Brewery Tour

We like to take brewery tours when we travel. We hit two in Boston. At the first tour, after the tour was finished, we were brought into a sampling room with long, slender tables. It was very crowded. We got seats, but not everybody did. Across the table from us sat an elderly couple. They were nice people, very friendly and conversational. I was wearing my CRAMPS t-shirt. The woman said, “Who are the Cramps? Is that a band?” I said, “Yeah,” and proceeded to explain a bit about the band, to provide context. She started at me intently, though I could tell that nothing I was saying meant anything to her. I might as well have been speaking Greek. She said, “My daughter has a Cramps t-shirt. She lives up here now. We’re visiting her. We’re from Indiana.” I explained that my wife and I were from Pittsburgh. Their other daughter currently lives in Texas. They asked if they could take our picture, to show their daughter. We said, “Sure.” I didn’t do anything obscene in the picture. I put my arm around my wife, and smiled like I was posing for a picture being taken by my own mother. I felt badly that both of their daughters had moved so far away from them and that they had to travel to see them. They must have done something right, though, if their daughters weren’t afraid to strike off in their own directions. I’m sure their daughters are pretty cool people. I still live half an hour away from where I was born and raised. People from western Pennsylvania tend not to leave. At that moment I felt a little ashamed of myself, and still do. I feel like I’ve failed at life by living so close to where I’m from, but I don’t have the heart to leave.

Schizophrenic Cadillac Donuts

We were looking for a particular pastry shop in Boston. We got there and it was closed. After failing to find something else suitable in the immediate vicinity, we wandered around and squandered the morning, lost in search of breakfast. Disgusted, we gave up and went to a Dunkin' Donuts. I got in line behind an old guy who was apparently ordering. He looked a little unusual, kind of like a black Hunter S. Thompson, with a suitcase, brightly colored shirt, wide-brimmed pink stoner hat, and red cane…but I thought nothing of it. I dig insane-looking people. I stood behind him in line, paying no attention to anything that he was saying. The girl working the register shouted over his head to me, “Can I help you?” Initially I thought that I had done something rude. I paused, confused. She repeated herself. At this moment I could see the old man gesturing wildly, and talking off in a different direction. Still unsure why she wanted me to displace this man, and order ahead of him, I timidly approached the counter. I ordered a cream-filled key lime pie donut and a small coffee. My wife ordered a blueberry donut. The man wandered off to the side, and started talking again. I began to understand what was going on. He proceeded to let loose with one of the most awesome monologues I’ve ever heard. It was actually a dialogue, but only one side of it. He was having a conversation with somebody who wasn’t there. He would speak, and they would respond, though only to him. This person had just bought a brand new Cadillac.

“Bright red. Shinin.’ With a tape player in the dash. You could ride around in it all day. Up and down the block. Have your girl in there beside you, and ride. You know…”

The old man was sincerely happy for his invisible partner. It was touching and beautiful. He was engaged in something much cooler than I was. I was engaged in a donut that looked so brightly green that I thought it was radioactive.

The Red Sea

We ate dinner at an Ethiopian restaurant in Boston on the Harvard Campus. It was incredible. Beautiful, long, slender black women with heavy accents waited the tables. There was excellent service, ambiance, and food. Perfect. I had never eaten Ethiopian food before, and had no idea what to expect. The experience was great, except for the sniveling pussy at the table sitting next to us. He was the sort of guy who gives guys with ponytails a bad name. I primarily resented him on that account. I have a nearly identical ponytail. He was underweight and slightly hunched. He had a weak voice with a condescending tone. He was wearing a polo shirt and ancient running shoes. I hated him. He and his girlfriend sat down just moments before my wife and I arrived. He spent about ten minutes educating his girlfriend on the menu, taking great care to pronounce everything correctly and explain its cultural significance to the good people of Ethiopia. When he ordered, he took great care to pronounce everything correctly once again. I wonder if he thought there was some prize to be had for being the most cultured and tolerant white guy in the house. I thought he was about to apologize for slavery, apartheid, and Vanilla Ice. After ordering, he proceeded to gripe about a funeral that he had recently attended, and followed that up with a lecture on the moral etiquette of grieving. Apparently somebody in attendance at the aforementioned funeral was expressing a disproportionate amount of grief to their relationship with the deceased, and it bothered him. Then he talked about mountain biking, and how advanced the courses he rides are, and that he would love to take his girlfriend mountain biking, but wouldn’t dare subject her to the rigors of the difficult courses that he rides. He pissed and moaned about what must have been a dozen other petty, irrelevant things. Eventually he started taking shots at people from West Virginia. I’m not from West Virginia, but it’s less than half an hour’s drive from where I live. I’ve been there, and West Virginia isn’t that much different than western Pennsylvania. I wondered what qualified Mr. Harvard to trash on people from a state he’d likely never seen. I wondered why it’s okay for educated, privileged pseudo-intellectuals to trash on poor, white people from the middle of nowhere, though they’d never dream of uttering a critical word about any other race. Right when I was thinking about tackling him, putting him in a headlock, and shaving his head with a butter knife, my phone rang. My phone never rings, so I generally don’t bother turning the ringer off when I’m in restaurants, though I know it’s a common courtesy. This particular event was actually the first time that it had ever rung while in a restaurant. My phone plays Slayer when it rings, quite loudly. You can hear it clear as a bell. Initially, I didn’t even realize that it was my phone. I saw an Asian guy beside me start frantically reaching into one of his pockets, and I assumed it was his. I laughed and smiled at him knowingly, thinking that I had just made a new friend. We were united in Slayer! Clearly he was a scholar and a gentleman, with impeccable taste in music. Maybe he would help me pummel the sniveling pussy with the ponytail sitting next to me? Then I looked over at my wife, who was redder than a stop sign. “Turn off your phone!” she urgently whispered at me across the table, through clenched teeth. I said, “Easy baby, it’s not mine,” and smiled, trying to assuage her misdirected reaction. Once we determined that it was, in fact, mine, I took my time turning it off. The sniveling pussy at the table next to us looked appalled. I checked it later to see who had called. It was my friend Dave. It was further proof that he’s an excellent and helpful guy.

Bukowski’s Tavern

We went on a hunt for Bukowski’s Tavern in Boston, MA. I’m pretty sure Buk never had anything to do with the place. I’ll bet he never even set foot in there. More likely, it was created as a tribute to him, after his death. Cool enough. I am a huge Charles Bukowski fan and also a fan of beer. Bukowski’s Tavern is supposed to have a lot of that, and we’re on vacation in Boston on the 4th of July. So it sounds good to me. Along the way we stopped to drink at a few other bars to refresh ourselves. Hunting with bad directions in a city of illogical civil engineering makes you thirsty. It was a good evening. Then it rained. We ducked into a CVS and bought a $6 umbrella for my wife. I don’t mind being wet, but she does. If she’s going to be wet, she also wants to be holding an ineffective umbrella over her head, so she feels like she is at least making an effort not to be wet. She’s a complicated woman. We walked a great deal, got lost, and she had a need to piss, apparently pretty strong. The frustration of walking around Boston lost, in the rain, in a throng of sidewalk congestion was getting to her. Loads of people, all headed to see the fireworks. I heard that they’re big fireworks, but I really couldn’t give a shit about fireworks. The pouring rain, immense navigational frustration, sore feet, diminishing beer buzz, and full bladder were getting to my wife. She wasn’t happy. Understandably. There was seemingly nowhere to stop to use a simple fucking bathroom. So we ducked out of the crowd and down an alley behind an apartment building, looking for somewhere that she could go. We saw three dumpsters arranged in a “U” shape, and she darted between them, hiked up her skirt, pulled her panties to the side and pissed. I was the lookout. We were about 40 feet away from a giant crowd of innumerable people, all moving down the street like cattle. There were cops everywhere, and we were barely hidden by some dumpsters. I was looking. Nobody was coming. The rain was pouring, and I could hear the sound of my wife’s urine stream against the pavement over and through the drone of the rain. She peed louder than the rain. It was literally a pissing contest between her and God, and she won. When she was done, we walked back into the mob and kept looking with renewed vigor. She was re-energized and filled with a new conviction to get me to my bar. “I’ll bet you’re going to write about that!” she said, no less than three times. “Yup,” I said in response, each time. Eventually her new mood deteriorated again as we searched. After about two or three concessions of “Fuck it, we’re giving up,” we actually headed back towards a subway to head back to our hotel room, defeated. The umbrella blew inside out, just like an old cartoon. At that point we saw Bukowski’s Tavern. It was roughly the size of a telephone booth, attached to a parking garage and an empty lot with some miscellaneous construction vehicles beside it. We went in and it was pretty cool. It was dry. There were amateurishly painted murals of Buk, an awesome framed Robert Crumb illustration, and cardboard coasters with the name of the bar screen printed on them. It was perfectly depressing. Very appropriate. The beers were overpriced but good. We each had one, and I pocketed our cardboard coasters. When we left, the rain had stopped and I took a picture of the front of the bar. I had mistakenly thought the return trip home would be less painful than the initial journey to the bar. I was wrong. The fireworks were finishing up, and foot traffic was flooding the streets and trains. Though we knew exactly how to get back from where we were, the return trip was almost as long as the initial search. Three different trains, with people crammed into the cars to the point of bursting. Ninety degree heat, humidity, and agonizing human scent. When we got back to the hotel room, I went to sleep like I had earned it.

Show Opening

I had two large pieces in a group exhibition that opened last night. The gallery looked good. So did all of the work. I really appreciate having friends like the three people who run the Moxie. They’re great. My work never sells, but they hang it anyway. I love that. My friends who run the Boxheart are the same way. I’ve shown there a bunch of times, never made them a cent, and they keep inviting me back. I really do appreciate that. Anyhow, this particular show was the first one I had done in Pittsburgh in almost a year, and the first one I had done at the Moxie in almost two. The turnout was great. There were a lot more people than I anticipated. Not a single homeless, schizophrenic alcoholic in sight. I was the only one. Though most of my friends who promised to attend didn’t make it, a few did. Lots of cool people I’d never met before were there. So I met new people. I made some new friends. I drank. The Girl From Moscow turned out. It was wonderful to talk to her. She had been MIA for a while, and I was concerned that she had finally gotten fed up with my constant sexual advances. Apparently, she had finally broken up with Dipshit. Awesome news! That’s good to know, and I guess that explains her strange absence. I’m glad it wasn’t my fault. By the end of the opening, I was drunk. My wife drove us home.