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Liquored Letters
March 31st, 2008Bartenders will surprise you.
That I make this observation indicates that I have, upon occasion, stumbled into a bar. Hell, I’ve stumbled into two today, which is an easy feat to accomplish while loathing Las Vegas.
(I find myself in Vegas this week on business, again confronted by the fact that the Big Sleazy lacks a thinking man’s entertainment. Anyone who has not figured this place out within 30 seconds of deplaning needs to drink more coffee).
Bored and bemused, I found myself bellying up to a bar in the New York, NY hotel, casino and Disneyesque asylum. I swear I saw a family of pale Bronx refugees who seemed authentically pleased with the fake version of their home town. Perhaps it is because this version lacks grime, crime, and a population of loud jabronis.
While waiting for the bartender to stroll by, I cracked open a collection of Fitzgerald short stories. He soon appeared, took my order, and said “Fitzgerald certainly captured the airs of his time, but I never found him as satisfying as Salinger.”
I wasn’t entirely surprised. I have found more intelligent men poring whiskey than I have in the pulpit, running for office, or commanding enterprises. Perhaps spending your days and nights in the company of drunks gives one perspective and a hunger for anything resembling uninbreated gray matter.
Brian, the barkeep de jure, and I exchanged our insights into authors for the better part of an hour, in between his bill paying duties and our mutual bemusement at life as absurdity that is Las Vegas. He had a fondness for Russian writers, sensing that their depressed and dower connection to life caused their characters to be more believable. I demurred, insisting that reading Tolstoy and Dostoevsky are a hastened path to suicide.
Not more than six month prior I had stumbled into the Fireside lounge (which, incidentally has no fireplace therein). I had with me a weighty tome titled “Constitutional Law and Politics, Volume One” (the fact there two volumes of this work exist is indication enough that the American legal system has devolved into an unworkable quagmire of legalistic instability).
The bartender, after poring me a fresh two fingers of whiskey said “I found it interesting that the Jehovah’s Witnesses have filed the largest number of Supreme Court appeals, that they needed to, and that they have an admirable win/loss record.”
I was stunned. Not only that a booze slinger knew such and arcane piece of legal trivia, but that I didn’t. The only respect I had for the Jehovah’s until then was for their persistence. Perhaps we should encourage all of them to confine their uninvited visitations to the homes of Supreme Court justices.
Barkeeps are as varied as the rest of us. It seems that the trick may be to carry a book with you and ignite their conversation on any topic aside from sports trivia and drunken debate.
I’m quite disappointed that I don’t enjoy the effects of alcohol, because it has the advantage of being legal, but if I did like it, I’d probably be an alcoholic by now.
As for The Catcher in the Rye, I found there something very moving about the notion of this innocent little guy, catching the children if they stray too close to the cliff.
‘reading Tolstoy and Dostoevsky are a hastened path to suicide’
I tend to agree. Personally I think this type of novel appeals to people who are inclined torward manic depression, I suppose they can be regarded as great art, but I now tend to see them as being horribly self-indulgent.
Interestingly Mark Chapman had been carrying a copy of ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ when he assasinated John Lennon.
I hope I’ve purged myself of that kind of indulgent crap.