Loose Cans

With not just onne, but two. Began reading Utopia yesterday, finished the essay today. Donne was finished yesterday. Damn, I'm good. We're going to Paris.

No, really, we are. Nick and su amigo Julian have been here for two days, and now Nick and I are returning to Paris for three days, because I haven't been since last June, and that's just inexcusable. Staying with Claude. About time. Ireland was starting to get to me.

Okay, folks, how much is too much?

"The humorist is a prick."

"...shot straight from the schwantz."

" he makes his phallus analogous to the flea (in size and function, not a ringing endorsement of the former)."

"to soothe the sting where his putz has pricked"

"The scholar is Donne, detumescent. Doctor John Donne. The humorist is Jack Donne up on the table singing 'Stand up, stand up for Jesus.'"

And remember, this is me being very, very good. I haven't even used "wax on, whacks off" yet.

Oh, and I'm up to 2400 words. Started this afternoon. I might get to go to Paris after all.

Past three nights I've been in bed between 1:30am and 3, and invariably up again within an hour. I'll get up and read, or write, or whatever, for a few hours, and I'm back in bed by 6. Then I sleep till 2pm. Maybe I just won't try to sleep tonight. Maybe that'll do it. Let sleep come to me instead.

Finally started the Donne essay in earnest. I've decided to write about his poetic temperament. The thing that sets him apart from the others. His mercurial nature. His wax and wane. His push and pull. The driving force of his young life.

I'm talking, of course, about his wang. His prick. His putz. His wick. His wiener schnitzel.

That's right, Tumescence in the Work of John Donne. His opinion of women, his state of mind, what was his innocence, what was his guilt, what was, as Madam de Gaulle meant to say, his "happiness," all shot straight from his schwantz. As Madam de Gaulle actually said, when asked what she considered to be the highest goal in life, "a penis."

Dr. LaFarge, I hope you're proud.

But I need help. Aside from any general impressions or observations about the work of John--well, I'm only dealing with Jack Donne; Doctor John doesn't enter into this--anyone who remembers anything about, or, for some reason, still has their notes on "Satyre 1" on the "humorist" (remember the fondling motley dong in cute disguise), send it along. I get it pretty well, but there are always details to be missed. So why don't you all write me some essays. The winners all get citations!

Five days I’ve been here and already I’m climbing the walls. Five months. Oh, wow. That’s a long time. I want guests. Some have already made reservations, but there are still plenty of vacancies. Anyone who wants to go to Europe, anywhere in Europe, tell me and I’ll meet you there. There’s no need to come to this place, the ‘grey sunken cunt of the world.’ There was, of course, never any need in the first place, and I think I’m a little pissed that no one came up to me senior year, said, What the FUCK do you think you’re doing? And smacked me. Or maybe people did and I’ve forgotten. Anyone who did, appreciate the effort.

Anyhow, a few weeks ago I formally declared that I would not, under any circumstances, be in this country. I said I was looking to do a year abroad in the states. I have since come to my senses: after one year at home, there’s no way on God’s green earth I’m ever coming back to this joke of a university. The resolution is no full transfer or bust. Bust means I stay in New York, work full-time, make a load of money with next to no expenses, chill at Columbia and take classes there and at the New School. Frankly I’d enjoy Bust, but I want to get college out of the way as fast as I can. I’m applying to Harvard and Chicago, and if I get around to it, Yale--unlikely; y’all at Yale know as well as I do I’ve not a hope in hell.

I’ve mentioned this to most people, but I just wanted to announce it generally. I’m limiting myself to those three schools because they’re the only ones that fit the criteria. For me to look at a school, it must be:

1) Not in Ireland, or anywhere fucking near it.

2) In a city. There go Oberlin and Swarthmore. Brown is borderline, but you know, Ben, you’ve soured us on it pretty solidly already.

3) Where my friends are. This rules out Hopkins and Wash. U. I don’t want to have to make new friends on arrival.

4) Willing to let me in as a junior. This rules out Columbia, which very offensively refuses to accept non-US college credit, and starts all international transfers as freshmen (unless, Nick, you think we can bend the rules)

In short, I’m coming home.

In a manner of speaking. Actually, I won’t be at home for a while: more or less immediately on arrival in New York in June, P-ilgrim and I pack up and ship out to Hong Kong, where we’ll stay about three months. Then I’ll come home. Sort of. Hopefully I’ll be shipping out to college again. But at least I’ll be home for Thanksgiving. That’ll be nice. Sick to death of making it for people who’ve no notion of what it’s all about.

December 29, 2004:
•2:15pm CST: At Kansas City International Airport (KCI), board Midwest Express Airlines flight 83 bound for LaGuardia. Flight is full. Purchase one bottle of Arthur Bryant's BBQ sauce for Elaine, and one of Jack Stack Extra Hot BBQ sauce for Dan, who once took my face off with the violence of his sauce.

•6:15pm EST: Land at LaGuardia Airport (LGA). At baggage claim, met by Papa who had returned a day early to attend to Grandma Lou, who had an unfortunate fall which landed her in the hospital (first time since she was born), confirm what was already suspected: my keys to my apartment are nowhere to be found. My 65-pound suitcase contains literally everything I own except the one thing I need the most. I am resigned to prayer or a locksmith upon arrival.

•6:20pm: Say goodbyes to my family and go to the taxi line in hopes of getting a taxi to John F. Kennedy International Airport(JFK). I have an hour to get there for a 9:20 flight. The line, though short, proves slow, and I remember that there's a bus to LaGuardia, the M60. Just at that moment, it passes. I look down a ways, and another one is boarding. Convinced that this bus will take me straight to LaGuardia, which is where I'm going, I somehow hump my colossal bag over the railing of the taxi line, with two shoulder bags draped over me clamber up over after it and trot over to the bus. I am the last to board, but it is clear that my bag will not be fitting. Resigned, I leap off the bus, as the doors close on me, into oncoming traffic. Scramble back to the corner.

6:30pm: Standing still at the bus stop, somehow hail a cab on its way to the taxi stand. Cabbie befuddled, thought momentarily I was on the taxi line, but after some persuasion, tells me to get in. Chucking the suitcase into the trunk is getting harder and harder. That fucker is heavy. We peel out.

6:31pm: Take back what I said about peeling. We squeeze out.

6:45pm: Well on our way. Only now does it occur to me. I WAS at LaGuardia. I want to go to Kennedy. Oh, wow. You huge asshole. Don't know what happened there. Would have been the biggest travel mistake I'd ever made, worse even than, oh, I don't know, going to the wrong airport? Somewhere on the taxi line, sense suspended itself. Mental lapses like blackouts. That bus would have taken me to Harlem. Transmit great thanks to my suitcase for being so unwieldy.

7:10pm: Arrive at Terminal 4 at Kennedy. Bangladeshi cabbie is a big fan of T4; it's where Air Bangladesh flies into. He's coming in a week to pick up his sister there. I hump my suitcase back out of the trunk, onto the sidewalk, and push down the button that releases the handle, so you can extend it and roll the suitcase around. The button jams. The handle is stuck and will not extend. I want to cry. This is going to make rolling this thing so, so much more unpleasant, because without the extended handle, it keeps banging into my knees, to say nothing of weighing a lot more. I am very relieved when I am shut of it after check-in.

7:25pm: Duty-Free time. I am already carrying a litre of Laphroaig single malt Scotch (Full-bodied, heavily peated Islay malt, smoky, briny and seaweedy on the nose) from the Shannon duty free three weeks ago, plus a fifth of Knob Creek and a fifth of George Dickel Tennessee sour mash whiskey (rarer and more difficult than Jack Daniel's, but ultimately more rewarding, I think) which were purchased at dirt cheap prices in Kansas City the night before ($25.99 and $18.99). But I walk into the Galleria and am appalled to find the prices substantially higher than the Newark Duty-Free. The prices are scarcely lower than Missouri's with duty paid. Still, I am about to spring for the $20 bottle of Ketel One when I notice the sign: You Must Be 21. Aw, shit. There is no such sign at Newark. There is no such policy at Newark. I am at this point too tired to even try. I'm weighed down tremendously already, and I don't need the grief. I just say screw it and head to the gate.

8:35pm: We board Aer Dingus flight 25 from gate A4. I am listening to woeful Iron & Wine, as we all seem to be lately, no?

9:40pm: We take off. It is at this point too late to get off the plane.

10:00pm: We reach such great heights. Everything looks perfect from far away. Bullshit. Come down now, please. This frankly will not fly.

10:01pm: I do not sleep. This will continue until 2pm IST the next day, or 9am EST. It has also been going on since 9am CST, or 10am EST.

11:00pm: The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement comes onscreen. I look for some sharp instrument with which to stab out my eyes. Curse at the airline for not letting me take my Swiss Army Knife on board.

December 30th, 2004, 9:50am IST: We finally land. Clear customs. I collect my suitcase, still busted, from baggage claim and step forth into the windy wet morning.

10:15am: Get on the 747 Airlink bus to O'Connell st.

10:35am: Get off the bus. Hoping that Nat, a friend of Sadie's who is occupying our flat for a while, is still there, I head to 60 Stewart Hall Parnell St Dublin 1. He should be there. The suitcase meanwhile is driving me insane. I try numerous methods to increase maneuverability and decrease back-of-knees-banging, including trying my scarf around the handle and holding on to that, but nothing helps. So I schlep like the Israelites in Egypt. I sing songs from Showboat under my breath. The walk should take two minutes; it takes fifteen.

10:50am: Arrive at my front door. Buzz my apartment, praying. No answer. Buzz many more times. Call Alaska. Sadie's mom, Rachel, confirms that they tried to get in touch with Nat all last night (I called them from LaGuardia, but couldn't get through, and finally shot off an email from Papa's handy Blackberry), but to no avail. They don't know whether he's left Ireland or just left the house. In any case I can't get in. So I trudge over the Morrison (thank God it's only a few blocks away) and deposit my belongings with Guest Relations. I head up to the bar to say hi and take a load off. I only drink water, though if ever I needed a drink it was now. Andrew the waiter is there, and so is someone I've not seen before: Tatjana, a breathtaking blonde. A lovely Latvian. She had been at the Morrison before, then returned to Latvia, but then decided she liked being here instead. Good heavens, I think. If she preferred Ireland to Latvia, Latvia must really suck. In any case I'm glad she works here now.

11:00am: Sitting in Café Bar I call my realtor. The office is on vacation. I call the emergency number. Fat lot of fucking good it does me. I cave in and head out to find a locksmith.

11:05am: Dublin Lock and Key is closed.

11:15am: Fogarty's is not. I knock the price down to a somewhat less appallingly unreasonable €50 (Fucking gonifs) and go back home to wait.

11:30am-1:30pm: I wait in the lobby. And wait. And wait. I go around the corner to buy Pringles and The Guardian. Read Susan Sontag's obituary. Want to die myself. I get my mail from my mailbox (no lock on it anyhow) and the only thing for me is a bill from eircom. €203.86. I nearly have a heart attack on the spot. I can't even address this now. It's insane. I hate those fuckers. Oh, wow, do I hate those fuckers. Hate this country right about now, too. Christ, it's like Waiting for Godot here. Call the locksmith, wondering if everything's okay. He's running a bit late, he says, but he's on his way. Call again in a half hour. He's looking for somewhere to park. Sitting like Buddha in the lobby, I am not only creeping out my neighbors, but I'm falling asleep on the stairs, too. At this point it's been 22 hours without sleep. Finally he arrives. I take him to my front door (the middle door to the hallway on the third floor, someone has helpfully blocked open with a wad of paper). He takes out two small clear plastic sheets, wedges them into the doorjamb, saws at it for a second, and shoulders the door open. Bam. Done. I'm in. Took all of two seconds. And for this he wants €50. Agog, I am so defeated here that I hand it over without mentioning that frankly he owes me that much for sitting in that fucking lobby for two hours.

1:30pm: I take stock of my life. It doesn't take long.

1:31pm: I take stock of my apartment. First thing I notice is that Sadie's room is definitely inhabited. Backpacks and bags are strewn everywhere. Clearly Nat and his girlfriend are still in Ireland. Hopefully they will come back here tonight and give me keys.

2:00pm: I am passed out in bed.

7:30pm: I am up. I am up and about and industrious. That is to say, I get dressed, block the lock on my door with a business card and sticky tack, and head over to the Morrison to pick up my bags. I spend a few minutes there, talk, then trudge home.

7:43pm: I call the emergency number for my realtor again.

7:45pm: The emergency realtor calls back. He says he had tried to call seven times earlier, but the number he'd been calling was wrong: 087 245 8027. It's 8037. Oy. We make arrangements for me to go out to Stillorgan (rather a bit of a schlep) tomorrow morning at 9:30am to go pick up another set of keys.

7:55pm: Tired, I order Honey Spare Ribs and Crispy Fried Wontons with Sweet and Sour sauce from the Chinese/Thai place whose menu I'd found in my mailbox. Including tip for the delivery kid (Irish, by the way, definitely not Chinese), it's €12. Whatever. This day's been one big cash hemorrhage.

8:15pm: The front door is jiggled with and opens. I go to see who it is. Why, it's Nat and his girlfriend! How nice of them to show up! It turns out they've been in Glendalough for the night. They couldn't have been contacted. We have a very pleasant evening together. I make Sazeracs with my wonderful new Peychaud bitters and Dickel.

1:30am: We turn in. I have forgotten my toothbrush so I brush my teeth with my finger, thinking of White Noise. I set my alarm for 8am because I'd promised the realtor guy I wouldn't blow him off.

December 31, 2004, 9:27am: My phone rings, jolting me out of bed. It's the realtor. My alarm didn't go off. I make profuse apologies but because I am very angry with my property management office anyhow I don't really mean it. My conscience scarcely the worse for wear, I go back to bed. Turns out for some bizarre reason the volume had been turned all the way down on my alarm, so it had gone off, but didn't make any noise. Wonder how that happened.

12:00pm: Awakened by the sounds of Nat and girlfriend (forgotten her name) leaving. They are off to Cork or thereabouts until the 5th. I get the key. Woohoo! I get back in bed and sleep till 2.

2:00pm. I wake up and get dressed, because one usually does this before going out of doors. I have to go buy a costume for tonight; we're all supposed to be in 70's disco getups for the New Year's Eve bash, which they have cleverly titled "Friday Night Fever." Again, Oy. I hunt all over Dublin 2 before I finally find Wild Child, the go-to vintage store. After must deliberation (I hate buying clothes, even as a joke) I settle on some appreciably absurd garments. I also must have a medallion around my neck, of course. It's either the big Buffalo nickel or the trite gold cross with the red plastic button in the center. This Jew will decline the cross, thank you. I acquire, in all, flared pants, a satin-looking, rubber-feeling shirt and this medallion for €53. Whee! Money, goodbye!

4:00pm: On to Tesco. Of course, it's jammed because it will be closed the next two days. Which by the way is absurd for a supermarket that size. Purchases include korma sauce, spaghetti, a toothbrush, shampoo, canned tomatoes, eggs, etc. I forget milk and cookies. Papaya juice, naan and two chicken cutlets from the Asian grocery, which is not closed tomorrow and the day after.

5:00pm: Home. Make a meal of chicken korma and rice. Shower. Remember how much I hate my shower. Get ready for work. Remember how much I like work. Decide the shirt was meant to be tucked in. I'm in for 7.

7:00pm: I'm in. Much glee greets me. Lu practically knocks me down. Elaine in particular is happy to have me back; for the past three weeks she's been stuck with unutterably useless bartenders. She declares that now that I'm back, she will be taking the night off and having herself a party, which she actually does. She will spend the rest of the night off and on the dance floor and drinking to her heart's content, but then again, so will we. Worst of all, on the strength of a €300 bottle of Dom Perignon, she still outsells us (She beats me €1450 to €1394). Setting up consists largely of blowing up balloons. I learn that I am still incompetent when it comes to tying them off. I also learn that everybody loves that fucking O-Zone song. Thank you, P-rovider. So I play it about six times. That and the other O-Zone song.

10:30pm: Here they come.

11:30pm: Okay, band? Way, way too fucking loud. Also less swearing, please. The word Motherfucker is not a suitable replacement for a semicolon.

11:59:50pm: "TEN, NINE, EIGHT..."

January 1st, 2005, 12:00 am: Good riddance, 2004. Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out. Oh, and by the way: You SUCK. I have no resolutions. I defer to Samantha on this one. Because we do defy augury.

12:01 am: Dan passes out the quarter bottles of Veuve Cliquot. We get one apiece. To start with. By the end of the night most of us will have gone through three, to say nothing of all the "accidental" overpours we're keeping for ourselves. I personally provide four shots of Red-Headed Slut and a rocks glass full of Strawberry Daiquiri, to say nothing of the, um, really, really good Jack Daniels Old-fashioned I make for myself. Jack loves lemon breaths because it's citric and sour to begin with. When making a Jack Old-fashioned make sure to rim the glass with a lemon slice (actually do it for everything). Do not drop the slice into the glass. Leave well enough alone. In any case by the end of the night we are quite, quite drunk. As we should be.

1:30am: Good riddance, band. Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out. Oh, and YOU SUCK.

1:31am: Ahh. Much better. It occurs to me I look pretty hot in this getup.

2:00am: Elaine, Joe and I have given up bartending altogether and are dancing.

3:15am: Goodnight, everyone. Fuck off. Whoo! Happy New Year!

3:16--7:00am: Cleanup and general party. More drinking and dallying.

8:00am: It's two ibuprofen, a slug of water, and into bed for me. I have to be back there in nine hours.

11:16am: Open eyes. Fuck you, eyes.

12:52pm: Open eyes. No, out of the question. Damn my eyes.

2:00pm: Don’t even bother to open them; I’m not getting up.

3:30pm: Harum scarum five alarum bung a loo. Wham, out of bed, into the shower. Oh, God, that's cold. Spaghetti for Breakfast/Lunch/Dinner. It is the third time I have eaten in three and a half days. Under duress, hangover fades. I’m in for five, back in blacks. Double pay today. Wow, I’m tired.

5:00pm: Tonight is International Hangover Day, so volume is low and Lobo’s closed, so I’m on Café Bar. I hate Café Bar with every fiber of my soul. You have no freedom to work because you’re on camera, and it’s almost all service bar. No real fun to be had. Also coffee. You have to make coffee. Now, I make it well, but I do so grudgingly. Dammit, Jim, I’m a bartender, not a barista. The bouncer is giving me tips, having been a barista before he realized that job sucks. Basically everything about Café Bar is rubbish and I’m asking not to be put there again. Later in the night I discreetly switched over to Morrison Bar with Leo, who’s a reliable bartender, and we mostly chilled for the rest of the night. I don’t hate on Morrison Bar, but I really need to be in Lobo. I get slow if everything else is slow. Lobo is constant high-volume, never more than a second to relax. Bartending all the time; you don’t have to worry about cleaning etc. because we have a bar back who takes care of it. Morrison and Cafe Bar give you these sporadic moments of nothing to do, and I totally can’t cope with those.

11:30pm: Last call. Cleanup time. Café Bar remains open for residents.

January 2, 2005, 1:00am: Finished cleanup. Now I switch over to residents’ bar because Qiang did it last night and Leo’s saying No fucking way. Great. I’ve got like nine of them. I’m never getting out of here.

2:30am: That’s all, folks! I’m going home. I have my coat on and I’ve finished serving. Go to bed, you drunken bastards! Of course, by I’m going home I actually mean, I’m going to go talk to my buddy Jacob the night manager for a while.

2:33am: One of the residents comes into the lobby from the bar. It occurs to me I forgot to formally pronounce the words, Last Call (strange for me; thus connected, they’re two of my favorite syllables in the English language, right up there with We’re Closed, Go Home and Bed Time). The same thing has occurred to them, and he tries to make a scene (they ALWAYS try to make a fucking scene. Jesus, what is it with these people? Don’t make scenes, folks, its just makes you a bad person). We agree, okay, one more drink. But I’m off duty and don’t want to have to deal with you people anymore, so we send up Ahmed, the other night manager, who knows absolutely nothing about bartending. Poor Ahmed. He’s so hopeless. He’s got no sense of humor, no threshold for infraction, and a terribly brusque manner with guests. He plays by the rules, which makes him really, really bad with drunks. Jacob and I got outside to talk.

2:40am: A waiter departing from Halo tells us Ahmed has been calling frantically from Cafe Bar. We go in to see what’s wrong. He is hesitantly pouring Sambuca into a snifter. A woman has ordered a drink involving Sambuca and Bailey’s. Strangely she doesn’t know its name. In my sweatshirt and coat, all bundled, I take over, dump part of the sambuca into a shot glass and layer the Bailey’s on top. She’s been asking for a Slippery Nipple, she just didn’t know the name. Two more guests, American girls (Boston and Central Park West) with Central Park West’s Daddy’s credit card, decide they need shots too. They leave the choice to me. I figure now’s as good a time as any to start inventing. But I also don’t want to give them too much more liquor. They’re drunk enough as it is. The great thing about shots is that if you make ‘em pretty enough, no one cares if they’re weak as milk. So I threw in some grenadine (no alcohol) as a base, layered on some blue curaçao (40°), and then slipped Advocaat (Dutch eggnog liqueur, 34°) in between them. So we had red, white and blue for the Americans. This made us all happy. Though I think henceforth I will be calling my first invention a Bastille Day, or possibly a Sans-Culotte, because it really is a French flag before it is anything else. That, finally, was the last drink. Jacob, Ahmed and I retired to the lobby to talk some more.

3:03am: Talking, absent-mindedly watching the closed-circuit camera trained on the guests malingering at the bar, we observe the fat American (Central Park West), all of a sudden, jiggling around to the other side of the bar and pouring the other guests drinks. It is almost like we’d been waiting for it, and her obviousness produces hysterics in Jacob and me. Ahmed exclaims excitedly, “she is stealing!” He sprints upstairs. Jacob and I, doubled over laughing, watch as Ahmed remonstrates mutely on camera with the chastened young woman. Immediately much arm-waving takes place. Presumably a lot of dirty words, too. The night managers actually hate guests. Everyone who deals directly with the guests in a hotel like this has an antagonistic relationship with the guests. Those who don’t, that is, the administrators and office people, push a policy of sympathy and obsequiousness. This injuction to be nice is exactly what makes us automatically assume guests to be trouble, because trouble guests are really quite unpleasant. This works out well for those who aren’t trouble, though: a pleasant guest is such a treat that they’re very likely to be singled out for special regard. When I like a customer, they get really good service. When I don’t, they rarely get service at all. But the one we all really love, though, is the one who completely fucks up. The one that gives you the opportunity to take all of your pent-up aggression out on them, because they haven’t got a leg to stand on. The guest that steals, the guest that swears at you, the guest that throws things--any of these offenses basically gives us carte blanche to hit back. So Ahmed is clearly not getting anywhere, so Jacob goes upstairs to help. Stealing means, among other things, automatic ejection from the bar, and they are not going quietly. I wish now that I’d gone first, but at the time, I decided it was better to hang back and pretend I wasn’t there, because if the bartender’s still around, why isn’t he serving? So I hid. Jacob got them out eventually. The Boston girl informed Ahmed that he made her butt stink. I still don’t know what she meant by that. Is that a good thing? I wish I’d gone up, though, simply because Ahmed clearly did the wrong thing. He gave them an opening to argue. Central Park West (so typical. California-born, rich, flappy fat--and all of it from eating, I can confirm--loud, sense of entitlement, abrasive, unpleasant, a universe unto herself), cornered, somehow decided the best thing to say was, “I’m sorry, I didn’t know I couldn’t do that.” Yeah, right. But Ahmed gave them an opening when he said, Excuse me, please come out from behind there. Then he gave them a chance to argue. Stupid. What he should have done was run up the stairs, say, “WHOA whoa whoa...so just what the fuck do you think you’re doing? No. don’t want to hear it. Out. Now. All of you, out. You’re done. No, no, I don’t want to hear it, no. No, because no. You’re out. Git. Git!” What I mean is that I should have run up the stairs and said that. Because I can. Ahmed can’t. That’s why I like bartending and why I don’t like hotel work. Because in a proper bar I could literally, physically throw someone out. Here we use our words.

4:30am: Finally, after a nice long reinvigorating conversation, I go home. I am awake now, though, so I make more Chicken korma.

5:15am: I get in bed and pick up the Amy Sedaris/Stephen Colbert/Paul Dinello book, the hysterically funny Wigfield, The Can-Do Town That Just May Not, which I’ve nearly finished.

6:00am: I finish Wigfield. Lights out.

4:00pm: Phone rings just as I decide maybe it’s time to get out of bed. Hello Muddah.

5:00pm: Step out to buy milk and bacon and cookies. Spend the rest of the night writing this thing, nursing a martini. Let’s hear it for the lemon twist in life. Good night.