There's Got to Be a Morning After

See that photo up there? Yeah, I took it after my first, and to date last, visit to Bar Great Harry. It was a rollicking night for many reasons not the least of which being that it got underway at after 2:00 a.m. Okay, so it was more like a rollicking morning, but anyway. Me and Ron got off the late shift and took the company car straight to the bar where we ordered up a bunch of extreme brews. We started out with the Weyerbacher 13, clocking in at a stunning 13.6 per cent alcohol content. It was brown and really, really tasty, almost like food. Checking back I'm disappointed to find the bar isn't serving it anymore. You snooze you lose, I guess. Then we moved on to a Goose Island Bourbon County Stout 2008 clocking in at a mere 11 percent alcohol. I was impressed by the Bourbon Country (one of the things I missed most in Brazil was Bourbon) and the fact that this beer had a vintage, but the beer itself had a strong yeasty flavour I found objectionable. I drank it anyway. Finally, (and I mean finally because the bartender didn't even want to serve us because it was 10 minutes to closing time and she thought we'd be keeping her at work too late just drinking it) we had the Dogfish Head 120 Degrees which has a respectable 12 percent alcohol content. Brooklyn we go hard. After that we caroused down Smith street to a diner. All the while, I was filling Ron in how the neighborhood changed since I used to hang around there in the mid-1980s. Doubtless, I was very eloquent all the while, but I don't think I managed to paint a mental picture for Ron of what Smith Street once look liked back in the day. Truth be told it's hard to remember when you're that drunk. Oh well. Then we had burgers at this dinner _ I think I remember some guy dressed in purple like Prince, but that might have been an hallucination _ and headed home on the F Train. This was very nice of Ron, since he only lived one stop away. When we got into the train, it was filled with a scattering of tough looking men, all sleeping men all with their hoodies pulled over their heads. For some reason, this shocked Ron but I just sat down, pulled my hoodie over my head and teased Ron about not having a hoody of his own. When I got out at my stop I was so moved by this poster for a TV show call Bad Girls or something that I took the photo posted above. Poor girl, I made her look like Francis Bacon got a hold of her and no one deserves that.

Anyway, that's kind of how I feel about last night's post teasing Jack about mourning the end of newspapers. I was drunk, see, having downed three bottles of Dogfishhead Rasion d'Etre 2000 (another vintage beer but only about 8 percent alcohol). I kind of suspected my post would be trouble when I was writing it but I also thought maybe mashing it up a bit with Jack would increase our readership, earnestness doesn't sell. One of the things I've noticed lately is a number of newspapers and magazines caught short by the Internet seem to be going provocative to keep their audiences _ something that is doubtless contributing to the widening disrespect for the media. I think there were a lot of valid points in yesterday's post, but I don't think they were fleshed out well. I think it mostly sounded like an anti-capitalist rant, or more like just being upset about not getting to fly business class. It might have helped if I found an old black and photo of Godzilla doing battle with Mothra. I also didn't do very well at connecting the dots between Bernie Madoff and Jack. Actually, I'm not sure there's any connection at all. Sorry, Jack.

Actually, it was all terribly insensitive of me, since I've never even worked at a newspaper, only at wireservices. And I don't really know anyone who's getting laid off. Though my friend Jack Epstein at the San Francisco Chronicle would seem a likely candidate, sorry other Jack. Actually, sorry to all the Jacks in the world. What was that Maureen McGovern song from the Poseidon Adventure, "There's Got to be a Morning After."