Back in the days when Jack Daniel and I were close friends, I used to do and say a lot of very stupid things. It wasn't my fault. I blamed it on the booze. As an anonymous old bluesman once sang, "I was high, baby, when I did you wrong and you know it don't count when you're high."
I remember staggering home one evening from my local swill-a-teria and passing my neighbor's house on the way. The neighbor, a lovely woman named Amy, saw me rocking and reeling and called out, "Milo, are you drunk again?"
"I am indeed drunk," I replied, in my usual gentlemanly fashion. "But tomorrow morning I'll be sober and you'll still be an ugly old whore."
The next morning Amy's husband, a big brute of a man who is 20 years younger than I am, confronted me. "Did you call my wife an ugly old whore last night?"
"Yes I did," I answered. "And I'm truly sorry about it. It was presumptuous of me to say that. You see, I don't know what your wife does for a living."
Instead of kicking my butt, which he had every right to do, Amy's husband laughed his ass off and invited me over for drinks later that day.
I used to hang out at a bar called Sterch's on Lincoln Avenue. It is far from a chic or trendy spot, just a local saloon that has been sensitive to the needs of drinkers since the early 70s. One evening, a little after midnight, a smartly dressed couple walked in, probably by mistake, or else they were just slumming, checking out the local wildlife. They reeked of class, probably had season tickets to the opera and made regular appearances in Kup's Column.
It just so happened that the gentleman sitting on the bar stool next to me, who I had been having a lively discussion with for the past few hours, chose that moment to pass out. He rocked back and forth a couple of times then fell forward, his head hitting the bar with a loud thump.
The society matron appeared disgusted by the sight of my friend dozing on the bar. The woman pointed a well-manicured finger and said, "He must be the local drunk."
"No, lady," I told her, "We all generally take turns."
I've mentioned my good friend Bruce Diksas a few times in my posts. Bruce spends most of the year out of the country, in places like Bali, Nepal and Australia. Due to his proclivity for traveling, and his astute sense of the ridiculous, the editors of this blog site have offered him the prestigious and highly paid position of The Third City's Foreign Correspondent. As of this writing, Big Mike, the Barn Boss of this site, and Bruce's agent, Moe Howard, are still dickering over the terms of the contract. The hangup seems to be the company car. Big Mike is offering a 1997 Ford Taurus while Bruce is still holding out for a late model Buick Electra 225.
Anyway, until Bruce comes on board and provides us with his own unique and informative brand of bullshit, I'm going to steal one of his stories.
Now, Bruce is a guy who enjoys a good drink once in a while. In fact, he has had the the great pleasure of ordering drinks on five different continents. When they open a saloon in Antarctica I'm sure it won't be long before Bruce is on a first name basis with the bartender.
One day Bruce was sitting in his favorite watering hole on the island of Bali when in walks the biggest man he has ever seen. Not only that, the huge man is accompanied by a six-foot tall blond that would make Stevie Wonder look twice. When the awesome couple took seats at the bar next to Bruce, he realized that the man was none other than Luc Longley, the Aussie who was the former center for the Chicago Bulls. Bruce, being a Chicagoan and a Bulls fan, introduced himself and offered to buy Luc and his companion drinks. Luc accepted and shortly afterward reciprocated.
A few hours and quite a few drinks later, Bruce was feeling pretty good. In fact, he felt bulletproof, like Superman. He felt so good that he challenged Luc Longley to a game of one-on-one.
Luc, who must have faced this situation countless times, graciously declined, claiming a bum knee.
We were having a few drinks, a few months later, when Bruce related this story to me. Maybe it was the booze, or maybe Bruce was just feeling feisty, but he put his own unique spin on the tale. He didn't outright say it, but he intimated that perhaps, just perhaps, the great Luc Longley chickened out.
"Can't say I blame him," I replied. "After all, why would any seven-foot tall former NBA basketball player with three chanpionship rings to his credit want to tangle with a drunk 60-year-old Lithuanian with a four-inch vertical leap."
"My point, exactly," Bruce said.
