Things that I like...

For one, I do not like Regina Specter. Who was on Conan, until I turned her off.

I like Negra modelo. It's a good, simple beer. A little lime there and it fits apropo too this un-fucking-believably contemptuous weather we seem to be having. What's up with the heat, God?

I like Battlestar Galactica. Especially the last season. What a work of visceral, binding, artistically visionary brilliance! Not going to ruin it for the group of zero who will actually ever read this, but wow... just wow. Though I did think that last hour there did run a little humdrum long. Just sayin'.

And Caprica 6.... rrrrrrrrooowr.

Ahem... Anyway.

Nothing special happened today. Another day on the grind. Got a lot accomplished; which was nice. I feel like this whole manager thing is starting to work out for me. It'd be nice, granted, if I could just do things my way.... buuuuuuut.... well, that's not my place, or the reality of any job ever. So. It's about as close as one could get; so I'm mostly happy.

It'd be nice to actually get time to myself, other than the times where I'm so tired I just convalese on my couch for a few hours. But it's nice to get paid to do what I love; so I accept the other stuff.

I worry sometimes about my body breaking down. A torn ligamint here, a cracked rotator cuff there. Sometimes it feels like bartending is a full-contact sport.

But that's neither here nor there.

Fuck me, it's hot.

I like smoking.
I know I shouldn't. But hell.

I'm not sure about this blog stuff. It makes me feel like I'm not very interesting. Or maybe it's just the day. Nothing interesting happened today, nothing that I can publish anyway. I went to work, worked, came home, watched battlestar galactica, and decided to practice this writing bit...

Hmmmm.... I used to be good at this, I swear.

Here, here's this thing: I wrote it dead drunk (or sobering up?) at 6am:

Bartender @ 6am

Well...

It's been a long time.
A long time since I've met you: The written word meets prose or... poetry? I am unsure.
Meets poignancy, intimacy, improv, and intellect.

Been a long time since these cracked, numb and ugly fingers have hit any keys since:
hotmail.com, facebook.com, and whatever regarding work.

I have no idea what to say... So here's this:

I saw an old woman apply lipstick to herself,
Kissing the compact mirror, she grew twenty years younger.
I approached her, only to walk by and smile. I saw her grin content, knowing she just ignored her imminent demise.

She sat on a rock. Content.

She made my day.

I saw an old man try to impress a young girl by throwing down an Amex Black,
And I felt sick to my stomach...

I look at my hands after spending my months ignoring my social life, my personal time, or my sanity.
They are cracked, bleeding, broke. And nobody else seems to notice.

... I take this as a sign of getting older.

The bigger picture gets much, much bigger, and we all seem to fit into whichever mold.

The drunk, the louse,
The whore, the saints and
Sinners alike... the generous, the cheap...
The ones who see the day to day as if nothing else matters,
Or the ones who embrace the grander scheme of things...

They all end up sitting or standing on one side or the other...

We mosey into a lack of detail. Of perspicacity...

And yet...

I am forever grateful to shake hands with those like me; those of us with broken, bleeding hands, those of us who's arms and backs and shoulders and legs need more than one day of rest. The one's with swollen elbows and neck pain. Losing our voices over crowds, and wondering one day, will we have a voice

Will anyone ever care about us the way we try to care about everyone else?

Those of us who feed the rest of those in need.

Those of us that nobody else will ever notice.
Those of us who are in pain, and need time to ourselves, but cannot have it. Because we have to serve those who need it as much as we do.

Those of us who quiet the inner screaming / sanctimony of those who view themselves as our betters.

Those of whom are not our betters, but our purveyors, our perverts, our voyeurs, sycophants, admirers, our necessity, neediness; our audience, friends, loyalists, and grateful friends: The ones without whom we could not exist. Our sometimes grateful patronage / our often times disparaging, insulting clientele.

But... I am tired. I am tired and crazy. And at moments, I lack perspective... so...

I quiet myself. For a moment. A moment married with cerveca, scotch, inner conflict, an obtuse sense of humility, and intense pain in my back, forearms, and hamstrings...

I want to sleep for days, and forget I ever fell in love with my job...

I shiver, amazed for once that I'm awake at 6am. Knowing that mere hours from now, I'll be awake and shining, showing nothing of my doubts, my fears, my entire calamity that only arrives at 5am.

I embrace this, knowing that I am young, that I have years to quiet those inner rumblings.
I embrace this, knowing that I have so much more to learn.
I embrace this, knowing that I have so much farther to go, and that this is just another stepping stone.

I take a breath, and read someone else's prose:

... "you'll discover that the word and the tear are twins
and the Arabic poem is no more than a tear wept by writing fingers."

And I am moved irrevocably.

I remember Kerouac.
And Tennyson.
And Langston Hughes.
T.S. Elliot, and Dylan Thomas...

I sit, half drunk, exhausted, embracing what I love almost to a suicidal degree...

I haven't written a damn thing besides a liquor order in almost a year....
I feel rusty, nonchalant, comedic, and enlightened in a way that I'll just forget in the morning.

And I'll wake up, smoke my cigarette, have my coffee, and keep moving.... If only just to keep moving.

27 years old and sure of the fact that if reincarnation is true; than I'll likely be reborn a baby lion.

Something small, but with the potential to be a king.

As for now, I remain embedded in scotch. Nostalgia. In awe of the future. And an unabashed sense of right in the world. And for whatever,

I am moved.

... And sometimes, that just has to be enough.

Maybe I should just reserve stuff like this until I'm heavily intoxicated. Maybe that would help.
Kay sera, sera.

bars, beers, blogs.... and the beatles.

Well...

I never know how to begin.

Anything, really; least of all a blog.

Specifically... is this a blog about bars? About bartenders, bartending... or just some unassuming, sometimes drunkenly (it's realistic) assuming psychological game of scatagories writ from the mind of someone who probably should not be given yet another forum to make himself known.

What's the reason? Hell, what's the rhyme?

I never know how to begin these things....

So I'll start like this:

On the walk home tonight, I saw a man, clearly intoxicated, possibly insane, smack the back of a bus as it drove off. I couldn't tell if in his mind, the public transit vehicle was an enemy, or some ship that he himself were christening to give it safe voyage.

These are the things I think about.

Lately my life has been an endless series of invoices and inventory. Of making best attempts at creativity, but feeling creatively stifled by a lack of sleep and too many hours on the grind. The life of doing the job; or the lifestyle the job entails.

Which came first, the alcoholic or the gig?

I first thought about this whole blogging thing by listening to two of my best friends, who have blogs of their own, go on about the positive things it can do for ones career.

But I wonder; can I actually blog about cocktails?

I honestly don't know. I don't think about cocktails outside of making them while I'm making them. Typically. Sometimes I get a splash of inspiration and get that electric rush of wanting to rush to work and make it and see how it turns out. And usually, albeit sometimes it absolutely turns out to be the biggest piece of shit-swill one could ever imagine; sometimes it's a smash!

But I spend almost 60 hours, often times more, thinking about work, and bar tending, and cocktails, and menus, and cost, and orders, and my staff, and so on and so forth and so forth and so forth....

I don't think I can blog about any of that.

So I'll blog about something else.

What it is, I don't know yet.

Perhaps I'll figure that out in the 2nd post.

Hi, my name is Casey.

I'm a bit of a functioning alcoholic, a novice bar manager, a helluva bartender, and a pretty good guy who's just started a blog.

Oh, the possibilities.