You Are A Bartender, Part VIII

[Dear Booze]

It’s 3:45 A.M. and, for the past five minutes, you’ve been sitting on a comfortable dark brown leather sofa, under a giant poster for the 1958 B-movie Attack of the 50 Foot Woman. The plot of the black and white film concerns the plight of a wealthy heiress whose close encounter with an alien causes her to grow into a giant. You wonder if your host, Ron “The Sooker” Sukiewicz, sees himself as a giant. This is his party and he controls everything. You also wonder if anyone is actually having fun, or if there is simply nothing else for bartenders to do at 3:45. You are not sure that you are having fun either. But you are there and you are drinking someone else’s liquor, and you are surrounded by about two dozen people with whom you have one thing in common: you all share an odd lifestyle.

From where you sit, you hear the aerosol air horn blow, and a small crowd cheering from the garage. You wonder who showed up. A few moments later, TomTom and Ryan appear in the living room, both taking up the rest of the space on the sofa.

“Joey’s here,” says Ryan.

“Is he loaded?” you ask.

“Yep,” says TomTom. “He showed up with Ten Pin Tom.”

TomTom then turned to The Sooker. “Don’t worry,” he said reassuringly, “Ten Pin is handling the bar.”

Right on cue, Joey staggers into the house. “Pistyoresme. Pistyoresme. Pistyoresme,” he says as he sloppily shakes hands with the rest of the guests.

Joey Greenly is kind of a legend among the bartenders in town. Not so much because he’s a great bartender, or a particularly great guy on any level. But more because of his Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde personality. When he’s undrunk, Joey’s a quiet, introspective, mild-mannered guy. He’s a good bartender and is one of the best marketers for any bar in which he works. He keeps phone numbers for all of his regular customers and often texts or calls them, casting invitations to come drink at his bar. But Joey is a black-out drunk. Once he starts drinking he doesn’t know what he’s doing, where he’s at, or how to speak English. For some reason, he thinks it’s cleaver to say “Pleased to meet me” as a greeting when he shakes hands with friends and strangers. But the more he drinks, the more he starts speaking what we call “Greenlese.” By the time “Pleased to meet me” turns into “Pistyoresme,” we all know that Joey is trashed. To top it off, Joey has realized a look that sets him apart from most other people in the local food and beverage industry. He wears his sideburns long and his hair carefully coiffed into a pompadour. Although you are pretty sure he thinks of himself as resembling Brian Setzer from the Stray Cats, he more closely resembles David Spade’s title character from Joe Dirt.

About a year ago, Little Tom let Joey move into his house, a roommate situation which lasted less than six weeks. According to Little Tom, Joey was fine for the first couple of weeks, but then started going on extended benders. Cabinet doors became broken, carpets became stained, appliances became dented, and curtains became ripped. The final straw – or perhaps straws – came on the same night. The story is that Little Tom came home from working a late shift and found Joey passed out on the sofa with a cigarette slowly burning a hole into the couch cushion. Rightfully, Little Tom yelled for Joey to wake up, then snatched the cushion from beneath him and quickly took it into the bathroom, where he promptly threw it into the shower stall and turned on the water. When he returned to the living room, he found the front door wide open with Joey standing between the door and wall in the entry way pissing on the floor.

This story made its way around our little circle so quickly, that the house band from the Airport Lounge wrote a song about it. To be fair, they simply changed the words to the Concrete Blond song Joey:

Joey
Greenly
Pistyoresme...
Now you got a pompadour
And you’re pissing on the floor
Now Joey doesn’t live here anymore…

As Joey makes his way into the living room, you turn to see The Sooker’s reaction. He looked undisturbed and calm. Your host and the rest of the guests know that if you can get Joey out to the patio, and into a chaise lounge, he will pass out and all would be well for the next few hours.

[mistah willies]

Joey.

Everyone probably has a Joey in their lives, and while they can sometimes make the party happen, they also will probably get the cops called on the party.

Joey. You will be the death of me.

Damn fine series my friend.

Yup.

[oldsmartskunk]

A fine story indeed. Great series overall. I guess we all have friend like that. The one i know did some majestic things during one night too: choked his girlfriend and i bet if we weren't around she would be dead. The other of his glorious hobbies - drunk driving. Not your regular "i had few drinks,but i still can drive" drunk, but more of a "so drunk i can't control myself and i will not remember a thing tomorrow" drunk. I guess, i was always lucky with a police, as i am a mild drunk, who either cracks dick jokes or passes out, even so i got caught up in a crossfire more than once thanks to that bastard. Still, i love him dearly, he's a lot of fun to drink with. We should never underestimate the power of dangerous fun. It brightens dull everyday life and makes to feel bad tomorrow, but remember it as a funniest thing that has ever happened to you six months later.

[Dear Booze]

A fine story indeed. Great series overall. I guess we all have friend like that. The one i know did some majestic things during one night too: choked his girlfriend and i bet if we weren't around she would be dead. The other of his glorious hobbies - drunk driving. Not your regular "i had few drinks,but i still can drive" drunk, but more of a "so drunk i can't control myself and i will not remember a thing tomorrow" drunk. I guess, i was always lucky with a police, as i am a mild drunk, who either cracks dick jokes or passes out, even so i got caught up in a crossfire more than once thanks to that bastard. Still, i love him dearly, he's a lot of fun to drink with. We should never underestimate the power of dangerous fun. It brightens dull everyday life and makes to feel bad tomorrow, but remember it as a funniest thing that has ever happened to you six months later.

Nailed it! That's Joey. And yea, the rush of dangerous fun is addicting.

[Bur]

I once almost fell from 8th floor hospital building while drinking on the roof.
I tumbled slightly and ended up a feet or so away from the edge downhill so to speak. What I learned is only drink in top of buildings with even roofs.
Afterwards we went in and watched fear and loathing in Las Vegas and drank tons of whisky and cheap beer.
Good times. I vaguely remember leaving while sun was still/already up, as this was during mid summer it might been pretty much anytime of the day.

In retrospect I've had better ideas.

Edit: Also digging this series a lot.

[oettinger]

I once almost fell from 8th floor hospital building while drinking on the roof.
I tumbled slightly and ended up a feet or so away from the edge downhill so to speak. What I learned is only drink in top of buildings with even roofs.
Afterwards we went in and watched fear and loathing in Las Vegas and drank tons of whisky and cheap beer.
Good times. I vaguely remember leaving while sun was still/already up, as this was during mid summer it might been pretty much anytime of the day.

In retrospect I've had better ideas.

Edit: Also digging this series a lot.

Friends of mine lived on third floor. When you looked out the kitchen window there was a tiny roof covering the outside of some toilets. They were basically an attachment to the building. What they did all the time is beyond me: Drunkenly they went out the window and climbed on the top of this narrow thing. I once did this and never since. When you get drunk on there, there`s no way back other than jumping down to the window again.
They got their water pipe and whatevs over there... No thank`s not for me fellas.