Quinty and Jazzolog after a long walk through the neighborhoods outside.
The monk from Shu with the silk lute case,
walking west of O-mei mountain,
Has with a light touch of the strings
enveloped me in the pines of a thousand valleys.
I hear him in the shimmering brook,
I hear him in the icy wind.
And I feel no change as the mountain darkens
and autumn's dark clouds heap in the sky.
---Li Po
You're asking the wrong questions. If you want to make the world a better place, tell funnier jokes!
---Woody Allen
Monk: "How shall I escape birth and death?"
Shih-kung: "What is the use of escaping it?"
---Zen mondo
Our real and true identities are mystery enough. Out with it, I say! The Wulfshead is not Skull And Bones. The secrets here are inevitable, eternal, and the keys to answers are what we seek. Escape is not such a key. The photo was taken by his date for the other evening.
It is only fitting that Li Po, "the soul of the liquor star," would have his own table here at the Wulfshead.
ReplyDeleteWhen the conditions are just right, shall they open the right door, it may happen that patrons will exit the Wulfshead on the trail up from the village of Jingshui, not far of the base of O-mei mountain.
Some travelers prefer to take a bus from Emei Town, but hiking the mountain is a far more rewarding experience: the gentleman from Ohio still seems a bit high from the hike. The trek can be strenuous, and it does look like the gentleman's companion could use a stiff drink, but the view from the summit can be spectacular early in the morning between 9 and 10 am at this time of the year.
While they are visiting the area, I trust that the gentlemen will avail themselves of the opportunity to view the comming solar eclipse from Mt. O-mei, which summit is due to come almost directly on the centerline of the eclipse's path, next week on Wednesday.
I must admit I don't know what the gentleman who posted this entry above is talking about? Skull and Bones? The truth? Reality? Identity?
ReplyDeleteI have known a few bartenders in my life. My grandfather (mother's side) in fact was one. He once famously remarked (famously in our family) that he was "a past master of BS."
Bartenders dispense dreams as well as drinks. They put up with a lot. I have never known a bartender to be entirely what he is except at closing time when everyone is so drunk he only desires to tally the night's proceedings and close up. The rest of us don't care.
That is all fine and well.
His job is to dispense booze. Our job is to get drunk. My grandfather exemplified the American dream. He had only a fourth grade education and ended up a millionaire, mostly legal. Booze, in the Midwest, was, and is as it is throughout most of the world, a sure financial winner. He owned several liquor stores and bars in Terre Haute, Indiana. He knew that railroad town (home of Eugene Debbs) when it still had the cast of the frontier on it, having been born in 1868. Many of us thought he was a great man. He died in 1963. You do the math.
"Some people say I have a drinking problem. I drink, I get drunk, I pass out and fall off my barstool. No problem."
But then the patron who posted the entry above may not have been thinking of our bartender. (Me, personally, I watch out for that kind of touchy stuff. After all, they, bartenders, have the immense power to 86. Nobody wants that. But it may be a case of having your cake and eating it too, in that you might like to make a drunken fool of yourself while simultaneously receiving the approbation of the dispenser of our distilled spirits, the friendly bartender. I’m not speaking, of course, of you, the reader, necessarily. You may not even go into bars.)
Bars are places for dreams, for desires, where hope becomes reality. Bars inform us when we’re down that the dream of life is not a sham. But that we matter, truly matter, and that all those hard, cold, sober problems out there aren’t really important, at least not tonight. The morning, only the morning, is cold, drenched in sunlight. The time to consider where you actually are.
Which is why I drink only to celebrate. It is quite foolish and self-destructive, in my sober, humble opinion, to ever drink to escape. That only makes things much worse.
Even love sickness is better dealt with sober than with drink. Though alcohol has helped me a couple of times with a deep grief. (Isn’t love sickness a form of grief?) But then alcohol can be like a form of medicine, and you have to know when to stop. It takes skill to drink.
In Europe they begin to teach their children young how to drink. Here we have a puritanical attitude toward drink. We envision drunken teenagers smashing their cars. And that does happen. But perhaps it would help if we began to teach them how to deal with booze at an early age. Once, visiting some family in Madrid, a new mother at the dinner table fed her baby child a bit of wine with a teaspoon. The child survived, but the family stared at me in an amused way. Frankly, I felt insulted. I didn’t fit the American stereotype and saw nothing wrong with what the mother did. It’s the same way, too, about sex. Our puritanical attitudes often prevent us from being realistic and sensible.
But I still can’t understand what the poster of this post was talking about?
All right boys, here's the deep underlying meaning. My invitation to this Blogger manifestation of The Wulfshead came early on. I don't recall it exactly, but I think it may not have involved either the Bartender or Concierge Lloyd---at least at first.
ReplyDeleteThere were 1 or 2 original members who may have had a hand in it. Neither of those characters appears any longer in the membership to the left of this entry. I wonder what became of them.
Sometimes I think I may have known them at another site, and there real names may have been used. Email addresses may have been provided, but they aren't here. So they have vanished into thin air.
I understand such comings and goings are part of The Wulfshead charm. But once in a while I yearn for ectoplasm with whom I actually can maintain some contact. Like Quinty up there. Him I know I can throw my arm around and take a walk up Mount OMeiOMye if we like. And there we are. It's really us, and the names we use in the everyday are attached. It's just an individual variation within our membership. And now thank you, and good night.
Drinking alone by moonlight, sir?
ReplyDeleteSunning
ReplyDeleteThe thin sand sifting in the sea breeze
the hard sun irascibly spreads bright over me
quietly sunning out on the beach
Tranquilly
in perfect stillness
passing thoughts stray
like lonely pebbles dropping through water
The Writer's Almanac poem for today~~~
ReplyDeleteSober Song
by Barton Sutter
Farewell to the starlight in whiskey,
So long to the sunshine in beer.
The booze made me cocky and frisky
But worried the man in the mirror.
Good night to the moonlight in brandy,
Adieu to the warmth of the wine.
I think I can finally stand me
Without a glass or a stein.
Bye-bye to the balm in the vodka,
Ta-ta to the menthol in gin.
I'm trying to do what I ought to,
Rejecting that snake medicine.
I won't miss the blackouts and vomit,
The accidents and regret.
If I can stay off the rotgut,
There might be a chance for me yet.
So so long to God in a bottle,
To the lies of rum and vermouth.
Let me slake my thirst with water
And the sweet, transparent truth.
"Sober Song" by Barton Sutter, from Farewell to the Starlight in Whiskey. © BOA Editions, 2004.
That's a good one.
ReplyDeleteBut don't print it out and send copies down the bar. It may create the wrong idea. We don't want the joint to empty out.