ya know.  And I think I have just the policy for you.  It’s our platinum membership…”  She droned on knowing that she had her prey right where she wanted him.  The sport’s jacket stood there squirming in a vain attempt to get away from this tan goddess, nay devil.  The man with the purple nose burped and slid off his stool and stumbled towards the door shaking his head.  He shivered as he walked out into the cold night air, but as scared as he was of what he had just witnessed he took solace in the fact that he was a simple sort and would ne’er fall victim to shedevils like the tan girl in the bar.