I’m looking back at the last weekend and saying to myself, “wow, that went fast.”\u00a0 It wasn’t exactly a Lost Weekend as it was in the eponymous film where Ray Milland gets perpetually shitfaced, though in a cool and noirish sort of way.\u00a0 Nor was it like\u00a0some of my behavior when I was at my worst, a wrestched and excessive Friday night followed by a Saturday and Sunday where I was able to do little but lie on the couch and bemoan the sorry state that I brought upon myself.<\/p>\n
That is not to say there were no excesses.\u00a0 I just showed some moderation in them, that’s all.<\/p>\n
On Friday after work, I had a pint of Trumer Pils at the Argus before heading over to Oakland on BART.\u00a0 When I met up with Paula, she was hobnobbing with hipsters at 23rd and Telegraph and taking photos of the local art scene.\u00a0 I have a lot of anomosity toward people who are hipper and cooler than myself, which is to say pretty much everybody.\u00a0 I spent the next\u00a0hour or so\u00a0in a cafe with a coffee and a book of Etgar Keret stories.\u00a0 When Paula was\u00a0done taking pictures, we\u00a0went over to the Heart and Dagger where\u00a0I proceeded to down two PBR tall boys and a shot of something that had a color not occurring in nature.<\/p>\n
That may sound like a lot of alcohol to some but compared to some Friday nights, I was a regular Carrie Nation.<\/p>\n
Saturday was about the same, though I got a later start.\u00a0 There was a software release at work which required, among other things, that I phone into a conference call and not slur my words.\u00a0 At about nine, I was cut loose and celebrated my bit of freedom by heading down to the Argus for a drink.<\/p>\n
The plan was to keep it at two whiskeys because if I managed to show that level of restraint, I am therefore not an alcoholic and paradoxically allowed to drink as much as I want.\u00a0 I would have managed to pull that off, at least I think I would, if it weren’t for the execrable film showing on the TV above the bar.\u00a0 The movie was “Virgin High,” released in 1991, and the acting and dialogue were surpassed in their awfulness only by the hairdos\u00a0I I never see another John Oatesque perm, it\u00a0will be too soon.<\/p>\n
I pulled out my iPhone and did an imdb lookup of the flick to see if there was any reason why I should not cut my losses and flee the bar right then and there.\u00a0 And there he was, given\u00a0second billing.\u00a0 Burt Ward, who played Robin in the old Batman series from the sixties.\u00a0 I don’t remember him in a lot of roles after that show, probably because he was too short to be cast as an action hero and too\u00a0bad an actor to be cast as anything else.\u00a0 I couldn’t leave.\u00a0 I needed to see\u00a0his valiant effort to jumpstart\u00a0his career in the early nineties.<\/p>\n
He sucked.\u00a0 I was on my fourth Jameson’s when I realized that I was not a Burt Ward completist and did something considered unthinkable in some quarters.\u00a0 I left the bar with half a drink undrunk.<\/p>\n
Sunday just evaporated.\u00a0 I had no hangover but no motivation to do much with the day either.\u00a0 I spent most of it playing a computer game where where I was the builder of an empire.\u00a0 I\u00a0entertained myself by starting unjust wars and naming cities after various sexual atrocities.\u00a0 By late afternoon, I regretted not getting out of the house but there was one thing I learned from the experience.\u00a0 If I ever get the chance to rule the world, I probably won’t do much to benefit humanity but atlases will be a lot more fun to look at.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I’m looking back at the last weekend and saying to myself, “wow, that went fast.”\u00a0 It wasn’t exactly a Lost Weekend as it was in the eponymous film where Ray Milland gets perpetually shitfaced, though in a cool and noirish sort of way.\u00a0 Nor was it like\u00a0some of my behavior when I was at my … Continue reading Another Monday Morning<\/span>