transcription (09-04-06)

Red Hook has three great bars- Bait and Tackle, The Pioneer, and the historic Sonny’s. It’s Labor Day, and the Bait and Tackle is the only one open tonight, but it is getting the job done just fine. Red Hook has a vibe that reminds me a lot of Portland, at least that of the hipster contingent. It has more of a neighborhoody feel and seems less cosmopolitan. People ride bikes, dress casually, and actually say hi to each other when walking down the street. Red Hook is a little bit isolated from the rest of the city, so I suppose that creates a closer nit community, and there seems to be more artists here and less yuppies, though it is getting harder and harder to tell them apart these days.
The Bait and Tackle is pretty nice. As the name suggests, it sports a fishing and hunting motif, with the walls decked out with taxidermied animals, mounted fish, photographs, trophies, and layers of fishing related paraphernalia. Two guys sit next to me talking about the weather in Seattle and how bad the winters are. Sounds like one of them has lived there, as he knows the early sunsets and short days, as opposed to the rain, are what really make the winters difficult. But now he is trying to wax something about how it is a dry climate. He is obviously drunk. I have no real beef with people fearing the weather of the PNW. In fact yes, it is awful, don’t move there.
I can’t tell how old the Bait and Tackle is or how long it’s been around for. It feels like an old man bar that has been open for decades, but I have a feeling it might be a hipster re-creation. It kind of reminds me of Dots in Portland, but with more character. I’ve always thought Dots felt a bit like a retro-furniture store with really good food. The Bait and Tackle feels like a personal collection of artifacts that must have taken many years to accumulate. And they have two dollar pints of Schaffer’s, which start off a little rough but taste better as the night goes on.
Earlier today I went to the West Indian Day Parade in Prospect Park. Crazy floats, Mardi-Gras Indians, hundreds of food vendors and millions of people. It was pretty intense and felt more like a street party than a parade. By far, the most exciting moment was when a float drifted by that Jamaican rapper Sean Paul was standing on top of performing. The float had a monstrous sound system, and at least 2000 people who had jumped the barricades were walking along side it, jumping and dancing and waving Jamaican flags. As it drifted down the parade route, the thunderous float and subsequent army of followers waving flags was one of the most powerful and exciting spectacles I have ever seen. The energy was overwhelming, more powerful than any march or protest I have ever seen.
I always feel kind of silly sitting at a bar writing in my journal, but it’s too late to go back now so i better just keep my head down. Something about the soothing buzz from the beer and the stimulating atmosphere makes writing in bars really easy. Plus, it takes commitment- if you are going to be ‘that guy’ sitting there with your head in your journal, you better look like you are busy writing. You don’t want to sit there starring off into space, looking like you are trying to be poetic. When I first sat here I had an entire half of the bar to myself, but now there is a group of three young women sitting next to me that I should probably be trying to flirt with or something. But that sounds so impossible, and when you are in a bar by yourself you don’t have anywhere to escape to- no friend waiting back at a table, no group to re-engage in a conversation with. Just you, awkwardly sitting there all by yourself, with everyone knowing you just got shot down by some girl. But, even worse than that, I think I have really bad b.o. right now. I was in the sun all day and walked for hours, and a day of sweaty new york air has left me smelling pretty foul, making this a no win situation. It’s one thing to be that weird stinky, mysterious loner hunched over his journal sitting at the end of the bar writing, but an entirely different thing to be that stinky weird loner creep who hits on girls who don’t want to be hit on. Oh shit, they are all getting up to go have a smoke, and two of them definitely gave me the eye. Now would be the perfect time to go have a smoke and talk to them, but, I don’t smoke. Smoking has always been a good social crutch for meeting people, and I suppose New York’s new smoking ban only makes that more so. But then again, I don’t like cigarette smoke, and kissing a smoker can sometimes be kinda gross. Plus, the tobacco industry is probably second only to the oil industry for the prize of “evil corporate power most responsible for destroying the world”, and I tend to be disappointed with people who choose to patronize them, so maybe going out to flirt with these girls isn’t such a good idea after all. Or maybe I am just trying to come up with excuses for why I shouldn’t try talking with them.
Okay, so I just got a refill of Schaffer’s and had a little conversation with the bar tender and found out that this bar has only been here for three years. But it was in fact a bait and tackle shop and the sign out front is original. That all makes perfect sense. I couldn’t imagine this bar existing in this neighborhood for too long of a time, seems way too hipsterish and not old-manish enough, but the fact that it was a bait and tackle shop before explains the weathered ambiance a bit. It is not fabricated history, just augmented. Out with the night-crawlers, in with the Schaffers.
At the parade today I took a lot of pictures “from the hip.” I must have been inspired from hanging out with Jem (king of shooting from the hip) Cohen, and I snapped dozens of pictures by simply aiming my camera at a subject and taking the picture without actually looking through the view finder. It’s a great way to take pictures of people when you don’t want them to know your taking their picture, and having a digital camera makes it a lot easier because you can take tons of pictures and just delete the bad ones (which there are usually a lot of). I messed up plenty, mis-judging the focal range or simply cutting off the person’s head, but a couple of them turned out real nice. As soon as I leave this bar I will go play with the good ones in photoshop.
The guy who was sitting behind me talking about Seattle is named Jack Daniels. Really. He just introduced himself to the group of girls and the bartender vouched for him. Even said it got him a free drink one night, of Jim Beam. I guess if you are going to have a name that is ridiculously famous, it’s good to have one that helps to get you drunk every now and then. The girls don’t seem all that interested with Jack, and he retreats to his buddy but they seem to be on their way out anyhow. That is always a good time to try to start a conversation- if you are on your way out you can just keep going if it doesn’t look good, but pull up a chair if it is going well. At least that’s what I have heard. I am so stinky I am starting to gross myself out, this humidity really gets me greasy. There is a new dude sitting on the other side of me at the bar. He too is alone and has that pseudo intellectual look that makes me worried that he is going to want to talk to me. He might start with the girls first, but he might think I am a safer bet. When you have your head down writing in a journal, girls won’t interrupt you, bar tenders won’t interrupt you, but pseudo intellectual dudes will always interrupt you. I think it is because they feel some sort of kinship, and assume that what ever it is you are writing is probably something they know a lot about and therefore you’d rather be talking with them about it instead of writing about it. “What are you busy writing about?” “Well, funny you should ask, I am writing about how I don’t want to get stuck in a conversation with you.”
He is probably a really nice guy, I think I have just had too much stimulation today, and too many beers at this bar. I probably couldn’t really form a good sentence if I had to. For some reason I’ve always liked to sit in bars and write and be totally anti-social but still completely engaged in the social situations around me. It is sort of like participating, but as a spectator. Sometimes talking just seems too difficult, and the beer is the only thing that makes sense. In fact, I’ll have another if you don’t mind.
Pseudo Intellectual dude seems more interested in playing video games than talking to me or the girls. Which is sort of a relief, because if he had wound up talking to the girls I would have felt a bit jealous. It is better to just think of them as some impossibly unapproachable thing. I don’t need him to dismantle my theory. The girls are going out for another round of smokes. I have caught eyes with one of them so many times that I either need to go talk to her or absolutely never look up at her again. We are way past the look and smile stage. How did we get here so quickly?
My beer is almost empty, and my penmanship is getting worse and worse. Soon I’ll need to make a big decision.