Everybody knows that smokin' ain't allowed in school

Have I told you about the time I spent in Detention, in Portland?

No? Well.

Tequilacon, that ultra-serious blogger (ahem) conference (cough) organized by Jenny and the blogger formerly known as Brandon (What? Come on, people, we had lanyards!), was held in Portland, Oregon, a few weeks ago. You may remember. You may have been there. I may even have met you, but then again, there was a lot of drinking going on, and don't even get me started on the Tequila. Seriously, don't.

Where was I?

Oh yes, so, Tequilacon was held at this marvelous establishment called McMenamin's Kennedy School. I was told this was a bar that was in an actual school building. I was directed to the website. None of this prepared me for what the place actually looked like, though. I mean, there was a dance in the gym (we weren't invited).


But in this school, you could hang out in the halls and drink, and not get sent to the Principal's office.


I, however, was sent to Detention. It's the smokey cigar bar, and I would have had the party in there, had I been the one organizing it, rather than Brandon and Jenny, but it's just as well since it would only hold about six people at a time.


They had a fine single malt collection.


And retro ashtrays.


I was allowed out for recess with Dave and Jenny.


But not for long, because my new friend Sizzle kept getting me into trouble.


At the end of the school day, Dave led us in a seance.


Then we all lay down on the floor and oogled the cool lamps.


OK, so I'm fibbing about that part. Only the bit about lying on the floor, though, not about the lamps. I was totally in love with the lamps.


And with Portland.



This is probably the last Tequilacon story, but no promises. I already told you the story about the Jehovah's Witnesses, and how I no longer feel the need to be polite to them. And I told you about meeting Sophia (oh, and Neil, too), and all the other awesome bloggers.

Calendar Girl [part II - fin]

Continued from Part I.

Sophia was terrifying me again.

"I wasn't changing the subject, honestly. It's just that there really isn't much to tell," I offered, in reply to her question. This was the truth. Mostly.

"Didn't you have a good time?" asked Sophia.

"Oh yes! At least I did. We spent almost an entire day together, going to different bars, coffee shops, and for pizza. We walked all over San Francisco."

"I see," said Sophia.

"It's just that nothing blogworthy happened," I told her. And this, too, was the truth. Mostly.

I know that I told you, Gentle Reader, that I had a date, but it was largely for Jack's benefit that I used the D-word. OK, and, well, I also said that to my salon girl when she was doing my eyebrows the day before, but the point is, in my own mind, I didn't know whether it was a date or not. In this day and age when children go on play dates, how does a grown-up define a date?

Just going out alone with a man does not a Date make. I know, for example, that when Blundering American visited me in San Jose it was not a date because he said so here. With Norm it was not a date because he's married. Same with Tim Bray, whom I've gone out with many times over the years, despite the fact that the first time was very nearly a career limiting move.

On the other hand, the times I've gone out with Jack to formally arranged events, such as Sara's wedding, or dancing on my birthday, or even to Jerry's party, I would have considered dates, but he, clearly, did not.

I'd like to propose, for your consideration, that what makes a date a date is that, though the get-together may have been arranged in all casualness, there is a possibility of, shall we say, a non-platonic encounter at the end of the evening.

The women among you will vouch for this, I'm sure, and may even wish to discuss the matching underwear question. The men among you, well, you can tell me whether Tod was right or not.

"Are you going to go out with him again?" Sophia was asking me now.

"Well, I'm not sure," I replied. "You see, I sort of ran out on him at the end of the night. We'd been walking from place to place, and were nowhere near the train station at 10:00, so I missed that train, and the last one is at midnight. So we wandered down to the Embarcadero and spent an hour at this wonderful little bar. It's right on the water, practically right underneath the Bay Bridge..."

"What do you mean you ran out on him?" Sophia asked.

"It kind of happened by accident. Suddenly it was 11:45, and the train station was a fifteen minute walk... and so as The Italian called for the check I said I'd run outside and try to find a cab, and that he should please forgive me if I was gone by the time he came out..."

"And you were?"

"Not exactly. It gets worse. I stood in the middle of the Embarcadero for what felt like ten minutes, and didn't see a cab, and then he came out and we started walking really fast, and he said he lived a block away and he would run and get his car, and I said OK but as a plan B I'll walk up to that corner and try to find a cab, so if I'm not there when you come back, you'll know it's because I found a cab and OH MY GOD I'M SO SORRY TO DO THIS TO YOU I'M SUCH A TERRIBLE PERSON!"

Did I mention he's Italian?

I suppose there are simpler ways to ensure you'll never be asked on a second date. Mist 1 carries a wedding dress in the trunk of her car for this exact reason.

The photo is of Sophia, Hilly, and Sizzle, at Tequilacon in Portland. Notice the looks of abject terror in their faces. There's one more Tequilacon story, but in the meantime, Postmodern Sass smokes out Canadians.

Calendar Girl [part I]

My friend Tod Hoffman once told me, years ago in Montreal, as we were sitting on a patio drinking beer, one of the secrets to understanding men. This was at a time long before he married Sally, and while I was with X, so it was spoken in the spirit of camaraderie, not as a pickup line. What he said was this:

"You should bear in mind that, whenever a man is sitting across a table from a woman he is always thinking to himself, I wonder what it would be like to sleep with her, which is followed immediately by, I wonder if there's any chance?"

"You realize you're sitting across a table from me," I pointed out.

"Yes."

I don't know why I was reminded of Tod's words last weekend in Portland, as I sat across the table from Neil Kramer and his separated wife, Sophia, eating sushi, although it may have had something to do with the fact that Neil's Penis writes blog posts. That, and Neil kinda reminds me of Tod. They're both smart, funny, tall, and Jewish, I haven't slept with either of them, and going out with them is in no way a date. I'm not always that certain of that many facts, especially where men are concerned.

My cell phone had rung as I was sitting in the back seat of Sophia's Prius. I looked at the caller I.D., and said into the phone, "Hey, you."

"Hey. I just wanted to tell you, knock 'em dead in Portland," said Jack. "Are you wearing the shoes?"

"Um, not exactly, but my white go-go boots match the dress perfectly. I brought the shoes, but it's raining tonight, and on the chilly side; I was thinking maybe open-toed shoes were not the best choice."

"Save them for California, then."

"So, um, do you remember me telling you about the blogger in Los Angeles, the one who is married, but separated, and he writes about his separated wife in a way that reminds me of the way I write about you, and how a couple of months ago they moved back in together and he wrote that she had told him that even though they were living together they were still separated?"

"Yes. I believe you said, he wins."

"Right. I had thought that our relationship was bizarre, but he wins."

"We don't have a Relationship."

"Small R."

"OK."

"Anyway, I'm sitting in his car right now, and we're on our way to have sushi before we go to the blogger party." Then, to Neil and Sophia, I say, "It's Jack."

Jack and I said a few more words, then I said goodbye, and Sophia asked, "Who's Jack?" and I was both crushed and relieved that Sophia, who terrifies me, obviously doesn't read my blog, but at that moment the Prius began talking to Neil, directing him to the restaurant, so we held our conversation until the Unagi had been served.

"So, who's Jack?" Sophia asked again.

"It's complicated," I replied.

"It's complicated," said Neil. "She writes about him on her blog."

"Is he your boyfriend?"

"Oh no! I mean, not exactly. Like I said, it's complicated. We've known each other for sixteen years. When I first met him, I was married to someone else." I didn't know where to begin.

"But you're not married anymore?" Sophia asked.

"No. And I can't exactly say that Jack doesn't have anything to do with that."

"So he has been your boyfriend, then?" Sophia persisted.

Sophia was terrifying me less and less. She has a way about her that makes you want to tell her everything; to beg her to be your best friend. It's disarming. I thought about Tod again, and what he would be thinking if he were sitting here. I can only imagine the effect she has on men. Well, imagine, plus I read Neil's blog.

"We've known each other a very long time; we've been everything at one time or another, but he's not my boyfriend. In fact, a couple of weeks ago, I went on a date. That is, at least, I think I did. That is, I'm not sure whether it was a date or not, and I've been meaning to write about it on my blog but I can't quite figure out how to do that."

"I can't write a story until I figure out an angle," said Neil, and I remembered that he was the writer at the table, not Sophia.

"That's it exactly!" I exclaimed. "I haven't figured out an angle." Then I asked Neil what his secret was; how he has managed to accumulate so many adoring fans, almost all of them women, and so many so that when it's his birthday he is deluged by cards and gifts.

So we talked blog shop for a while, and dunked our Hamachi in soy sauce, and then Sophia said to me, "I noticed that you changed the subject and didn't tell me about your date."

To be continued on Thursday.

She Sells Sanctuary

The J&M Café on Sixth and Ash in Southeast Portland, Oregon, has a sketch of a garlic clove on its business card and the niftiest coffee mug tree I've ever seen.


I followed Stacey inside, and watched her sign in for a table, then go to the coffee under the tree and fill her travel mug, which she'd brought inside from her car. Have I mentioned that people in this part of the country are serious about their coffee?

She motioned for me to go ahead and take a cup, but I declined, thinking I'd wait until we were seated so the waitress could bring it to me. You know how when you're not accustomed to the customs of a place, you feel awkward about engaging in them? It was like that. We sat on the bench by the window to wait for our table.

A young couple came into the café and greeted Stacey. They chatted aimicably for several minutes, during which time Stacey did not introduce us, and the couple did not look at me once, even though they were standing directly in front of me, and even though they knew I was with her, because she had said we, and had nodded in my direction.

A few minutes later the waitress showed us to our table, and before we could even sit down Stacey was whispering, "Did you hear what they were talking about?"

I hadn't heard, really. I'd looked politely interested until I realized they were going to ignore me, so instead I looked at the walls and took in the ambience. There had been some mention of children; but I'm very good at blocking out ambient noise and conversation, unless I hear my name in the mix. It's a skill that served me well when I worked in a busy maze-like office of veal-fattening pens, but that simultaneously earned me a reputation for being standoffish. If you address me from behind without using my name, I will ignore you. I'm sorry.

"It was all about what hall they were going to now, and what hall was I going to, and did I know what hall so-and-so was going to," Stacey continued.

"Hall?" I was puzzled.

"They're Jehovah's Witnesses," she explained. "All JW's care about is what hall everyone's going to."

"Are you a Jehovah's Witness?" I asked.

"Yes, but I've left the church," Stacey replied.

"I don't know much about Jehovah's Witnesses," I offered. "When I was a kid I lived on this street with about ten houses, and all the kids on the street knew each other and played together, all except the girl and boy who lived next door to me. My mother told me they weren't allowed to play with us because they were Jehovah's Witnesses."

"They're not allowed to play with worldly kids unless they also have Bible study with you," explained Stacey.

"Seriously? Well, I guess that explains it. You know, they lived next door to me for ten years and I never even knew their names. We'd see them occasionally, getting in and out of the car with their parents, or over the back fence, but they never even looked our way, much less said hello. When I was little I felt sorry for them, but at the same time it was kind of creepy; like they were being held prisoner or something. And as I got older their behaviour struck me as... well, rude."

"They don't socialize at all with worldly people. Don't take it personally."

The waitress came and we both ordered the Chorizo Scramble. Then I went to the tree, chose a mug with Winnie the Pooh on it, and poured myself a coffee. When I came back to the table, I asked Stacey if she had done that door-to-door soliciting that Jehovah's Witnesses are so reviled for.

"Oh, yes!" Stacey enthused. "Every JW is required to go door-to-door; it's one of the primary tenets of their faith. I took my first door with my own presentation at age five. I was a true believer."

Stacey has the widest smile you've ever seen. I tried to imagine her knocking on people's doors, spreading the word of Jehovah. I would have found it hard to slam the door in her face. Those people had always struck me as rude, coming to strangers' doors, interrupting their lives without invitation, trying to convert them. I'm all for freedom of religion, though I have no use for it myself, but it's one thing to gather freely together and handle snakes or eat crackers or bang your forehead on the floor; it's quite another to foist your beliefs on your neighbours.

"That must have been hard," I offered, "I mean, you must have had a lot of doors slammed, and had to endure some rude comments."

"Yes, but I was really good at it. I truly believed if I were not effective, God would kill them for not listening, so I wanted to give them the best possible opportunity."

She told me more about the attitudes of true believers, and assured me that they were, in fact, terribly rude and anti-social. It explained why that couple who recognized her in the café had ignored me.

My mother never said a mean word about our neighbours. She just told me not to try to be nice to those children; to leave them alone. She said their religion was their business, and that was the end of it. But after listening to Stacey, I felt relieved; like I'd been given permission to think less than generous thoughts about them.

"It seems to me," I began, hesitantly, "that it's rather counterproductive, isn't it? To expend such effort actively evangelizing the religion to total strangers, yet being rude to your neighbours and acquaintances?"

"Oh, yes, it's completely counterproductive!" Stacey agreed. "It's a cult."

"So, how can you leave it, then? How did you leave?" I asked.

"Well, you can't officially leave, but there are ways. If you say you're leaving, you're disfellowshipped, and when JWs disfellowship someone it's not like when Catholics excommunicate you. Catholics just won't talk to you in church, but they'll talk to you everywhere else. If you're excommunicated by the Jehovah's Witnesses, no one will ever speak to you again, at all. Not even your family."

"That's terrible!" I said. "I'm sorry... but your family? That's just awful."

"I have a friend who moved in with her boyfriend, and was disfellowshipped. She didn't mind being out of the church; she hadn't been a true believer like me, but it's still really hard for her that her family won't speak to her. She has two children now, and her parents will sometimes pick them up and take them out for the day, and not say one word to her." As Stacey talked, my eyes widened in disbelief. "There are some people who are not quite so strict. I have another ex-JW friend whose parents talk to her occasionally, but only in the privacy of their home. They won't visit her in her home, and they haven't been out to dinner with her in ten years. This rule they take pretty seriously — you can't share a meal with a disfellowshipped person or you could be disfellowshipped also."

"Good fucking grief!" I said, and then added, guiltily, "Sorry."

"Oh, don't be sorry, you're right, they're horrible people, partiarchal, and hypocritical. That's why my husband and I left the church."

"How did you leave without being excommunicated?"

"You just stop going to meetings, but you don't tell anyone you've stopped. When I was talking to that couple they asked me which hall I go to, and I just named the suburb where I live. If someone from your hall asks why they haven't seen you for a while, you say you're going to a different hall, or you make up some excuse. I don't lie to the JWs, but there are some who will, in the interests of self-preservation."

"Don't they catch on, eventually, that you're not going at all?"

"Yes, but no one says anything directly. My husband and I left the church four years ago, and our parents don't officially know, but they know."

The Chrorizo Scramble was outstanding, the coffee was excellent, and the conversation enlightening. I hope I have reason to return to Portland one day, and if I do I'll look Stacey up, and I know she won't shun me. Between now and then, however, if you're a Jehovah's Witness, please stay away from Sixty South Street in San Jose, because I'm done being polite to you wackos.

Next, Postmodern Sass meets Neil Kramer of Citizen of the Month, and the mysterious Sophia.

My love is warmer than the warmest sunshine

My linky love page is updated with links to all the Tequilaconners, at least all the ones I have some memory of meeting, which is not saying much because I have a terrible memory, just ask Jessica, whom I didn't recognize outside the Marriott Sunday morning, even though I'd been drinking moonshine in the broom closet with her for, like, eight hours the night before.

Today I'm busy reading everyone else's Tequilacon Tales, instead of, you know, preparing for my class in half an hour, so all you get right now is my one word post-party impressions of people I'd had pre-party impressions of. And yes, I know I just ended a sentence with a preposition, and yes, I'm fine with that.

Jenny: shyer
Dave: duckier
Sizzle: crazier
Colleen: sharper
Neil: older
Sophia: nicer
Hilly: prettier
Dustin: younger
Dan: urbaner
Kimberly: blonder
Karl: weirder

Stories still to tell: how the driver who took me to the airport on Sunday was nearly killed by a rattlesnake — twice; how Sizzle rescued my little pink purse; my time in Detention; what I learned about Jehovah's Witnesses; and how Jack called me while I was in Sophia and Neil's car.

Live Through This

It's downright unsporting of me to refer to San Jose as a hole, I know, and to call it an armpit, as I'm afraid I did on at least one occasion last night at Tequilacon in Portland, Oregon, is a spite-filled misrepresentation. After all, it's not Elizabeth, New Jersey.

I just wish people would stop asking me how I like living here. If you can't say something nice, you shouldn't say anything at all — I learned that from Thumper's mother in Bambi. And I try, but, well, most of the time I don't do a very good job of it.

Oregon is beautiful, and I loved Portland. I loved the we are SERIOUS about coffee culture. I loved the greenness, and that there were trees that I recognized. I loved the artsieness of it. I absolutely adored McMenamin's Kennedy School, where we spent 15 hours drinking on Saturday night. The website and the pre-Tequila descriptions of it did not do it justice. But most of all, I loved Powell's bookstore:


It was so beautiful there, it verged on depressing, because it reminded me that I live in a giant smog-filled desert suburb with delusions of grandeur and a chip on its shoulder because of the fantastic world-class city just up the road. The best thing about living in San Jose is San Francisco. Sorry, Mrs. Thumper.

I loved what I saw of Portland, even though it rained, even though I spent only 24 hours there. I'd like to visit it again. I've also got a growing itch to visit Alaska, fueled by reading the in-flight magazine on my Alaska Airlines flight to and from Portland.

But I have to remember that vacation syndrome that Dan explained to me when I first moved here. Portland may be beautiful, but it's not home, any more than San Jose is. This is still a foreign country. Communicatrix, a.k.a. Colleen, hit the nail on the head during our very interesting conversation last night. That woman is scarily sharp and I was, as usual, clueless. I didn't realize until I saw them leaving together that the sexy photographer who'd been snapping pictures of us all night was Colleen's BF.

We were leaning against the wall in the hallway, outside Tequilacon HQ, when Colleen asked me, "Is Jack here?" The chance of that would have been only slightly greater than leeches falling from the sky, a phenomenon that occurs with alarming frequency in the novel I read on the plane, Kafka on the Shore.

Next, Postmodern Sass's one-word summaries of Tequilaconners.

Tequila!

I booked my ticket to Portland but after Episode #55 of Lost a couple of weeks ago, I've got to admit I'm a little frightened about travelling there. On the other hand, if I end up trapped on an island with Josh Holloway for three years, well, please don't feel obliged to rescue me.

The Tequilacon (ahem) conference is being held at the Kennedy School, which is not so much a school as a microbrewery.

Dave of Blogography is making us lanyards, because, as Jenny says, it's not a reputable conference if you don't have a lanyard. And as you can tell by the name, Tequilacon '07, this is a serious blogger conference.

I'm staying at the Marriott in downtown Portland. Because, heck, I'm worth it. And because it's only for one night.

Some of the bloggers on the list are known to me, at least virtually, and I am looking forward to meeting them in person so they'd better show up! That means you, Neil, gallivanting across the Pacific Northwest, flashing old ladies. And Jenny, whom I almost met when I was in Chicago a year ago. LSL, Ms. Sizzle, Karl of Secondhand Tryptophan, and Colleen the Communicatrix, who says while in Portland she might just get stinking drunk and buy a crapload of books. There's my kind of broad. So's Hilly, who's been emailing me to arrange Saturday's pre-drinking drinking.

Then there's Colin, who I don't know but who, according to his blog, A Fish on a (Misspelled) Bycicle, is in love with a girl who doesn't exist. I wonder if her name is Jackie.

There's Ashbloem, a Knit Girl like my friend Maria, with blue hair who likes Swedish music. If there's karaoke at Tequilacon, maybe she'll sing some ABBA with me.

Jessica wrote recently that she was thinking of pulling the blog plug. I hope my new shoes have given you a reason to keep living. If you're my size, I'll even let you try them on tomorrow.

THIS JUST IN: Neil Kramer just called me. Yes, on the phone. Yes, that's right, I heard his voice. And nothing, ladies and gentlemen of Tequilacon, can prepare you for his accent. He may live in LaLaLand, but he's got Brooklyn in his soul.

My first Tequilacon story is here.

Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?

I meet the most interesting people in bars.

Take Phil, for example. He's a graphic artist for the Chicago Sun-Times, and has an Academy Award — for best educational film of 1989. He tells me about his latest project, constructing a 3D model of the new Wrigley Field.

I wait for him to say "da Bears" in a sentence, and when he does, it sounds just like John Goodman in the Saturday Night Live sketch.

(That's sketch, not Scotch.)

And then, later in his paragraph, as he's describing his attendance at a recent football game, Phil says, "I never bin an the field before."

Oh, how I love Chicago.

A good bar doesn't have a clock on the wall; only neon beer signs. And Warsteiner on tap, not Budweiser. A good bar has an entertaining bartender. And chairs that spin around. And french fries. And of course the very very best bars are the ones that have karaoke.

Resi's Bierstube has the first three of these, and the bartender's a doozie. His name is Seiser. Dared by the patrons, Seiser tends bar for several minutes with his pants around his ankles. (Thank god for boxer shorts.) This is no mean feat, make no mistake; the bar at Resi's is about 30 feet long, and he is the only one behind it. That's a lot of waddling back and forth.

I get the impression he's done it before.

A good bar has bar clutter. Bierdeckeln and cheesy plates on the wall. Entertainment for your eyes. I like clutter, and I miss it when it's gone.

Speaking of clutter, Dave wasn't exaggerating about the clutter in his apartment. Two people, two sets of furniture, two complete collections of books, CDs, DVDs, and video tapes, neatly labelled, of every episode of Star Trek TNG and the X-Files. On her way out the door on Friday morning Dave's roommate Bess picked up her keys, didn't notice that her magnetic clip-on sunglasses were stuck to them, and accidentally flung them across the room. She was still searching for them when I left on Sunday.

I tell Phil that Dave and I went to the Art Institute earlier that day. I don't tell him that I think the practise of hanging a Christmas wreath around the lions' necks is, well, disrespectful. To the lions.

Phil tells me that his mother went to art school with Andy Warhol, and that she has his box of pastels — used, and with his name written inside the lid. Phil says he's asked his mother to leave it to him in her will.

(I say, eBay!)

I like Andy Warhol's cats.

The Andy Warhol Museum is in Pittsburgh. That's also where Keppel is from. Keppel is sitting kitty-corner across from me at the bar, talking to Carrie. Dave tells him I'm Canadian.

"You're Canadian?" he asks, and I detect more than a little note of snarkiness in the question.

So I answer, "Yes. Eh."

"Pronounce 'against'," he says.

"Against."

"Say, 'Sorry'," he says.

"You mean as in, 'excuse me' don't you?" I clarify. "Like, What did you say? Sorry?"

He grins what can only be described as a Grinchy grin.

"Hey, do you hear that?" asks Phil.

He means the music being played on the bar's stereo system, as chosen by Seiser. I'd noticed Interpol earlier, and was impressed, but then became distracted by Mountie games with Keppel.

"It's The Buzzcocks," said Phil, answering his own question. "Noise Annoys. From Singles Going Steady."

"One of my favourite albums," I say, making sure to pronounce the word favourite with the U. "If it'd been Ever Fallen In Love, I would have noticed it right away."

Carrie was lamenting her lack of cleavage: "I was getting ready to come here tonight when I discovered my dog had chewed my bra! I had to resort to the sports bra. I didn't even bother to shower. I mean, what's the point of being clean when you don't even have a decent bra to wear, you know?"

"Don't you have any other bras?"

"No! I threw all the old ones away when I got the new one. It was my new one the little bugger chewed. So I had to decide whether to wear the sports bra or just boggle around. And now I have no tits!"

"What are you, Hunter S. Fuckin' Metcalfe?"

"Ever hear of a band called Naked Ragon?" asks Phil.

"No. How do you know so much about music?" I ask him.

"My mother was a singer. A famous singer. Well, small F famous. She was in a group called the Sweet Adelines — they once toured with Kenny Loggins. And she sang at the governor's mansion. Governor Clinton's mansion."

Someone mentions The Arcade Fire and I can't help myself; I go on my rant about how such overproduced, self-important, pretentious crap could only have come out of a bunch of guys from Montreal, the musical Bedrock of Canada, where young musicians grow up listening to Men Without Fucking Hats and are still listening to Yes and Genesis and Rush on CHOM-FM.

(I'm entitled to this opinion. I lived in Montreal for eight years during which time I never heard CHOM-FM play a song that was recorded later than 1979. I also managed a band, partied with Ivan from Men Without Hats, and learned to recognize the havoc they wreaked.)

"What do you mean, The Arcade Fire is Canadian?" says Keppel. He's offended that I should suggest such a thing.

I was beginning to recognize Keppel, too. As the resident wannabe recondite music critic.

"You didn't know?" I ask. "I'm not surprised; we walk among you unrecognized all the time."

(So long as we can keep from saying 'eh' after each sentence.)

Keppel practically spits his retort: "They're not Canadian. I happen to know for a fact that one of the guys in the band is from Texas."

"Keep telling yourself that," I say.

A girl at the far end of the bar who's been trying unsuccessfully to get Seiser's attention for some time now, finally does. She orders a glass of water. He brings her a giant glass mug full; it must have held one litre.

"You know those signs they have at pools?" Seiser is asking the patrons at the other end of the bar, now. "The ones that say, we don't swim in your toilet so don't pee in our pool? What if I wanted to swim in your toilet? What then?"

"You can get dyes that'll let you know if someone pees in your pool," offers Keppel.

"I don't like the pee pee discussion," says Carrie.

Dave is scanning the other side of the room, where a row of padded benches runs against the wall.

"Whenever I see a couch I want to lie down on it and take a nap," he says. "I can't help myself."

Dave's apartment has two entrances and lots of doors, many that I'm convinced lead nowhere, except perhaps to Narnia. Each of the two roommates' bedrooms has two doors. It struck me as surreal.

I like surreal.

The Art Institute of Chicago is home to the painting American Gothic, made famous by Bugs Bunny and a host of other comedians. There's always a big crowd around it. Those are the people who want to go back to their hometown of Buttfuck, Iowa, and say they saw a famous painting. They have no sense of irony.

I couldn't care less about American Gothic. I get the joke, and it's an ugly painting. Too, I am unmoved by most realist, naturalist, and impressionist paintings, uninterested in exhibits of pottery and ancient coins, embarassed on behalf of the abstract artists who are too stoned to be embarassed themselves for the great fraud they perpetrate on museum patrons, and I am drawn to the surrealists.

The Art Institute has a few Dalís, including A Chemist Lifting with Extreme Precaution the Cuticle of a Grand Piano (1936). I love his titles, and I prefer his earlier work.

Except for this one, which is from 1967.


I see it every morning when I step outside my bedroom door. I fell in love with Dalí when I saw the original in the Salvador Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg. It's four meters high by three metres wide. I stared at it for half an hour.

Several other Dalís and a couple of Magritte prints are framed and hanging in my home. Dave's favourite Magritte is Time Transfixed. This is mine.

This trip, I discovered a new artist: Gerhard Richter. At the Art Institue there were four of his canvases. His style is somewhat Jackson Pollacky; layers of paint, globs of paint, then some of it scraped away. It's supposed to be abstract, but close up I swear I saw snowy mountains with tiny brightly coloured skiers on one, and brightly coloured tropical fish on another.

I should have asked Bess about him — she was an art history major. Dave's roommate, Bess, is a delightful, curly-haired Star Trek nerd who knits but doesn't blog. And boy, does she knit. On New Year's Eve she declined to attend Jaime and Jamie's party, opting to stay home with an order of sushi, a bottle of champagne, and her knitting needles. When Dave and I returned from the party I counted six new scarves, two hats, and a cardigan on the dining room table.

Someone down the other end of the bar says, "I once saw the band Chicago play live."

"Does anybody know what time it is?" asks Phil.

"Ladies and gentlemen, it's time to go home," announces Seiser.

"What the heck does 25 or 6-2-4 mean, anyway?"

"The bar is closed, get out!"

In the next story, Postmodern Sass has an update on Andrew the bartender.

Been a long time since I rock and rolled

When Dave picked me up at the airport last Thursday it was the first time I'd seen him with his pants on.

See, he usually wears shorts. Yes, even in winter. Even to hockey games.

I was at the baggage claim in O'Hare, where we had arranged to meet, but I didn't see him approach because I was watching for my suitcase. Then I heard a familiar voice ask, "Should I start singing Foreigner now?"

I laughed, and handed him a silver bag.

Just before I left home to catch my plane that morning, I had emailed Dave and asked, do you remember what I look like, or should we work out a code — like, I'll be the tall redhead carrying the bottle of Macallan?

He thought I was kidding, but I never kid about sketch.

I've been to Chicago five or six times before, but always either on business, or on vacation. Once, back in the glory days when Mecklermedia did their Internet World shows three times a year, including Chicago in July, I went shopping at Filene's Basement with Tim and Lauren. And once, the X and I and another couple took the train for a St. Paddy's Day long weekend. But before I met Dave I had never known anyone who lived there, so I was thrilled to be back in one of my favourite American cities, this time moving beyond the tourist attractions, like Navy Pier and the Sears Tower, and getting the tour from a local.

So naturally the first place I wanted to go was the Hard Rock Café.

Dave was beginning to learn that there are many things I do not kid about.

I'd been to the HRC in Chicago once before, about ten years ago, and I already have, on my jean jacket, the Chicago guitar pin with the Route 66 logo on it. I thought it was about time to add a second Chicago guitar.

"Look, I know it's overpriced beer and mediocre food," I explained, "So you have to think of it like a museum, and that's the price you have to pay for admission."

What I love about the Hard Rock is the clutter. The handwritten notes from Elvis to a fan. John Lennon's scribblings on a napkin with the title, Imagine. The Sonny and Cher salt and pepper shakers in the Hard Rock in Hollywood. The slightly battered Sex Pistols posters that you can believe were actually once on the wall of a club. The Kurt Cobain guitar in New Orleans.

I wasn't prepared for what I saw when we arrived.

The outside of the building was exactly as I remember it ten years ago, but inside, everything had changed. Gone was the clutter, replaced, instead, with minimal, stylish, enlarged photographs and only the occasional guitar.

You could actually see the walls!

Still reeling with the shock of this initial impression, I bravely proceeded into the restaurant proper where the sight of the bar, something out of a sci-fi nightmare, was nearly enough to send me screaming for the door.

But we'd come this far, so we sat down.

The main atrium bar, once solidly wood and decorated with guitars, was now stainless steel and glass. Towering from the centre was a cylinder composed of eight rows of small silver screens blaring the proprietary HRC video channel, interspersed with glass shelves upon which stood a bottle of Bacardi. I wondered if this were a new form of product placement advertising. The tower was too tall for the bottles to be functional stock.

Dave was looking at the menu. "I'm not a big fan of seafood. Give me a taco and I'm happy as a clam."

The secret to eating at the Hard Rock Café is not to order anything you expect to be good, but to order the most simple item, so that even they have a hard time ruining it for you.

Actually, it's best to avoid eating there at all, but we'd been walking quite a bit and were hungry, so we thought we might as well.

Oh, how I lived to regret that decision.

I ordered a chicken breast sandwich with onion rings. I love onion rings. Whenever I see them on a menu I ask if I can have them instead of fries.

Then I went for a walk around the joint.

Ain't That America was playing on the video screens as I examined the upstairs memorabilia. Where once clutter ruled, now there were only three or four inset glass cases, each featuring a gold record, a photograph, and a tastefully placed guitar. The silvery symmetry of it all made me want to kick the glass in.

I returned to our booth via the back spiral staircase, accompanied by the pants of Cher, John & Yoko, and Gary Glitter, and downed my beer in one gulp.

Our food had arrived.

"How is it?" asked Dave, who had never eaten at a Hard Rock before.

"Well, I was expecting mediocre, but this is unusually mediocre," I replied. "Try an onion ring."

He did so, and said, "It doesn't taste like anything."

"Yeah, I know. What do you suppose they fry them in that has absolutely no taste?" I wondered.

On Michigan Avenue, Chicago's main shopping street, the Victoria's Secret and the Borders, my other two meccas, are located side by side. Have I mentioned, I love this city? It was an hour or so later, in Borders, when I received what in hindsight I recognize to be the first clue as to what, exactly, those onion rings were fried in.

For your information and future reference, Gentle Reader, the bathrooms in Borders are located in the basement. We had been browsing on the fourth floor in the CD/DVD section when the rather urgent need to get to the basement hit me.

But it wasn't until another hour and a half later, back in Dave's part of the city, when we were two blocks from his apartment, on our way to the store to buy beer, that I finally had the answer:

Castor oil.

Ooh, let me get back, let me get back... now.

The Onion Ring Occurrence was not so acute as to require me to get on the next plane back to Toronto and never look Dave in the eye again, but, well, let's just say it's damned fortuitous that my purchases at Victoria's Secret included five new pairs of underwear.

In the next Chicago story, Postmodern Sass becomes Surreal Sass. But first, she sings au revoir to Jack.

I Love Rock & Roll

On the day that my course syllabus for Marketing 101 reads "Services Marketing" I wear my Levi's jacket to school. It has 28 Hard Rock Café guitar pins pinned onto it at the angle which the guitar would be held if, you know, they were real guitars and if, well, I was holding them the way you hold a guitar when you play it. Except for the one that looks like Paul McCartney's Hofner, right down to its being left handed, so it has to point the other way on my jacket.

"How many of you have been to a Hard Rock Café?" I begin.

[They all have.]

"Who's been to a really interesting one? Someplace exotic. Other than the one at The Falls, I mean?"

[They laugh. They tell me about their experiences at the Hard Rock.]

"Have you been to all of those?" a student asks me.

"Yes I have. I've been to the original Hard Rock Café in London, and to most of the ones in the States and Canada. I've even been to this one, and I have the guitar pin to prove it.

[And the photo of me and my teddy bear, Antoinette, out front.]

"My favourite pin is the one I got in St. Thomas. The island in the Carribean, that is, not the town here in Ontario, on the way to Windsor. I was on a cruise a few years ago,

[with the X, before he abandoned me]

"and the ship stopped at the port in Charlotte Amalie. This is the pin I got from there:



"My other favourites are the Boston guitar pin, with the lobster wrapped around the guitar, and my twin Route 66 guitar pins, one from Chicago, the other from Los Angeles.

"As you can probably tell, I like the Hard Rock Café. And, just like you, I go for the great food and the fine selection of draught beer."

[They laugh. If they're paying attention, that is.]

"What, you mean you don't go to the Hard Rock Café for the beer?

"I want to tell you about an experience I had at a Hard Rock Café in New Orleans a couple of years ago. It was a few days before Mardi Gras started in earnest, on a weekday, at about 3:00 in the afternoon. It doesn't get much deader at a bar in New Orleans than that time of day, and that suited me just fine because when I go to the Hard Rock Café I like to walk around and look at all the memorabilia on the walls, and that's hard to do when the place is full. I've found people get annoyed at you when you approach their table and say, Excuse me, do you mind if I have a closer look at that autographed B-52's album cover behind your head?

"The friend who was in New Orleans with me humoured me on this mission. He's what you might call blasé about music, but he's reasonably enthusiastic about beer, and I said I'd buy. We sat at the bar, and by doing so doubled the population of patrons in the restaurant.

"While I'm waiting for my beer I study the guitars hanging behind the bar, and just as the bartender, a woman named Chris, places the glass in front of me I squeal, Oh, it's Kurt Cobain!

"It's not, of course; it's only one of his three sonic blue Fender Mustangs, and it's autographed."

[His custom-modified Fender Jag-Stang is in the Hard Rock in Dallas. I haven't been there. Yet.]

"Would you like to hold it?" asks Chris, and before waiting for my answer, she reaches behind her with one arm like this

[I demonstrate Chris's movements for the class.]

"and the next thing I know I'm sitting at a bar holding Kurt Cobain's guitar.

"I was too speechless to say thank you. I mean, aren't those things, like, bolted to the walls? I'd always imagined alarms would sound if someone dared to touch one.

"So I'm sitting there, holding this guitar, trying to remember how to make an F chord, because I think that's the opening riff of Smells Like Teen Spirit,

[I demonstrate, again. To tell you the truth, I've been acting the whole scene out with an air guitar.]

"and I look over at my friend, and he's got this look on his face that suggests to me that he is not appreciating Chris's marketing efforts, nor would he care to hear my explanation of what services marketers mean by "the experience economy." In fact, I'm pretty sure he doesn't even know who Kurt Cobain is.

"Then I look over to the door, gauging the distance,

[I look over to the door of the classroom.]

"then back to Chris,

[then back to the students]

"then back to the door, and I'm thinking to myself, yeah, I could make it!

[They laugh.]

"Of course I don't, but I'll never forget that bartender who made me a rabidly loyal customer of the Hard Rock Café."




* * *
Next, Postmodern Sass promises to finally tell you the story of her friend Angela who spent the summer with a cult in San Francisco. And maybe she'll tell you more about the Boz situation — the hockey game is next Monday.

New Orleans Is Sinking [part II - fin]

Continued from part I, with the following caveat: It may seem disrespectful of me to publish picayune prose in light of what's happening right now in the places I've described, but this story, named after the Tragically Hip song, was not meant to foreshadow Hurricane Katrina, which yesterday destroyed Biloxi and today is flooding New Orleans. I wrote this story in my hotel room in Biloxi last Tuesday night. And I flew home from New Orleans last Wednesday, four days before the order to evacuate the city was given, five days before Hurricane Katrina hit. Exactly one week ago I slept for two nights in one of the casino hotels on the Biloxi shore, hotels which may not be there next time I visit Mississippi. The Sun Herald has posted a casino watch on its home page. They report that the Beau Rivage is still standing, but the Grand Casino has washed away.



Though it has a grandiose name, the Imperial Palace suffers from delusions of grandeur.

The hotel made a splendid spectacle as I approached it late Monday night, looming above the darkness of highway 15 like a fat blue lightsabre, dwarfing the Beau Rivage, which sits modestly on the beach another block south. Ah, the Beau Rivage. One of my top five favourite hotels. I would have been there, instead of here at the faux palace had it not been three times the rate.

The Imperial Palace can't hold a canteloupe to the Beau Rivage. I tried its breakfast buffet on Tuesday morning, and learned that there is such a thing as bad corned beef hash. I drank bad coffee whitened with 10% real cream from tiny plastic containers — I had asked for milk, and am greatly peeved when waitresses fail to make the distinction between it and any other white liquid. I don't want to know what makes up the other 90% of the liquid in the container. I listened to too-loud bad 70s music being piped into the dingy room. I found that the assortment of bread at the buffet consisted of two packages of Wonder Bread, still in the plastic bags.

Bread comes in two varieties in the South: waaaat, and weeeet.

The Beau Rivage, on the other hand, is a gorgeous hotel. It's owned by the same company that owns The Bellagio in Las Vegas, where Jack has promised to take me one day. His game is baccarat. I already have the dress, an amazing eBay find from last summer. Vintage pink chiffon, with draping scarves. A shill dress if ever you saw one.

* * *
I don't know if the Jackson Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazelwood sing about is the one that's the capital of Mississippi — every state seems to have one in its collection of dead president towns, along with a Springfield and a Salem — but every time I see a sign pointing to Jackson, I hear Nancy.

You see a lot of those signs in Mississippi, because Jackson is the state capital, and it's located smack dab in the geographic centre. So all roads lead there, and you see a lot of signs. And I hear a lot of Nancy.

Which is why I always bring my Nancy Sinatra CD with me to Mississippi, as driving music. I know all her songs, and can sing along at the top of my lungs. Makes the trip go by faster, plus it's good karaoke practice. I've driven all over this state, from Tupelo in the northeast corner, to Memphis in the northwest; I've driven back and forth on the I-10 from Mobile to New Orleans, the full length of the Mississippi handle. I've been to Jackson and to Meridian; to Greenfield and Biloxi, and to every dot that connects them all.

They seem to like me down there, and I imagine I'll be back again one day.

I spend more time driving than doing what it is I go there to do, which is to give an hour and a half presentation on the ins and outs of marketing your small business online. I've been doing these sorts of presentations for ten years now, and we're getting down to the last few states that are still relative newcomers to the Internet. Last year I was invited to New Mexico, but that's another story.

At the conference on Tuesday my presentation was well received, and afterwards a small group gathered to quiz me further on how they might proceed with their online businesses. I met a man who looked just like Jimmy Carter, who was in charge of selling repossessed merchandise for a bank. (In the United States there are 8,000 banks, so many of them operate like small businesses.) There was an ebullient woman with dark, curly hair who proudly handed me her bright yellow business card as she told me about her ostrich farm. There was a family who makes goat's milk soap and other goat-related potions, and sells them online. But my favourite was the woman who makes bows. Just bows. Bows for hair, bows for decorating packages, bows for strewing the pews at a wedding. She and her two children make each one by hand.

* * *
My presentation done, I'm driving back down to Biloxi. I'll arrive sometime between 7:00 and 8:00, just in time to relax for a couple of hours, watch CSI on cable (It's always on, have you noticed?), and have a Beck's or two. I fly out late tomorrow morning, and there's nothing to do until then.

I stop at a Walmart half way. I love Walmarts on rural highways. Their recognizable beacon of a sign means there'll be lots of easy parking, a ladies' room just inside the door, some sort of grab-and-eat food and six packs of beer, all of which I can pay for with a credit card.

So that's what I do.

As I drive away from the Walmart I remember I don't have a bottle opener with me. Though I keep one in every suitcase, this trip I only brought an overnight bag. But I'll have to get gas before Biloxi; there's not enough to get me to New Orleans tomorrow. I make a mental note to choose a gas station with a convenience store. Then I listen to some more Nancy Sinatra.

Another fifty miles down highway 49 I'm coasting on fumes, so it's time to fill up. I pull into a gas station, fill the tank, then go into the convenience store. I make a quick trip up and down its three aisles, looking for hardware, find none, and ask the cashier,

"I'm looking for a bottle opener."

"A bottle opener?" the young woman behind the counter, whose name I like to think was Tammy, asks as she makes her way around to my side, apparently hoping to be helpful. "What do you need one of those for?"

"Uh, to open a bottle?"

"You got a rootbeer?" she asks, as she fingers some items dangling at the end of one of the aisles.

"No, beer bottles. You know..." I am at a loss to explain what a beer bottle is, and why I need a bottle opener. I mean, if she doesn't know what I mean, where can I even begin to begin?

"Well, here's a Coors opener," she offers.

It is indeed a Coors bottle opener, with a rubber handle and a Coors logo emblazened on it. It costs $3.50.

"I was hoping to find one of those plain metal ones," I say. "You know the kind; they have a can opener on one end and a bottle opener on the other? They cost about 50¢"

"Oh!" she laughs, suddenly understanding. "You don't need a bottle opener!" She returns to her side of the counter. "You just go like this." She demonstrates how to bang the cap off a bottle by holding it at a 45° angle on the edge of the counter.

Growing up in Beamsville I had a friend who lived in the trailer park, but I never did get the hang of opening bottles that way. I always manage to break the glass. And if I were to try this trick on the granite countertop of my bathroom in the Imperial Palace, that's almost a sure thing.

* * *
I had been watching David Letterman. It was Dave's mom's birthday, and he was speaking to her via live remote from her home in Indiana. She was standing in her kitchen, and looking damned fine for 84 years. She looks just just just like Letterman — only with blonde hair and bigger glasses. And I love the way she talks to him. Motherly. Patiently. Long-sufferingly. Sometimes she's funnier than he is.

"Happy birthday, mom," Letterman began. "Sorry I couldn't be there today, but you know I have this little show I have to do."

"Yes, David, I know," his mother replied, smiling.

"So who all is there? Did the whole family come down?"

"Well, your sister Gretchen is here with her husband and her son."

"How old is my nephew now?"

"He's eleven, David."

"Eleven! Holy gee willikers! Did you hear that, Paul? My nephew's eleven! And how old is my sister, mom?"

"She's fifty, David."

"Fifty! My little sister is fifty! You're kidding me! Are you kidding me, mom?"

"No, David."

"I was out in Montana a couple of weeks ago, mom," Letterman continued, "They call it Big Sky Country out there, did you know that? Have you ever been to Montana, Mom?"

"Now, David, you know I have."

He teases her, but he sure loves his mom.

When Jack called I had just turned out the lights.

"Hey, you," he said, and I've told you the rest.

Then I asked how he was doing, and he told me a story about Beauty.

"How are you, though, after what happened on Friday?" I asked Jack when he was done.

"I keep thinking about it," he replied. "How downtown San Francisco turned into the land of crazy people that morning. How I could have just as easily been standing another block farther along Kearny Street."

"But you weren't," I said.

"I wasn't."

"And you called me. That's something."

"I'm not used to having anyone care about me," said Jack.

"You thought it was September 11 all over again, didn't you?"

"It all came rushing back to me. The world was coming to an end, I was certain of it. And I had an image of them presenting you with the folded flag."

Then I was quiet for a long time.

It's a romantic image, isn't it? A sombre military funeral. A woman in black in the front row, being presented with a flag by an officer in dress uniform.

Only the woman in black would be Jack's mother.

New Orleans is sinking, man, but I know how to swim.

* * *
The song's full refrain is, "My memory is muddy, what's this river that I'm in? New Orleans is sinking, man, and I don't wanna swim."

New Orleans Is Sinking [part I]

When the phone rang in my room at the Imperial Palace in Biloxi just after midnight on Tuesday night, I knew it was Jack. I had just turned off David Letterman and the bedside lamp, and had given up on him — for the night, I mean. Jack seems to have a sixth sense about this; for knowing the exact moment at which I give up. Because that's when he calls.

He knew my schedule and I knew he wouldn't call on Monday night, because I was to land in New Orleans after 11:00 and it's at least an hour's drive to Biloxi. It was 1:30 by the time I checked in and made my way down to the casino.

Time means nothing in a casino, which is why I like to hang out in them. Sometimes. Not too frequently, and not for too long. But it's been a year and a half since I was last here. On that trip I had flown into Mobile, stayed in Biloxi, driven up to Meridian, then over to D'Iberville, then to New Orleans for Mardi Gras. The thing about Mississippi is, you can't fly there on Air Canada, and you have to drive anyway, once you're there, so you might as well fly into someplace interesting like New Orleans or Memphis.

It took me longer than I'd expected to drive here from the New Orleans airport. It had been thundering at the car rental office, and not long after I got out on the I-10 it opened up and poured rain of such biblical proportions I feared I'd be swept into the Tchoutacabouffa River. I had to slow down to 70 mph, the speed limit in Louisiana, which no one drives when the weather is clear. See, the roads are smooth as glass in the deep south, because there's no snow or ice to crack them up. The lanes on the highways are lined with tiny reflectors. It's mesmerizing. Easy to drive 85 and not feel like you're going too fast.

But back to Monday night: I'm sitting at a bar called Kanpai, in the casino at the Imperial Palace. Of the seven or eight bars in the casino I chose this one, bypassing the Geisha bar, the Mai Tai Lounge, and the Saki bar, because I was curious about the name. I asked Darnell, the bartender, what it means.

"It's Japanese," he says, then adds, "Or Chinese."

"I figured it was Japanese," I reply with a smile, keeping every drop of sarcasm out of my voice, because he meant well. "But what does it mean, do you know?"

"It's like a theme, the Imperial Palace. You know, it's all Japanese or Chinese or something. Asian."

Or something. I despaired of dwelling on this descant with Darnell.

I hadn't, in fact, yet made the connection between the name of the hotel and the names of the bars. The hotel itself is in no way reminiscent of Japan. Not outside, where the building is trimmed with pale blue neon piping, nor inside, where it is nondescript in every way. This is Biloxi, not Las Vegas. They don't seem to try very hard on their theme hotels. Not even the waitresses' outfits are Japanese in style.

It's a small bar. There are no draught taps, only oxymoronic Miller Genuine Draft in a bottle. I inquire of Darnell whether he has any German beer.

"Just Heineken," he says.

Though for many years I followed Tim's advice, to always drink the beer that's brewed closest to where you're sitting, there are places in the world, and Mississippi is one of them, where that's not going to be the best beer to drink and it just might be the worst. Besides, I had decided a few years ago that life is too short to drink American beer.

"Then that's what I'll have," I tell Darnell.

It had been a long flight — two, actually, through O'Hare — and a very bumpy landing. The pilot announced we were descending, gave the usual speech to the flight attendants about preparing the cabin for landing, which they began, lethargically, to do. Then, less than a minute later, the captain's voice clicked on again and barked, "Flight attendants, take your seats!"

Boy, did they. We headed in on what I like to think was a 45° angle.

After the landing the purcer — that's what she called herself — thanked us "on behalf of the San Francisco-based crew." I supressed the urge to ask her whether she'd ever encountered the chocolate guy.

A long flight, a bumpy landing, a rainy drive, and, finally, a lonely hotel. You can see why I needed a beer after that.

I'm the only person at the bar not playing the built-in video poker games. You know, Gentle Reader, what I'm doing instead, but what you don't know is that I'm doing it with Darnell's pen. Poor man, I'm sure he senses no tip from me, but he'll be wrong about that.

I have nothing against gambling, it's just that I'm not any good at it. Neither with slot machines, nor with stock options. I might risk $50 at roulette when I'm in Las Vegas, but not here, not this trip. Despite its name, there is no glamour in the Imperial Palace casino. There are no tourists, and I'm certain I'm the only business traveller.

At the check-in counter I had encountered a woman of about 45, dragging a very small girl by the hand. "Do you have any rooms for tonight?" she inquired, not politely, of the desk clerk, never letting go of the girl's hand.

As the woman leaned over the counter to fill out the registration form, the little girl leaned over and vomitted on the sparkling marble floor.

"You'll have to call someone to clean that up," the woman said to the desk clerk, as he handed her her room key.

There are few things sadder than a Mississippi casino at 2:00 in the morning.

* * *
I had just dozed off when the phone rang.

"Hey, you," Jack said.

"Hi," I replied, sleepily.

"Oh, I've woken you up! Go back to sleep, I'll call you tomorrow night."

"No, I'm glad you called."

"I thought you might be lonely," said Jack.

"I'm always lonely."

"More so than usual, then, without your kitties."

"Yes."

Then I told Jack about the drive up to Meridian, my presentation at MSU, and the girl at the gas station convenience store in De Soto, who taught me how to open a beer.

And I'll tell you, Gentle Reader, about them too, very soon.

* * *
After reading this Udge post I considered turning on comments today, then decided against it again, for the same reasons I explained here. I always enjoy hearing from my readers, but I prefer to receive and respond to your comments via email. I don't buy the argument that clicking on an email link is more difficult than filling out a comments form — in fact, it's simpler, but email is a private conversation where the commenter is identified to the commentee, which perhaps is why some readers shy away from it. It's also exactly the reason I prefer it.

Oh black water, keep on rolling

Tomorrow night I'm heading off to Mississippi again for a few days. The last time I was there was last fall, in the days just before the American presidential election. I went to Graceland with my best friend Kay, and a few days later I watched the election returns from a hotel room in Starkville. I still can't believe George Bush won again. It's like a bad Journey song.

This time I'll be flying into New Orleans, then driving up to Biloxi where I'll stay in one of those casino hotels. On Tuesday I'll drive up to Meridian to give a presentation to a group of small business owners on marketing their businesses on the Internet. I've been to Mississippi something like ten times now, at the invitation of the swell folks Mississippi State University.

I love the south. The people are so friendly. They're awfully religious, too; too much so for my liking, but I gotta think that if there is a devil he (or she) sure ain't Southern. I mean, can you imagine this:

"Haaaa-y! Welcome to Hay-el! I'm the Devil, and in just a few moments I'm going to have to set y'all on faay-er — but first, set yourself down a spell, I baked y'all a paaa-y!"

Tomorrow, before I leave, I'll post the final episode in the story of Postmodern Sass Goes To The U.K.

And I'm sure there will be new stories to tell of the Deep South when I return.
* * *
Well, that turned out to be another gigantic understatement of the year 2005. Postmodern Sass left New Orleans just ahead of Hurricane Katrina. Click here to read New Orleans Is Sinking.

Hotel California

I was reading my karaoke buddy Operaman's blog over the weekend and I laughed when I read this story. Not only because it's a damned funny story, but because it reminded me of a similar embarassing tale of my own, and, as I always say, if you can't laugh at yourself you can't expect other people to laugh at you.

For those of you, Gentle Readers, who also read Tim Bray, and to whom I've hinted that one day I'd tell you a Tim story, well, sit back, make yourselves comfy, here it is.

Be forewarned, however, that it is a story embarassing only to me, not at all to Tim. And while he knows part of the story, because he was there, he never knew, until now, the embarassing part, but since he's no longer my boss I don't need to worry about it being a career-limiting move.

It was September 1995, and I was the marketing manager for that long-defunct Internet search engine called the Open Text Index. Tim was my boss, but I had only met him once or twice, and only briefly, because he lived then, as he still does, in Vancouver, and Open Text was then, as it still is, in Waterloo. We had just signed a Big Deal with Yahoo! and were hosting a joint press conference at an Internet café in Greenwich Village — in New York City.

Man, those were the days.

When the press conference was over, we all came outside and stood on the café's patio in the sun. It was a heartbreakingly gorgeous day. There were six of us from Open Text, including the president of the company, who was busy schmoozing with his Yahooligan counterpart; Linda and Steve, on technical duty — this was a live "cybercast" — and David Weinberger, at that time our hired-gun P.R. guy. It was early for dinnertime, but just right for beer drinking time, and so we discussed where to go.

I remember looking down the street and seeing, in the distance, the twin towers of the World Trade Center. We were staying at the Marriott in the plaza there, the Marriott that is no longer there.

"Why don't we walk back?" I suggested. "I'm sure there are lots of places along the way, and we're in no hurry, are we?"

We were all staying at the hotel that night, flying home the next day.

I was surprised at the grumbling replies of "too far" and "too tired" and "have work to do."

Only Tim said, "Let's go."

So we did.

I just love walking in Manhattan when the weather is fine, and I don't mind it even when it's not. I've been to New York many, many times and I've covered on foot the entire distance from the south ferry to Columbia University. I would have been happy to walk south to the World Trade Centre that day alone, but I was even happier to have some company.

Just between you and me, Gentle Reader, I was also a little bit nervous. This was my boss, remember. I didn't know him very well, but I knew him well enough to know that he was about eight million times smarter than me. And I was smart enough to know that he was still forming an opinion of me. The next few hours had the equal potential to be a friendship-bonding or career-ending experience.

We set off along a street whose name I can't recall, in a southerly direction. I've been to New York three or four times since September 11, 2001 and have missed the twin towers, and their guidepost-like ability to give you your bearings and act as a beacon. In Toronto we have the CN Tower, which serves the same propitious purpose.

It wasn't long before we chose our first oasis. Tim walked in first, headed straight to the bar, and took a seat.

"Are you a bar-sitting kind of guy?" I asked. I, too, prefer sitting at the bar rather than at a table or a booth.

"When I don't know the area, I always sit at the bar. Bartenders are a wealth of information," Tim replied.

"Bartender, what's on draft?" Tim directed his question to the man currently in charge. He's not one for small talk, I thought, and marked that as a point in his favour. I'm no good at small talk myself, neither am I above despising those who are.

The bartender recited his list.

"Is there a local beer?" asked Tim. Then, to me: "Always drink the beer that's brewed closest to where you're sitting."

I have never forgotten that piece of advice, and have imparted it frequently to friends, even to strangers. We had one beer, maybe two, then proceeded on our peregrination.

I don't remember where we ate dinner, or what we ate, and I remember little of the specifics of our conversation. I do remember that I was never bored, not even for a moment, and that I hoped the twin towers would be farther away than we had originally bargained for.

Night had fallen, but the evening was still fine and warm. We entered another establishment, and sat again at the bar. I don't remember which one of us said it first, and which expressed surpise that the other had, but the comment was this:

"Good single malt collection."

The bottles were, of course, clearly visible from the bar vantage. There was Glenlivet and Glenfiddich, Macallan and the other commonplace scotches, but what precipitated the comment was the Lagavulin, Dalwhinnie, and my favourite, Laphroaig.

Neat.

We sampled a couple of fine distilled malt beverages, and then the conversation became even more fascinating. Tim told me about working on the Oxford English Dictionary project, and about the interesting words he'd learned. (At such time as he sees fit to market his lustrous t-shirts, I will be the first customer.) He told me that he'd been married, and that he and his ex-wife were still friends, and how they had sent out divorce announcements the way people send out wedding announcements. He told me about growing up in Lebanon, and he likened the Internet to the telephone system he became accustomed to in that time and place — how it's far from perfect, it drops your connections now and then, it doesn't work all the time, but it's a great, great idea and it'll improve.

Have I mentioned I grew up in a hick town called Beamsville?

I was in awe.

And I was starting to feel drunk.

Now, I don't need you to tell me, Gentle Reader, that getting drunk is never a good idea, especially with co-workers and even more especially with your boss, but perhaps I don't need to tell you, either, that when you're drunk there's nothing you can say to yourself that will convince you of this truth.

I don't remember everything that happened after that. I very likely said some unintelligible, perhaps even downright stupid, things. On the bright side, I am a happy drunk — I love everybody, and at worst might need to be restrained from dancing on tables (or singing on balconies) — so it's doubtful I got into any serious trouble. Tim would have told me. I hope.

I remember a fountain. One of those big, round, constantly spraying ones, in a plaza. The kind that children will climb into on a hot day. I vaguely recall standing on the edge and daring Tim to dare me to jump in, a dare I would have taken, because I rarely can resist a dare, especially when I'm drunk.

But he didn't, and so I didn't. I think.

I'm sure we made it back to the Marriott, because of what was about to take place, but I have no recollection of the last few blocks. There may have been one last oasis; I'm not sure.

The next thing I remember is waking up in the middle of the night and having to go to the bathroom very, very badly. You know how, when you wake up in a strange place you take a moment to get your bearings? Well, I didn't take that moment. I didn't turn on the light. I may have thought I was at home, and so I tried to find the bathroom door by rote.

When I opened my eyes I was in the hallway, and the door to my room had closed behind me.

You can check out any time you like, but don't forget to go to the bathroom first.

I was very drunk. The scotch had had a few hours to seep into my brain, but good. I had no idea what time it was. There was no one in the hallway; no sound from anywhere.

I couldn't remember which door was mine. Not that knowing would have helped me enter it.

I wandered in the hallway with no plan. Then I knocked on a door. I have no idea what I hoped for, maybe that I'd find Linda — she might have been staying on the same floor. Someone yelled at me from inside a room to go away. It wasn't Linda. Tim may have been on the same floor somewhere, too, and to this day I thank god, even though I don't believe in him, that I didn't knock on Tim's door in my stuporous condition.

Before long I came to the elevator. I shook the cobwebs out of my rattled brain and reminded myself how one functions. I was crossing my legs and walking funny by this time.

I remember being just aware enough of my predicament to realize that I was about to enter a world of embarassment in the lobby of the Marriott, but I had to pee so bad I no longer cared. It was a very, very big lobby, but thankfully it was almost empty. I went to the desk.

The clerk took pity on my and led me to the bathroom behind the desk. I imagine there was one out in the lobby somewhere, but I wouldn't have been able to find it with simple directions. The clever man must have sensed this, and weighed allowing me into forbidden territory versus having to call someone to clean up the mess I would surely make if left unattended.

I have never been so relieved, metaphorically and literally, in my life.

Then the desk clerk, god bless him, made me another key, and called a bellman who escorted me back to my room. He actually opened the door for me, turned on the light, held the door to let me in, then gave me the key.

I hope I thanked him.

Throughout this adventure, Gentle Reader, I was wearing my favourite dusty pink silk Victoria's Secret nightshirt with absolutely nothing on underneath. It was then about 15 years old, had been washed thousands of times, and was, and still is, very, very flimsy.

Come to think of it, that may have been why the desk clerk and the bellman were so solicitous.

Then again, I'm sure they've seen stranger things. As I told Operaman, if you work at that Days Inn for a few months you'll be able to write a book.

* * *
Gentle Reader, there may be a dearth of stories for the next week or two, until I return from England. Until then, do visit some of my bloggerly friends — you'll find them over to your right.