Day 28 -Of ACME and The Shot Whisperer

Quote of the night:
Ever since the Raiders sucked dick, I've been a Shark's fan.
-Jim

Before I forget: My apologies to Doug. I thought you were Mike. All you white people look the same to me.

Jack's Bar & Lounge was semi-full for the Shark's game tonight. Sucks that the Sharks lost to Chicago in overtime. Impressive comeback from a three goal deficit though. Watching Shark's games with a crowd is always fun, especially at Jack's.

People met tonight:

• Tina, who plays Rugby with men or women and tells a good brain teaser (I would have kidnapped the woman of my dreams and left the old lady and the average woman on the side of the road). Hell of a coach, I'm told.
• Chris, who remembers the halcyon days of Sacramento bars, particularly the one that would clean off its walls each year, then have them filled with bras belonging to newly christened 21 year olds by the end of the year. Those were, in Chris' words, the days.
• Jim, a friend of Tod's, who's back in the Bay Area and looking to make it big one way or another.
• The aforementioned Doug, who I thought was Mike from last night. Damn white people.

To be given a name is a blessing or a curse. If I overhear your being given a name at Jack's, it will very likely go on the internetz for all time. Thus, Jerry hath been christened by Travis as the Shot Whisperer.

I'm not sure why Travis did this, but it doesn't matter; it sounds cool.

Operation Naming Conspiracy got some wind in its sales tonight, via the executive decision to include animated characters as possible choices. Including fictitious corporations from animated TV shows is stretching that decision, but I'm easy like that.

If you read this blog regularly, you know I always mention anyone who buys me a drink. Today's entry is no exception. We could have called him Hawk from M.A.S.K, we could have called him Hefty Smurf, but no, we went one step further. His name shall be ACME.

My thanks to ACME's generosity tonight for the PBR and the Blueberry Press. Who would have know that soda water, 7-Up, ice and Blueberry flavored Stoli could taste so good? On ACME's advice this shall become a future summer drink, for when the days get ugly-hot.

Lord almighty it's a miracle. Not only did I get home before midnight, but el blog is done too!

Friday at Jack's should be fun. No curfew then. ;)

Before I forget: Dank is behind the bar on Saturday from opening until the night shift 'tenders arrive. If live bands are more your speed, check out Fat Cat's on Saturday. Travis (lolz, let's just call him The Godfather) will be there and so will three (or four?) local bands.

Until then, take it easy. See you at Jack's!

Day 27 - Of The State of The (Jack's) Union and Spousal Knife Fights

Borrowing from J. Robert King here: Garrison Keillor wrote that reading a self-indulgent poem is like finding a condom on a beach. You know someone has been there and has had a good time, but it doesn’t mean that much to you.

Hee hee this aint poetry, but I'm as self-indulgent in my writing as they come. So mind your step as I guide you along the sandy beaches of my mind. ;) 

And if you can't hack it, just drive yourself to Jack's Bar & Lounge instead. Whole lot less dirty that way.

So I feel better about walking in to Jack's. Kinda like I got my groove back after a rough, uncertain week, you know? Just don't call me Stella ....well, wait: you can call me Stella, if you also buy me a beer.

Speaking of strong, sexy, intelligent and opinionated women, I had a nice conversation with Lisa (who's happily married btw; all you Lotharios can look somewhere else--and besides, I saw her first) at the bar this evening.

Lisa gave me permission to use her first name in the blog (lolz The Naming Conspiracy is somewhat on hold, though there was universal agreement tonight that Travis would be better described as Jack Black, as opposed to Sean Connery or Burt Reynolds).

Lisa has some definite ideas about why people come to neighborhood bars. As she wisely pointed out, we all of us have excellent home stockpiles of liquors and beers, thus we can basically buy or mix the drinks we order at Jack's for a lot cheaper than the bar charges.

The reason people drive to a bar and pay more for their drinks, Lisa says, is because of the most basic benefit a good bar provides: socialization.

People come to the bar to meet other new people and to talk. Lisa pointed out she would have never met me had one or both of us not chosen to visit Jack's occasionally. We'd have not given each other more than a second look on the street if we'd walked by each other.

But because we visit Jack's, we've come to know each other and benefit from each other's company by being able to gripe about work, gripe about life, share the things that make us happy and talk about the things we each are doing like house projects, planning for and taking vacations and so on.

She agreed with me that some people come to a bar to disappear, so to speak. But even these people open up eventually and get to know those around them (yours truly being just such an example).

Aimee was tending bar and had the guns out (Ron Burgundy style). I've not actually seen all of Aimee's tattoos on her arms, so it was cool to be able to check them out finally.

A shift change was just around the corner, so the night crew arrived in short order: Rina to take over for Aimee (enjoy your trip!), Dank for door duty and DJ Benofficial to spin.

Met a guy named Mike and his two buddies, also JT, his girlfriend and their two friends. Major fail on writing names down. My bad.

My bar buddy Christian arrived soon after and spent the better part of the night giving me pointers on how to meet women. Lord knows I need them.

Thanks to Christian for the beer, the whiskey shot, for buying late night Der Wienerschnitzel and for telling me the story of how you met your incredible wife.

You had me totally fooled on the spousal knife fight and duct tape story, too.

I only hope my advice was as much use to you as yours was to mine.

Anyway, I'm late for my next trip to Jack's. See you there!

Day 24 - Thanks Grant and Ask the Wookie

Seriously Grant, thank you for reading this entire blog, for spreading the good word, for the kind words and compliments, and expecially for the excellent advice. It's really, really appreciated.

Sunday at Jack's Bar & Lounge went by fast. I stepped in after the Saints - Vikings game ended. Wasn't in the mood to watch football anywhere, I guess. The crowd had apparently thinned out quick so there was plenty of room to step up to the bar and get a beer from Matt while Aimee went about counting down her register.

I told lots of people about this blog and my plan to visit Jack's every day this year. I don't think I scared anyone into never coming back. ;)  People were very receptive.

Notes on a day that turned into the night:

• I met a rare regular from Fat Cat's Pub & Grub, the other establishment owned and operated by the fine folks at Jack's. I've visited Fat Cat's and I have to say I like it. Lots of room, excellent placement on the flat screens and a nice kitchen. Look for Travis, Brad or Jordan if (no, when) you choose to visit. Now's the time to become a fixture at Fat Cat's!
• Thanks to Eric for the Crown Reserve on the rocks. It's a sipper for sure and just as you said the flavor really opens up as the ice melts. Pretty good with a sprite on the side.
• I talked with a local about what it's like to be unemployed. Also about what it's like to try and climb that last wall in the Sherriff's test. Best of luck to you next time Sabrina! It was nice to meet your bf Anthony too -- hey, you gonna make good on your threat to read this blog and leave opinionated comments or what?
• Met a nice guy named Nick and mentioned the blog to him. He gave me the OK to talk about our conversation. Nick was a veritable fountain of info on how to use tags and labels to help search engines and other search features index and find this blog. Yours truly is a Padawan* learner when it comes to blogging, but with Nick's help I'll be an apprentice sooner rather than later.
• Nick grew up in San Jose, went to college in LA then came back because all of his college friends moved to San Francisco post-graduation. We got to talking about the San Jose scene and Nick theorized that most San Jose state students skip downtown San Jose and hit the scene near where he works at Santa Clara University because SJ is just dead by comparison.
• Thanks to Matt's friends for buying me a shot of whiskey....mmmm, whiskey is good. Free whiskey is even better. ;)  I can even watch you dudes dance with each other because of free whiskey.
• J/k you guys are way braver than me.
• I spoke with an interesting fellow named Bill. Mentioned the blog and got the OK to talk about our conversation. Bill explained to me what it's like to be a drummer and make music in a band, to the effect of (paraphrasing here) making music in such a way that it brings down an individual's ego and sense of personal accomplishment, replacing it with a realization that performing in a group allows all the members to do more together than they ever could alone. It "unifies" people and brings them closer to a sense of spirituality. Pretty cool guy, that Bill.
• Matt the bartender was totally awesome, but that's par for the course.

There was much commings and goings of humans on the side. I saw many regulars and I felt a whole lot better leaving Jack's than I did when I walked in. Again my thanks to Grant and Matt for smoothing things out and pointing me in the right direction.

See you Monday night at Jack's for Reggae!

*Don't know what a Padawan is? You should be embarrassed.  Lolz check out the Wookiepedia for the info you need to only be like ten years behind everyone else. ;)