Day 42 - Shark's Win!

Quote of the day:
Every fight is a good fight when you are a cannibal.
-barfly TV

The sweet spot was open again so I grabbed it real quick. I stepped out of my truck and inhaled Thursday's sunset air, then I walked out of the parking lot shared by El Tarasco and Foster's Freeze and on up the sidewalk to the light at 4th and Taylor.

On the other side Der Wienerschnitzel was packed. A little girl, no more than a toddler, had lips stained the color of blue Kool-Aid and was busy rooting around in the planters on the corner border of DW while her brothers and sisters (?) played on the tables and ate their food.

I walked past a white Honda Civic with handicap plates parked in front of Amy's Beauty Salon and made my way inside Jack's Bar & Lounge. There were about nine people inside, three women and six men.

I'd been listening to the Shark's game on the drive to Jack's and the score was tied 1-1 with the first period coming to a close. By the time I sat down at the bar I saw the Shark's had scored with just seconds left in the period to go up 2-1 on the most hated Detroit Red Wings.

Tanisha insta-served me a beer (you rock, dude!) and I felt like a dork for thanking her like three times really fast because I didn't want to forget to say thanks like I did the other day.

Feeling a little self-conscious, I decided it was probably better not to speak for a few minutes so I spent some time looking at the back wall of the bar to see if I could find anything different about it during the first period intermission.

Very first thing I noticed was the metal pail to the left of the tikki man in a barrel (ask a bartender to put the tikki man on the bar and remove the barrel....reminds me sometimes of what it was like to be thirteen lolz). This pail is used by Jack's bartenders to hold miscellaneous odds and ends such as a long Bic lighter, a pack of Camels and a pair of scissors.

What I'd never noticed before was the Bad Apfel logo printed on the pail, with the words "How about a tip you bastard?" printed on it in apple green.

I got this feeling like someone was seriously scowling at me and I looked up at the glass shelves and saw a pair of orange colored eyes looking out from under green eyebrows and a mass of white lip pulled back to expose a set of long, stiletto-thin black teeth.

Then I realized it was just the orange liqueur bottle with two oranges high up on the label and a rather large upc barcode at the bottom.

I took another sip of beer and decided that was enough looking around for one day.

I stepped outside and saw that Amy and her helper dude were busy inside the Salon. I must have been so focused on the car parked in front that I didn't even see them inside when I walked into the bar earlier.

The smell of Der Wienerschnitzel carried over to my nose and I decided to splurge on a couple hot dogs (lolz that sounds wrong, doesn't it?). The sun had fallen behind Chris' Service Center and I walked back to Jack's just as the tall DW lights came on overhead.

A Honda Accord materialized in front of the bar while I was gone and I tried to pick out the vehicle's owner as I dropped my food off at my spot at the bar and walked to the restrooms in back. I saw a Miller keg on my right, just beyond the hallway entrance where Beer Pong is played (the official WSOBP rules are posted just above where that Miller keg was at too).

After washing my hands I noticed there were no hand towels (haha isn't that how it always works?) but it's no problem 'cause I've got pants. I told T about the towels on my way back out then took a seat and started eating.

The game still hadn't started back up so I contented myself with watching Barfly TV.

The game finally started and I noticed that my moustache is long enough to catch beer foam. That was enough to keep me occupied through the whole second period of scoreless hockey.

As second intermission got underway two men came in smelling like bathroom soap and kitchen herbs. Then another guy came in, stood near the center table and took in all of Aimee's pieces, then he turned around and looked at the TVs, then he looked around the bar, then he walked out of the bar without buying anything (you can see a lot in the mirrored glass behind the bar--try not to focus on any one thing and then it's cool because you actually see everything).

I wonder if the glowering orange eyes scared him off?

I went outside and the guy walked back and forth in front of the bar a few times like he was trying to make a decision and I realized the Honda wasn't there anymore, then he stopped at the entrance to look inside, then he walked around me to the back patio/parking lot. What the hell is he looking for, anyway?

As I was writing notes into my phone, he rode out on a squeaky motorcycle and gunned it up Taylor.

If you've ever seen the movie Collateral then you know how awesome nighttime can be in a city. After indecisive-motorcycle-guy took off I felt a subtle warmth in the air and looked up from writing my notes to see dog walkers everywhere, the sky a deep blue-black to the east and glowy blue-green to the west and the 61 Piedmont bus stopped at Foster's then headed east up Taylor leaving it's thick exhaust smell on the air as the breeze blew my way.

I like this time of night just after the sun has set and all the lights come on because it's electric and loaded with energy and it feels like anything is possible. I hoped that feeling would translate to a rare win for the Shark's at Detroit as I walked back inside.

The game started up and a tall, white haired Blue Moon sat down to my left. Thick, not quite horn rimmed glasses made of black plastic were perched on his nose and he wore a dark suit jacket that was the same color as the eastern sky outside over a white long sleeve shirt lined in pairs of thin, faded blue stripes. He did not watch hockey but instead watched basketball and I wasn't pleased with him for doing that lolz.

Behind us the bar tables were filling up and god damn if Detroit doesn't score a goal in the third period to tie it up 2-2. I felt a chill behind me as a tall woman in a long black coat walked in and I realized things must have cooled down outside because she carried the air in with her like it was an extra coat.

I think it's neat when that happens because you don't even have to see or hear someone to sense they are there.

Amy from next door walked in to the bar for a sec and I went outside to check the weather. The wind was blowing faster and I felt discouraged by the tie score. The 61 bus drove past but thankfully didn't stop and as I looked to my right I noticed the airplanes were taking off into the wind. Normally aircraft land in that direction but not tonight.

The owner of the Honda walked very carefully out of Amy's on crutches made to support crippled legs. Her hair looked smooth and textured and was beautiful in the way a woman's hair looks when she's just come from a salon. The glint of the yellow street lights played all along her hair as the woman moved methodically around the front of her car to the driver side door, unlocked it and slowly lowered herself into the seat. Her hair reminded me of my mom's hair.

I wondered for a moment how she could drive, but then remembered seeing a film (yes, film) in elementary school of a woman with no arms who drove using her feet. I was sure the woman in the Civic could manage OK.

Old Blue Moon was one and out. He left the bar and walked west up Taylor to some unknown destination.

Back in the bar the game was back on and the third period was going strong. Just past where Old Blue Moon sat was another guy working on his third Sierra Nevada of the night. From the sound of it I think he wanted Detriot to win so Three Sierras is Enemey #1 in my book.

A pair of guys walked in and one asked T to put the fee to get his buddy's card back (which he'd left at the bar some other night) on the new tab he opened up.

Just then (Ryan) Clowe and some useless Red Wing named Ericsson got into a brawl on the ice. Ericsson fought like a wimpy European and in my not so humble opinion Clowe kicked his ass. I cheered for Clowe and dropped my phone at the same time, but kept it from falling through my five hole onto the floor.

Not long after that the period ended with the score tied and a five minute overtime got under way. I agreed with the man to my right that Olympic hockey is going to be the shit this year. Since there are so many Shark's playing in the Olympics us Shark's fans are gauranteed to have someone to root for on just about every game that's televised.

The five minute overtime ended fast with the score still tied. Then the Sharks won it in the shootout woohoo fuck yeah! Nabby gets the record for the most consecutive road wins by an NHL goalie (11 wins) and I remember thinking to myself it was fucking sweet he got the record in Detriot.

The crew of people at the end of the bar suggested they ought to have a footrail build party at Jack's (for those of you who've not been to Jack's, you should know the bar has no rail or foot rest). I think there's was a great idea.

Outside for the last time that night, I met a man from Ohio. He told me about how Ohio is not Kansas-east as I thought of it with fields and pastures and farmland, but is instead quite heavily forrested. He grew up in a town nestled into a valley where three rivers converge. They know something about flooding where he comes from.

He told me stories about the Burning Man festival. One was about friends having a tea party in the back of a jeep. Basically they cranked the steering wheel and tied it in place, but a brick on the gas pedal and rode around in back getting drunk and stoned as the jeep made endless wide right turns in the desert sun.

He noticed I was smelling the air and we talked about crazy Ohio and Colorado weather. Confident in our skillz, we decided it would not rain tonight.

I left Jack's Bar & Lounge not soon after. There were no longer any cars parked in front of the bar that could interrupt my path to my truck.

The next day I got to thinking about how how paying attention to the different conversations at the bar is like focusing on a particular section of an orchestra.

Tonight the talk of birthday planning would have been the brass; the talk of construction work, winning bids, contracts and TI's (tenant improvement) was the woodwinds; the sound of the Shark's game was the percussion, with The Voice Of The San Jose Sharks --Dan Rusanowsky-- as the principal violinist.

I suppose that would also make Tanisha the conductor.

See you tomorrow for the Friday symphony at Jack's!

Day 41 - Things Made Out Of Bone - 2.10.2010

The sidewalk all up and down Taylor from 4th Street to 5th Street is tore up and filled in with temporary asphault (looks like giant troughs of caviar in the sunset light) and there are large, square shaped iron slabs covering up holes underneath. Orange cones are stacked neatly by telephone poles, waiting to be used again tomorrow when construction starts back up.

Fortunately Jack's Bar & Lounge is on the other side of the street.  ;)

After parking at Foster's Freeze again I took the time to look over this old Chevy truck that was painted a very bright shade of pink. I don't know how the hell that truck managed to pull off a masculine look, but it did.

I puzzled over this as I crossed the street to Jack's from the roughed up side of the block. I walked by Der Wienerschnitzel and saw this guy again who's there at least once a week, dressed in full on winter coat, hood and gloves. Every time I've seen him he's sitting at one of the side tables facing Taylor and reads a book with its pages held in place by two sturdy metal clamps, and always has a coffee (tea?) on his right hand side. I never see any DW food at his table.

A PG&E dump truck and trailer combo with a backhoe chained down on it rumbled by as I looked at the wall that is the west side of the building that houses Jack's and Amy's Beauty Salon, which is painted over in patches to cover up gang graffiti. I wondered if Amy would consent to having her wall done up like the Jack's (east-facing) wall is and if that might do something to mitigate the problem as I walked in the front door of the bar (see this link for photo on Yelp!).

Inside Aimee was tending. Must have been elven people there besides me.  I said hello to Wes, Stephanie and the always energetic Holly, then took a seat at the bar and ordered up a PBR.

Wes, Holly and Stephanie left before all that long and I noticed Aimee was wearing a striped pink sweater whose colors perfectly matched those of the Victoria's Secret bag on the counter behind the bar, save that Aimee's stripes were horizontal and the bag's were vertical.

I'm not sure how we got on the subject, but all of a sudden Aimee and I were talking about friends of hers who'd spent New Years in Czechoslovakia (thank you, spell check). Over there you could buy alcohol from street vendors like you'd buy a hot dog in New York.

The kicker was her friends went to a castle where way back in the day the crypts below ran out of room faster than the dead could be intered, so the locals opted to make candelabras and chairs and whatnot out of the bones from the excess corpses. The way she told it, Aimee's friends said to her the place smelled just like you'd expect death to smell.

This guy came in later on and I got him up to speed on the creepy castle conversation. He responded by mentioning how Hitler had used human hair for lamp shades and as stuffing in the very first Volkswagens. I'm totally not googling that because it's too awesome a story to fact check.

Even crazier: I was on the phone later that night and told a friend the castle story, then she responded with the whole Hitler-Volkswagen thing....dude, twice in one night! Crazy, creepy and awesome.

All this time the Black Crows and Johnny Cash were playing and now that I think about it, it's funny how that music totally fit the conversations going on in the bar. Go figure.

I went outside for some fresh air and noticed the traffic was still real heavy on Taylor after sunset. Another dude came out with his cell phone glued to his ear and was halfway through a food order as he stopped to light a cigarette. Cigarette smoke was already thick in the air but I couldn't place the source and the wind/pressure/whatever must have shifted because all of a sudden it was like Jack's bar exhaled and I could totally smell the bar interior as I stood outside.

Anyway food-ordering-guy didn't stay at the bar all that long after he finished his call.

Back inside I sat down at my spot at the bar and noticed that from where I was at I could see all eleven of Aimee's pieces on the wall behind me in the mirrored glass. Was kinda cool to take it all in at once like that.

Keith -whom I'd met the last Sunday night after the Super Bowl ended- came over to say hello. He was hanging out at the bar with a buddy of his. I should have gone over to introduce myself but I didn't for some reason.

Keith told me about his idea for a kickball team he wants to put together. It'd be called "Just For Kicks" and have uniforms with "JFK High" on the front and everyone's player name on the back would be "Kennedy", which reminded me of how all the bank robbers in the movie Inside Man called each other by variations of the name Steve.  Dude, where do I sign up?

After talking with Aimee about it, I'm writing all the Jack's links on future posts from this one forward so they point to Jack's Facebook page instead of their MySpace page. The Facebook page for Jack's has a schedule of all their upcoming events and better fits the type of good people that come to the bar.

You'll need a Facebook account to view their page, but signing up for Facebook is easy peasy.

Thanks Aimee as always for the excellent service and for the practical advice. Have a fun trip, too!

See you tomorrow at Jack's!

Day 40 - Woohoo! I Like Jack's Visit Numbers That Are Divisible By 10

I'd like to take a moment to thank everyone who's helped to keep me on my feet this year (especially you, Mom!) and I'd also like to thank my good friend Sugi for pushing me to get out of the house a year and a half ago and find my way to Jack's Bar & Lounge.

Which is to say a man who doesn't count the women in his life as treasures is a fool. Wish I'd have learned that lesson sooner, but there's no way I'm forgetting it now.

The sun was still up when I made my way to Jack's today.

I parked in the Foster's Freeze lot this time since it's easier to get to when you're headed east on Taylor like I was. I like finding my way to Jack's after work. Bit of a different crowd....more of a work-a-day feel to the people and I like that.

I stepped out of my truck and noticed the orange tint to the clouds as the sun began to set (orange clouds are good indication of why God loves the Denver Broncos, by the way). The sound of construction work winding down carried to my ears from somewhere up 6th Street. Two little old ladies, looking very colorful by way of their red lipstick, blue and red pants and white polka dot shirts under rain coats were sitting on my side of the Foster's lot, sharing one of the little tables while they had a bite to eat.

Since there was so much traffic (and because I didn't want to risk getting run over by someone busy texting in lieu of driving) I chose to cross the street at the light on Taylor and 4th. While I waited for the light to change, I saw a woman in dark gray sweat pants walking a small dog (about as big as a house cat). The dog balked when the woman tried to cross the street, so she picked her dog up and carried it across instead.

I thought to myself: Who's in charge here, exactly?

Not having anyone to pick me up and carry me, I was forced to walk myself across the street and make my own way into the bar.

I saw a nice looking Ford Mustang parked in front of Jack's. I like that car a whooooole bunch.

The owner of said vehicle and several other people were inside. I walked up to the bar and said hello to Jason on my left.

Tanisha served me up a beer real quick and damnit if I didn't forget to say thank you. So: Thank You Tanisha. I'm sorry I let myself get distracted.

My distractor (just made a word up there, call Merriam-Webster for the 2011 Edition) -the aforementioned Jason- gave me some good advice right off the bat. Something to the effect of, "Dude, get rid of the codenames.”

I thought about it and agreed with him. So, no more codenames for peole from Jack's, save for those that want them, for people I don't quite know yet and whenever I feel it's best to use them.

Thank you also Jason for reading each day and for mentioning that the blog helps you to keep up with things going on at the bar when you're not there.

Jason said a bunch of other stuff but truth be told it was kind of fast and I missed it. His offering for a quote of the day, for example.

What I do remember talking with him about was:

• My beard and when I decided to grow it out (it's a Shark's playoff beard, grown in anticipation/expectation of many playoff wins and a Stanly Cup appearance, started November-ish of last year).
• Beard genetics. Lolz I may have gotten the better beard genes, but something tells me Jason got the bigger penis. ;)
• Jimi Hendrix. Jason told me how Jimi Hendrix was very sensitive of his voice, so in the song Crosstown Traffic he used a kazoo of all things to help cover his voice up. I totally had no idea.
• The power of learning Hendrix tunes. Now I want to hear Jason play sometime.
• Whether the dude to Jason's right really made his first ever visit to Der Wienerschnitzel today or not.

On the flat screens and starting on my right was Barfly TV on screen 1, a replay of the Super Bowl on screen 2, Men's Basketball - Tennessee vs. Vanderbilt on #3 and #4, and lastly CSN Bay Area sports on the TV closest to the door.

Just Breathe by Pearl Jam was playing about then.

Not much else I remember about today save for talking with Grant outside (he likes to push me around, that Grant) and the man hug we gave each other that Tanisha teased us about. Oh, Ed aka God was there and reminded me his birthday is coming up this Saturday and the party should run parallel with the F*U VD party for the Silicon Valley Roller Girls at Jack's.

Talk about a true test of one's bar skills!

I left Jack's thinking it felt good to have my happy hour confidence back, and to be at Jack's then and not later at night.

See you tomorrow.