I hate the sunrise. I hate how that hot disco ball heating up; brings the party crashing down. That sudden loss of youthful inhibition; that the dawning of the day brings to the August rush of late, late night revelery. I hate those first puckered lips of light that pout so voluptuously that rays follow across the sky like so many lost love notes. I hate how the light bends and cracks the heavens like a sad aging whore, caked on makeup rolling off of it into purple clouds in the mornings sickle handed embrace, killing all darkness. Leaving nothing but light and memories. I hate the sunrise.
Burning money like the slobs in Les miserables priceless works of arts Grant, Jackson even Lincolns rolled up and put away hidden under tables next to Safeway cards burning a hole in the noses of Folsom street playing pool in the leather bars searching for that far out anodyne house parties until dawn numbies and mustache rides starlight sunsets on a silver platter sighing, one by one the friends come by ripping interpol the lines they go by not watching, numb, above the world sitting, thinking staring, licking light bulb fantasies of a good idea cosmic far out gangsta jive 11th street vision quest inner city diatribe blowing in is easier then blowing up freedom is a Franklin and an alibi
i can see them there finding true religion in diesel - gossamer threads hanging from nose to lip waiting hungrily for the next fly to devour. One more night and it feels the same. Girls with smocks and long tube socks. Bongo drummers rotating the beats of an old DJ . Wondering what Axel Rose would say. Wishing, washing and waiting - another secret club introducing my Chinese to my Russian friends. Discussing Israel at 5 am with strangers at a place where you must know Luciano. Snap shots from a memory that's way to gone. Some what hazy recollections of a limo a cab an Italian car chase and Chinese being spoken better then I care to elaborate. The mustachioed man favors his left leg as he strolls the Avenue, humming Rolling Stones under his breath. Causing a commotion, starting something and finishing on the couch under the covers. Missing my dear sweet baby, paying homage to the King - all the while champagne in my hand, one man back against the wall, fighting tooth and nail against sobriety. It's all so elaborate. Know the doorman, don't know the bartender. Know the bartender but can't get in the club - shuffling to back doors and roof top fricassee. Combustible cosmic crazy kind of jive. Kaleidoscope of kooky late night machines. Bent, ripped, torn and definitely cut. Alive for alliteraion. Punished like Phaethon loosing control way before we had the chance. Soaking the best of our intentions in distilled fermented hazy attempts at outliving the moon for just one more night. Awash in anarchy - hiding in hazard, calm in the calamity our torches held high in arms way to tired to remember why. Longing for the last, trying harder with the new and vaporizing into Terry Richardson photos. Painfully aware that it doesn't exist if I don't have a crowd. Wishing I was Slash rising from the water playing guitar solo, cigarette dangling haphazardly from my lips. Strippers waiting in the green room. Tempestuous, tantalizing and titillating. Rock and Roll soundtrack to a silent movie type life. Trading in my mountains for a bay. Rehashing and rephrasing, can't believe that their buying it. Obnoxious, ignorant and blatantly stupid, sycophant of dark things and re-read complex issues.
Climate controlled chaos on a Saturday night. Waking up wondering where I am and hoping she still loves me.
It's cold, a blue black, inky one and the Ranchero music coming out of the Taqueria spills down the mission and stains the empty store fronts like oil seeping from a slowly sinking tanker. The clubs are still packed and people are wasting away in the last of their goose and sodas fearing lights up and last call. Schemers scheme as unmarked berries roll through the side streets, spotlights transfixed on alleys and crevices looking for the people hiding in the belly of the pre-after hours beast. He waves a hand through his black hair, checks the blackberry and scans it for a new message, checks the volume, locks it and puts it back into his pocket. Taps his finger in a quick staccato drum beat and snaps out a cigarette from his jacket pocket. Pulls the phone out, checks it and takes a long pull from the smoke. Exhales and leaves the cell on the table. Briefly scans the room and then drops his eyes back onto the table, notices the nicked wood grain. The smooth spots of wood are marred by spilled wax and old stains that give it character, up toward the center, watching for the cell phone. It hasn't moved. Puts it back in the pocket of his Cheap Monday jeans and stands up. Drags on the cig and exhales, rolls his neck and shakes his arms out. Pulls the wad out of his wallet, counts the buck fifty out slowly and then puts it back. Hurls the smoke at the floor and lightly steps it out with his Chucks and walks back into the club. Across town in the back of a cab headed toward 18th and Mission she's got her sidekick open and is steadily clicking out an midnight S.O.S. in a meter only matched by the taxi. The night is chill but the window is down, shooting out flares but not getting responses she licks her lips and curls her hair in her finger then snaps her gum in a loud pop. The cabby is glancing back in the review mirror, occasional pupils meeting pupils and eager younger eyes look away. Waterloo Sunset comes over the oldies station and she asks for it to be turned all the way up - leans her head back and starts mouthing out the song, hand death gripped to her sidekick, racing against the moon and waiting for a sign. He breathes heavy into his cup and feels the weight of the night pressing down upon his shoulders. He orders another vodka and red bull, finishes the one in front of him with a quick gulp, the only sound he makes is from the ice clicking the empty glass. In the background the DJ is spinning Headlights are like Diamonds and he bobs his head and taps his feet off beat but moving to the energy of the song. One hand on his phone waiting for the ring he hopes will come soon. The bar is full of hipsters and posers and some betties in tight tapered jeans. In the back corners are people huddled around tables, sharing secret smiles and sudden laughs. He scans the crowd, looking for the unmistakable, his young eyes working the room like an old detective. Watching, searching for the one in the crowd or the group who goes to the bathroom too much, who is way too animated, still on fire. Just as the song crescendos into a series of oohs and ahhs he finds them. Dancing in a circle round a plastic bag, backs to the bar passing a key as blatantly as a joint. He closes his eyes, turns his head back to his drink. Opens them and focuses on the bottles. St. Germain, Jameson, El Reformador, Hanger 1 and rests them on Fernet. The devil he mouths out. The bartender, steps up and seizes his interest. Want to set two up?, he asks from behind a smile, no training wheels. The bartender turns his back and he shoots both slamming the shot glasses upside down onto the bar. Throws a Jackson onto his cocktail napkin and stands up. The power surge is emboldening. Pulls out his phone and sends an APB text to his contacts. Shakes his head and walks outside. The phone vibrates and and he pops it on, the connect is in San Ho, out for the night, not back till Sunday. 800,000 people in the city he thinks and he can't even find a dedicated dealer. Walks out of the bar and braces himself for the cold kiss of the street, strolls through the night lanes, just starting to come alive, Awash in boozy doldrums and half hearted hookups. Cold kids too cool for jackets huddle around smokes like cavemen to fire. Beards, beanies and striped sweaters are wrapped in tight jeans. Its San Francisco in January and its not that cold, mentally notes to himself as he stumbles solidly through the seedier sides of the street, stopping only to ogle - responding only to sirens and marching to the cadence of passing ambulances. She gets out of the taxi and hands the driver a ten on a seven spot. Closes the door and unbuttons the top three on her all white blouse. White jeans, white belt, white heels stand on the concrete glaring like a full moon. She heads down the street, follows the concrete trail through and alley into the back corner of a dead end. Looks at the bricks like a jigsaw, scrunches her face and wipes her nose, smiles, stands with her back against the wall and waits. He stops at the abandoned cafeteria and knocks on the dilapidated door three times, then pauses then knocks twice again then once. A mustachioed man peeks his head out and gives him the once over. Senor,the man whispers from his fat lips, can I help you? Through Christs love we can only help each other, the boy whispers back and as he slips a dime to the bouncer. Si, senor is softly spoken as the door is swiftly opened and Mexican dance music wafts out. Safely inside and he finds the speakeasy alive and jumping. Girls with plastic cups and big guys in cowboy hats dance together, palms face down to the DJ, gossamer threads hanging from their noses like spiderwebs collecting dew on a brilliant June morning. He's looking around for the supplier, the doers of dark deeds hiding in plain sight under the strobe lights and the disco balls. Bellies up to the bar and bellows out for bourbon. Jack with a back of Jack, he jokes in a serious sort of way. The money in his pocket feels like a weight he must cast off before the night is done for fear of sinking. She hears the music, the glasses, the hushed laughter and lights up a camel. Takes a drag, and lets it hang on her lips before blowing the smoke softly down the street, watches it swim up towards the streetlight before disappearing into the skies heady heights. In the club he orders another drink, a double vodka, they're pouring Smirnoff and that's alright. One hand on the phone, hoping in vain for a miracle - the other cradling the drink, seeing it all through dead eyes, only gathering but not trying to process. There's people smoking, cataloguing in his head the 'scripts in the back of his medicine cabanet - questioning if hes got more oxycotin then oxycodone or the other way around. Gold teeth and women with midriff shirts salsa dance to Azul Azul as the beats of the DJ are only surpassed by the clicking of booted heels on rough cement. He pulls out his wallet, digs around ignoring the cash and leafs through the credit cards - finally a smile creeps across his face as he sees the small plastic bag with the teensy tiny small sliver of white, turns to look around, puts his nose in it and inhales long and sharp. Hopes there's enough to scratch the bag for a little more, pulls it apart, licks it and like an optimist puts it back in his pocket. Checks his phone, 1 missed message. The red blinking light from his blackberry burns brighter then the sun.
She's walking down mission, stealing slips from a stainless steal flask, Jameson burning the fog out of her throat, clearing her eyes and stinging her lips. Pops a Perc. Takes another swig. Her phone buzzes and she draws it faster the Johnny Ringo in a gunfight. Her white shoes beat a Billy Jean to the Taqueria, to the back stall near the juke box. Crowds of red faced meat marketeers wobble and slosh their way through mojado burritos and Jarritos. Drunk red eyes making contact with smooth white iris, dilated pupils meeting blood vessel jarring stares and scampering away like wounded dogs, whimpering out alone and needy into a cold dark night. Sits down and she puts money in the Jukebox, scrolls through the top 40's, puts on the Mickey Avalon. Mr. Right blasts out cheap tin speakers as her connect walks in the front door. Smiles at her, sits across her and asks her how she is. She smiles, offers his her flask, which he takes and signals that she wants a ball. Together or separate he asks her, hands digging in his pocket, eyes on her, grinning. Under the table she hands him a Benny, two Drews and a dime. He shakes her hand and passes her the plastic wrapped chunk of rock like swaddled up baby. Under the glare of fluorescent lights and the reflection of salsa stained Formica table tops it looks for a moment like they're lovers, old friends passing through the night, the only hint of a secret life is the wink behind their eyes, the way he gets up and walks out the door as she heads towards the bathroom then golf ball eyed out again and back into the boozy San Francisco Night and into a cab.
The boy heads from the dance club and hops in a cab, heads towards Soma. Texts his hook up that he's inbound. Be there in 5, he types 15 away from the spot. Gets there past 3 and pays the cover to the grizzled biker hanging out in front of the converted theater. Walks up the three flights of stairs, stops at the makeshift bar and orders two of whatever they're pouring. Gives the hippie bartender a fin for his trouble. Shuffles around the wet noodle dancers, low hanging smell of cojitas, patchouli and the acrid smell of Mollies wafting off the skins of all the party kids, blending into dilated pupils, squiggly lines almost forming cartoon like to the heavens in the metric rise and crash of the deep bass of the Dj's beats. Politely pushing past them and up to the roof top, exposed air encroaching on entrenched lungs. Sighs as he sees his hook up. Sits down on a bench next to him, nods whats up and lights up a cigarette. Ankle length white soled chucks run up against tight black jeans, meet black wool jacket, partially hiding a white shirt, black tie and a hand dipping into the breast pocket as he pulls out his cash to trade for the stash. Lingers a moment over the buttons, adjusts the tie, musses his hair. Licks his lips and shakes his connects hand, cash and gear trading place simultaneously. Nods, the connect nods, stands up and walks away. Then its downstairs, keying up as he goes, lining up the wedge of his hand and knocking it back like a shot, wide eyed through the dance floor, scouting out talent, licking his lips heading to the bar. Two rounds turn to four turn to six, dancing on the bar, dancing with one girl then two and then back to the bar. The sun rises as the bag empties. People trickling out, his phone silent as the dawn outside. Turns on his ipod and heads into the San Francisco morning, hails a cab and home. Tomorrow nights like a shampoo, wash rinse and repeat.
Something happens when you're a bartender in one of the best drinking cities in the known world. The liver, generally a thing of wonder, solidifies into a hard steel cased machine of bowflex like proportions. Sobriety becomes a four letter word and you end up like a war vet - walking around with four slugs in you at all times. Normally, the general population takes these things as fact. Then there are those "excitable" type folks that think its in their best interest to challenge people like myself that deal with spirits in a ongoing, day to day basis. This is never a good idea.
The intention of this article is not to sound snarky or to genuflect at the alter of douche baggery - so to quote Muhammad Ali, "It's not bragging if you can prove it."
Por Hemplo, last night I was challenged to a drink off. Being a professional we took it Cosmopolitans, the bar across the street from where I work to initiate the challenge.
Here's the thing, in a drink off there are rules and regulations. Its a strictly regimented discipline that requires the utmost personal level of dedication and respect that can be held in a competition such as thus.
That said, my rules to a drink off go something like this:
1. All drinks must be consumed as fast as possible, style points for Panache. 2. No performance enhancing drugs 3. All drinks must be finished in shot form 4. Sobriety tests must be conducted in 15 minute intervals 5. The person being challenged never pays 6. Always bring a condom. 7. Accept the fact that you will die young. Go with it.
I was challenged last night by a drinking crew from Canada. They spent several hours in my bar generally having a great time with a combined total tab of around a grand with tip. Somehow the women in the group decided it would be a good idea to challenge me.
They started me off with 3 double Zebras. A zebra, is when you do a shot of bourbon or any dark colored liquor followed by a clear liquor followed by a dark liquor followed by a clear liquor - hence zebra.
I did these with a beautiful Chinese woman named Cynthia. I think she lasted through 1 stripe. I downed my shots, my liver was prepared for Glory,
We moved on to Fernet. Its now around 10:30 at night on a Tuesday. Our hosts have already laid down an additional 600 dollars - we were in deep.
I downed the Fernet like it was going out of style. I am the Rowdy Rowdy Piper to thier Iron Shiek. Like Ozymandius I looked down on the week and insufferable with great disdain and mighty scorn. Shots were poured in front of me. In a great and powerful voice I used my middle initial - I am Logan R. Brouse, I belted out with volumetric thunder - King of kings:Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!" This was the booze talking, my inner diatribe being modified by historical outside sources going into hysterics. Not drunk but buzzed I conceded the round. After that they backed down. Not wishing to embellish I'll go away while the going is good. We headed to R Bar to celebrate, Fernet flowing freely like the Russian River in a rainy season. Hail to the Captain and light speed to his glorious stallion, Debauchery!!! Hip, Hip, Hoorah!
I was moving some stuff around the other day and came across my old Journal from when I first moved here. It's a few pages of drawings, prose and songs. Hopefully it will be a cool read.
10-13-06 Sitting in a rented by the week hotel room in North Beach, scared to open the desk drawer for fear of what I might find. Blood? Used condoms, syringes and bed bugs? Burns in the carpets paint the room with a colorful display of despair. Thinking about buying a bottle of vodka to cheer the place up - but afraid someone will break in and steal it. Like the fact that you can smoke in the room, don't like the fact that I don't smoke. Our adventure has begun in earnest and in true beat fashion we are broke and indignant. Booze-hands of the most severe degree but its hapiness that finds us at the endo of the bottle and not misery., Lost in a city where no one knows my name and not even the roaches fear me. Gold Eagle Hotel San Francisco, California
10-16-06
Late Saturday and my head hurt. Lying in a ditch in the Presidio on the side of the road missing my pants. Ran way from a catering gig that went bad after Eric got his'self fired. Walked back to the safety of North Beach with its humming neon lights and buzzing prostitutes, strippers and cockroaches. Life is good but I sure miss those pants. Sunday was spent playing video games in the Metreon and watching 'Open Season' in Imax completely stoned on Humboldt counties worst. The stark skyline of the city subdued by the soft electric crooning of Sonys multi million dollar blow job. An edifice dedicatged to both the salvation and destruction of modern man. Outside while smoking we saw a man shit himself while walking in the MLK, JR memorial gardens. .
North Beach, Polk Gulch, the Mission, bars of Union Square are filled to the brim with guidos, frat boys with their hats backwards and all levels of high end douche baggery. Yet we can't have drinks in China Town, every order of Tsing Tao is met by a scowl. They don't like it when the round eyes come around.
I've been quiet lately because I haven't had a desk. Lame excuse right - but for someone who has a criminal disposition lame excuses are all I need. New laptop, new furnishing but the same old liver. Add me to your book marks so I can make lots of money and retire internet rich - or follow like Icarus into the shadows of the golden gate.
Image by janusz l via Flickr
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