On my days off, I'd visit Juan. It was like my day at school. Because I was young and new to bartending. And Juan, who was a good ten years my senior, worked at one of the busiest Mexican cantinas in Dallas. He was, unequivocally, a bad-ass. And I felt like if I put in enough time observing him, that I too would be a bad-ass. So I'd drop in during happy hour and order an appetizer of chicken-spinach quesadillas. And Juan would hook me up with free margaritas because he knew I was good for it. And we'd talk about the business and I'd try to get him to tell me what made the margaritas there so damn good. But he was tight-lipped about that shit, and I respected him for it.

It's going to sound like hyperbole for me to say this, but Juan was a great bartender. He was, perhaps, the greatest bartender, at least for the type of place where he worked. And in the buzzing hurricane of that restaurant on a Friday or Saturday night, he was the calm absence of wind at the center. People standing five deep at that small bar, Chopper rumble all around in the warm Texas air, the service well ticking off orders from the floor, the flicking of bottle caps, the pouring of drinks, the placement of limes, the thwap-thwaping of dollar bills, the clinking of change—little snapshots of action taking place outside the context of time.

It's difficult to explain what exactly made him great. You could point to how he would hold the arch of a tequila pour in the air with the bottle high above it, keeping it all suspended there for a second, frozen in place, and then bringing the whole thing back, like a film wound in reverse, double speed, cutting off the pour with a snip and dropping the bottle back in the well. Then the click of the metal tumbler on glass, a twirl, before pouring it through a salted rim. You could point to that. And that would be part of it. Or you could point to more abstract things, like a correctly-placed smile to the right girl. Because even though he had a bit of a spare tire and wasn't some tall, handsome stereotype of good-looking-ness, he had the charm, and the girls would flirt with him. So yeah, you could point to that, and you'd be partially right.

But I guess if I had to peg it down, I would say the thing that made him a "great" bartender had something to do with the fact that he was always aware of what was going on at his bar, and he always knew what he was going to do next. And here's the key: when he did it, he did it in such a way that it didn't call attention to itself. It would happen, and then only afterwards you would realize, oh ... that just happened. Because he didn't move in a way that was calculated or deliberate. He didn't seem to be thinking about it. And most likely, he wasn't.

Watching instinct and muscle memory in action is a funny thing. They behave differently than premeditation, and carefully considered, conscious movement. And you can see the difference when you watch people who are good at what they do. Something takes over their presence. A sort of voodoo happens. You know it when you see it. And you know when you don't see it. And that's about all you can say about it. Instinct, muscle memory—combined with knowledge, they lead to an ability to improvise. And that's when you know you're watching something unique and remarkable. We tend to speak of this sort of thing when we talk about musicians and artists, but we don't always bring it up when we talk about everyday professions.

But it's there.

Do this: put a bottle of beer on a rubber bar mat and take a flat-style bottle opener and, without holding onto the bottle with your free hand, snap the cap off of it. Do it as quick as you can. Just lift that sucker off with one quick motion. It's doable, but not easy. And you'll look awkward doing it. And you'll probably knock the beer over on your first couple of attempts. Now, try this: with your free hand, try pouring a drink while the other hand opens the bottle. Knocked anything over yet? I think the first time I knew Juan was "great" at what he did, was when he did this. He was in the middle of pouring a drink, and as he held the pour with one hand, he took his opener out of his back pocket with the other, popped the caps on a couple of Corona bottles. Then he stuck the opener back in his pocket as he finished the pour, the caps clapping on the floor at his feet, the bottles just standing there on the mat, frozen in place, like a couple of stone pillars. It had been so effortless, non-calculating. He didn't think, I will pour this drink while I open these bottles. He just did it. And the expression on his face—that was part of it, too. Nonchalant, he didn't expect to be congratulated or anything. Part of what made it cool was that he did it all. But most of what made it cool was how he did it. And the fact that there was some doubt in my mind as to whether or not he even consciously knew he had done it.

I'm going to sound pretentious and haughty saying this, but I'm going to say it anyway, because I really don't think I sound pretentious and haughty nearly enough these days: if you sit at enough bars, you'll notice that the vast majority of bartenders really shouldn't be there. They don't really understand the job, and the truth is they don't really care. And most of them get by just fine that way. Because in general, we don't really care, either. We don't expect a lot from our bartenders. We just need bartenders to pour our drink and do it in the least amount of time possible. Also, the drinks we order, in general, are no-brainers. As a result, old-style bartenders who know "real" cocktails are on the decline. When we do find a bartender who knows a bit more, or who goes above and beyond, we're pleasantly surprised maybe, but we don't give it more thought than that. We don't necessarily want or need our bartenders to be "professionals" anymore.

But the problem isn't just that we expect less. It's also the fact that most establishments seem to care more that their bartenders are sexy than whether or not they're any good at what they do. As a result, you tend to find a lot of bartenders who think being professional means being beautiful and having attitude. They think it's those things that make them a bad-ass. I'm all for having attitude. Sometimes it can be important, as a means to an end. But it's not an end in itself. Also, I'm all for being beautiful, but if I wanted to have those people pouring my beer, with their cleavage and manicured nails everywhere, I'd go to Hooters or a just skip the pretense altogether and visit a titty bar. Frankly, I'd much rather somebody like Juan serve my drinks. The pros, the ones who seem to have nothing to prove, who wipe out your ashtray before you even realize it, who pay attention to your pace and who know even before you do that you'll want another drink or that you're finished, who can carry on a conversation while holding down the bar, who make their presence known by the fact that you never really need to ask them for anything, they're the ones operating on instinct and an understanding of the game. And they're increasingly hard to find.

Okay. Pretentious and haughty diatribe over. Back to your regularly scheduled programming ...

link to this | comments (1) | File:  Game_Theory  Dallas  Chewing  Art 

I love this one because of the "So do I!!!" which I wrote in after the teacher wrote her comment and which I felt needed the emphasis of not just a double, but a triple!!! exclamation mark. I think I interpreted the assignment as writing about killing a turkey and cooking it from scratch. And this must have truly offended my delicate sensibility—so much so that I guess I was a little annoyed by the "I buy mine frozen" remark. So does everybody! So why'd you make us write about killing one, then?

But I might be remembering this wrong. Maybe I just wanted to write about killing a turkey, and maybe I felt kind of ashamed about that, so I added the first sentence about it being something I "had" to do as a sort of verbal camouflage to hide my secret passion for killing turkeys. If you notice, I was kind of vague as to exactly how the turkey was to be killed. (Evidently it wasn't from cutting off it's head, because that was something one did after the killing took place.) In this way, I suppose you could read the "So do I!!!" as more of a desperate plea of normalcy and non-psychosis.

Because seriously, I didn't then, nor do I now, go around finding creative ways to kill turkeys. Honestly.

I'm not kidding!!!

Only mice and small birds.

That's not weird, right?

link to this | comments (6) | File:  GradeSchoolJournal 

Listen to me: I did not play Atari. I ate stew instead. And went to the library. And the doctor. Do those things sound "wonderful" to you? Sometimes, I don't even know why I'm doing this. I'm baring my soul to you and you're totally missing the point, off daydreaming about some other fairy-tale world filled with people using words like "wonderful" and writing in red ink. Wake up!

Also, it's kind of funny that I was waiting for my mom to hook up the Atari. I think shortly after this, she stopped setting up anything electronic, including VCRs and microwave clocks.

link to this | comments (4) | File:  GradeSchoolJournal 

It's not news to some of you that I have a little bit of a guilt complex. Okay, maybe it's not so little. Maybe it's more like a "compound." But I swear, it began as this cute little bungalow, which I built just for me and a few low-maintenance house plants. But I've since added a couple of rooms, a pool (jacuzzi) and a walk-in beer cooler. It's actually quite spacious now. I even have room for several guests, in case you're interested. I wish I could explain why I ever built it in the first place. I mean, I'm not Catholic. Or Jewish. So I can't blame religion, or overbearing mothers. I'm sure I could probably come up with some kind of answer after a few dozen hours of therapy. But who has time for that mess? There's no denying that it exists, though. You only have to look as far as last week's post to see it. Sometimes it ain't so purty, is it?

One of the side-effects of a guilt like mine is I'm terrible around cops. Actually, that's not true. I'm not that bad, really. At least I don't think I am. I can fake an expression of innocence, when needed. But what's funny about that—if funny is the word to describe it—is that (most of the time) I'm guilty of absolutely nothing. Nothing that I'm aware of, at least. But the weird thing about cops is, they always seem to know something about me I don't. And damnit-all if I don't believe them every time.

If I'm confronted by a cop (or even a mall security guard) my first instinct isn't to smile and say "hello." Instead, it's to avert my eyes and say, "Nothing, I know nothing." But I've found that unwarranted declarations of innocence tend to raise more suspicion than they quell. So instead, what I try to do is just breath deep, think innocent thoughts, and speak as little as possible.

This is harder than you think. Because as soon as you try to think innocent thoughts, the first thing that pops into your head is something like late-night bong hits in college. Or cowgirl porn. (Always with the cowgirl porn.) I have some mental tricks to get me past those thoughts and bring me right to the church pew on Sunday morning. That way, on the outside, I'm cool as a cucumber. I'm just itemizing in my mind all the ways I am completely, gloriously...innocent. Meanwhile, on the inside, I'm only one stray pornographic cucumber image away from completely crumbling.

It makes the heart race. It really does. You should try it.

Yesterday morning, Honey and I were the only ones at the dog park. Actually, more than that, we were the only ones in that entire section of the Reservation, of which the dog park is only a small portion. No parked cars. No people. And, for some inexplicable reason, I was already feeling guilty about this. (I don't know...I've mostly stopped asking myself "why" to these things. I just roll with it.)

The reason for the park's emptiness actually had nothing to do with me, and everything to do with the fact that it was raining. And it wasn't just a drizzle, either. It was a full-on, unapologetic downpour.

I guess most people change up their routines for things like "inclement weather." I'm not one of those people, though. I am a slave to my routine. Lucky for my dog, it's a trait she and I have in common. But what I've learned over time is, it's something that might annoy you if you were married to me, especially if you were the type of person with a general disdain for routines and who, outside of your obligations to work, etc, basically went about your day doing whatever happened to strike your fancy, and eating whatever you happened to feel like at the moment you felt like it instead of, say, planning it ahead of time. You might also be the type of person who just put your shoes on, sometimes the left foot first and sometimes the right foot first, all chaotic-like. If you were that type of person, and you were married to me, you might be a little annoyed by my penchant for...routine. But I'm just speaking hypothetically. Because there's really no way I could know something like that.

Now that I think of it, the main reason I was already feeling guilty was that, on the way to the dog park, a cop in an SUV had put on his blue and reds behind me. I slowed down, preparing to confess everything—it was just a few times, maybe a dozen, okay? and I swear, it wasn't my bong, and I never sold any. And look, about the cowgirl porn, I like girls in shit-kickers and straw hats. There's nothing illegal about that, is there?—but he just passed by me on the left. A narrow escape.

I had pretty much resumed my normal breathing rate by the time Honey had done her business at the park. She and I were playing catch in one of the fenced-in areas. Then I saw what seemed to be the same SUV that had passed me earlier driving by in the parking lot, and he slowed down as he passed my truck. Holy crap! He's running my plates!

The SUV drove off. But then another one drove by. And another. All with the blue and reds. The bastards were calling in reinforcements. They had me surrounded, by God!

The key here, was to remain calm. And rational. Like MacGyver. As you can surely tell, I'm good at this. I put Honey on her leash and we left the fenced area and went out to where my truck was parked. I could see two cop cars pulled up alongside each other further on down the road. Probably talking about me. For some reason, it seemed like getting in my truck and leaving right then might arouse more suspicion. So instead, after lurking around my truck for several seconds, and opening the door and pretending to take something out of my center console. I took Honey by the leash and lead her down the road. In the rain. Directly toward the cop cars. Right hand in my pocket. Hood up over my head. Proud of myself, because this was definitely less suspicious.

I had only walked a couple of steps before the cops dispersed and drove off in opposite directions. Then, there was nothing for a few minutes. Eerie silence. Just me, Honey, and the rain. We walked for several minutes like this, man and dog through puddles and drips. Then all at once, several SUVs roared past. Some had "K9 Unit" displayed on the outside. One clearly said "Bomb Disposal Unit." As each car drove by me, I would look directly at the person driving from under the hood of my coat, all nonchalant, you know. Like "What's up, brother?"

I had my canned response ready, too, just in case they stopped to ask me what I was doing here. I'd say: "Look I'm just a normal guy with a dog walking in the rain at the dog park." I realize now that this is probably the most suspicious thing I could possibly have said. I think if I had actually uttered these words, I would probably be scribbling this onto a roll of toilet paper at the Essex County Jail instead of onto my keyboard. But they seemed like good words at the time. They always do.

Luckily, speaking turned out to be unnecessary, and as I walked back down the road toward my truck, I saw that I was no longer alone—two other dog-park regulars had arrived and were walking toward me. Thank God! Witnesses! I couldn't remember their names. I only knew the two women by their two dogs' names: Milo and ... okay, strike that, I only knew them by one of their two dogs' names.

I waved to the owners of Milo and the other dog and they waved back and as we got within speaking distance one of them said, "What's going on up here?!"

"I don't know!" I said. "But it's really freaking me out. I'm getting a little paranoid." I decided not to mention the bong hits. Or the cowgirl porn.

"I'm sure they're obligated to tell us if there is some kind of danger, doncha think?" said one of Milo's owners.

And that's when it hit me: these two weren't concerned about the cops coming after them. They were concerned for their own safety. Because there might actually be some other dangerous person out here who these cops really were after, somebody who might be truly guilty of something other than smoking a few bowls in college and watching the occasional cowgirl porn flick. This must be what normal people feel like. I tried to think what a normal person might say and came up with: "Well...yeah! You'd think so, right?"

We shook our heads and talked some more about what it could be. We even tried to stop one of the cops and ask him, but he just drove on past. These guys weren't interested in talking. Eventually, Milo's owners went off in the direction I had come from and I walked with Honey back to my truck.

I never did find out what was going on so I can't report to ya'll with any certainty on what it was all about. I do know this, however: Nobody followed me out of the park or to my house. I'm quite sure of this because I checked my rear-view mirror repeatedly, and took a route that was out of my way and in the opposite direction from my house so I could double back on myself and check.

Rational, people. Like MacGyver.

link to this | comments (8) | File:  NJ  Ho_Hum  Honey 

"How come when you crack eggs, there's this nice little crack on the side of the shell and you can just separate that sucker all clean-like without getting bits of shell all in the scramble? But when I do it, the side of the egg just crumbles and smashes and falls apart in the pan?"

"Because you're an idiot."

One of C's marketable business skills is boiling complicated things down to their simple essence.

link to this | comments (4) | File:  Cath  Ho_Hum 

Sometimes this spot—the one on my glasses, the right lens—sometimes, it doesn't bother me that much. But sometimes, like right now, it's all I can see. And I have to cock my head back in an abnormal way in order to get it out of my line of sight. It's not a spot that I can just rub out, either. So maybe spot is a bad word for it. Because spot might imply something akin to gunk or a smudge. Like the sort from a greasy finger that's been dipping into the chunks of rotisserie chicken treats in a coat pocket. (Canine motivation.) Or spots, plural, might indicate the things you get from a fine mist or drizzle. And it's not like either of those things, really. It's more like a chink in the lens. Like the lens connected with something hard and sharp and it just put...well, a goddamned chink in it, you know? Or a dent. Maybe that's the word. Either way, it's not a spot. I shouldn't have called it that.

Look, I'm sorry for saying spot.

I hope you know, I don't go around using words like that all willy-nilly. I should have thought about it more carefully.

I was just sitting here thinking about that and looking out over Baltimore Harbor at the smokestacks. Just thinking about what a glorious shithole this town is, and listening to the strung-out woman across the street screaming at the hard-candy mess stuck to her shoe, an unlit cigarette butt glued to her dry, brown lips. Her hair, an elaborate straw roost for all matter of the hinky.

And just screaming, brother. Screaming with an anger and a crazy. Screaming the bloody murder bellow of a sanity shredded and tossed to the fire.

This is Charm City, and there are demons here. Believe. In the neighborhood corner bars. The cobblestone streets of Fells Point. The pink flamingos of Hampden. And I've come two-hundred miles just to commune. Because despite the gangrenous streets filled with the feet filth frenzy, something about this place seems right and holy. And if you put your ear to the ground you can hear it. You can smell it. Among the brick scum and the shit. An inspiration. These are the right demons, brother. These are the demons Poe knew.

"When there's a spot on your conscience, everything else is clouded by it," I say. "And it doesn't go away, no matter how much you scream at it."

"It's not a spot," says Moses. "It's a chink. It's not supposed to go away. Dig?"

link to this | comments (4) | File:  TheLine  Chewing