Drink, Drank, Drunk

I am sitting in a bar pre-noon. I used to think it was funny to show up to parties at night, put on a fake stagger&weave, and slur to the host: "I've been drinking since noon." But today, I'm drinking BEFORE noon. I could end up on a flight to Tunisa tonight, it's that kind of bender. I had a friend who's dad was old-school-hollywood, and once went to a bar with Peter O'Toole. He called his wife a week later shouting "I just rode a camel!"

I'm drinking with the members of my former pottery group -- a crew so toxic around each other -- we could only throw pottery when toxic. We had laid clay the night before. For that night I bought a case of Corona and a bottle of Patrone tequilla. By the time I left, our No. 1 patron had purchased us another 12 pack of Corona, and there was scant remaining of the Patrone. There was dope in the air, and coke up the nose (not mine. I am fat and old.) We had sucessfully knocked out the forms for an old design we had never completed, and all that remains is for me to paint the outside. It took four months of scheduling and rescheduling to get this done. One session got cancelled when our erstwhile kiln operator cancelled saying he had a flight home. Later he called me on the day after his flight. He was in-town cuz he had gotten so drunk, he had missed his flight.

This same kiln operator is in tow with us now. He started off the morning at his house, putting shots of Bailey's Irish cream in his coffee when his wife wasn't looking. He was also mouthing to me to at every opportunity: "let's drink, let's get out of here." We pick "tennis" as our codeword. We will play "tennis." I call our pottery wheel wrangler and tell him "We're playing 'tennis'. But we need lights to play tennis. Gas Lights to play tennis."

Thus, our wheel wrangler knows we are to go to the Gaslight. Instead, we go to Gilberts, our favorite Mexican haunt and have margies all around. They really are breakfast drinks, not alcohol, I've decided, in the same way the wheel wrangler once decided "a hummer should be okay for my bachelor party." Theeen, we go to the Gaslight, and offer the bartender $20 to turn on the karaokee machine. He wisely declines. We watch the day-time bar patrons come in. I both envy and pity them. Cell phones ring, except for mine: I boiled mine. Waiting for a new one ever since it accompanied me into the hot tub. Finally, the kiln operator picks up the phone and it's his wife. He inexplicably hands it to me, and I say "listen to the sound of bottle tennis," and I clink coronas together, saying "40-love." [clink] "40-15." [clink] "your serve bartender." Then hand the phone back to the kiln operator, who is still not ready to speak to his wife.

He hands her to the wheel wrangler, saying "talk to Frosty!." His wife calls the wheel wrangler Frosty on account of his white ways.


"Hello," says Frosty, and then hands back to the drummer. The conversation lasts long enuff for her to say "So, you're not playing tennis. You're drinking." [click]

At the Gaslight we discuss our kiln operator's latest poo paux. He was about to let out a ripey in bed, and turned to the side to shot it away from his wife.

"This will be good," he sez. It was. He popped out two turds onto the floor. Thank god his cannon had enuff torque to arc his shot out of the bed and onto the floor. "This will be good," becomes a catch phrase for the afternoon. That along with our kiln operator's trademark, overwhelmed big ***sighs**** and "let's face it." He was prefacing almost all sentences with "Let's face it ..." as in

"Let's face it, let's get some Merv." Merv being short for Mervin, their coke dealer. Mervin had been dealing for 20 years. I don't know how you deal for 20 years and not get caught! We know other drug dealers who have houses on the Venice canals, and have never been caught. In fact, when the three thousand calls to Merv didn't pan out, we went down the alley where he lives. Legend has it you can simply pull up to his apartment window, and slide in the money, and slide out the stuff. In the alley, there are literally, about 3 dudes on cell phones milling about. Planes lined up for the runway. How can the cops not notice this?????

Meanwhile, at bar #3, I decide to call my man. I can't let the absence of a cell phone keep me off the hook all day. I tell him where I'm at, and he gives a curt reply back: "I'm at work."

I'm like, uh-oh, but I'm prepared: I've already called two places for work, and after the intial chill, I leave the phone okay. I try to push these as a lesson to my kiln operator pal who uses deceit. He nods his head and hears not a word. He was veering towards what we called the "managed care" part of the evening. No longer jolly, but jolly-hostile. A strange brew of singing Doors songs at the top of your lungs in the bar, and giving people life-squeezing hugs, telling them "I love you buddy," but with a sneer. Grabbing and shaking you while you are driving. Doing movement like you're an airplane on the dance floor, but a menacing airplane, like a hijacked one heading for the towers. He used to have a "nurse" for these occassions, a solid drinking buddy who would drink free, but be required to handle "the patient." This was all getting un-fun.

Finally, we hit Trader Joes and buy food for the preparing. We cook, we eat. I come down from a two day bender. I still have to paint my part on the pieces, so I can stress about this and freak myself out about each and every brush stroke. Not to mention stylistically, as the pottery collective were all down on my beaux arts trip I was trying. No crew breaks up easy, and this group broke my heart in a lotta ways. The wheel wrangler is trying to convince me to do some coke.

"Hey, if it goes wrong, at least it will be an easy death." I have to admit, there's a strong argument for my death boosting the sales of our pottery.