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The Tender Bar made me want to drink

Posted by Aaron - 24/12/08 at 10:12:00 pm

Originally published at www.blogmule.com

I had a dad growing up, and I am glad I did.

J.R. Moehringer, however, makes a compelling case for a life without a father in his memoir The Tender Bar. For all the trouble his absent father caused him and his mother, Moehringer’s life brims with envious events – summers days at the beach, Mets games, a job in a bookshop, Yale, The New York Times and early entry into an eccentric group of drinkers at the local bar. Without a man in his life, Moehringer found replacements slumped on stools, behind the bar or in a glass of scotch.

Moehringer whines his was through childhood and early adulthood, nearly pissing away every opportunity given him. He complains about the offer from his mother to spend summers away from her in Manhasset, New York. When offered a job in a bookstore with two quirky worms, he worries they will not like him. Convinced fate has decided he won’t get into Yale, he almost doesn’t apply. At The New York Times, he sputters, offering moments of genius but mostly hunkers in a hangover. He cannot make a decision without the “woe is me” treatment.

His Aunt Ruth nails it. After Moehringer and his cousin, McGraw, a top-prospect pitcher at the University of Nebraska, conspire to fade into obscurity together, she accuses the two of coming from the same lot as the rest of the men in the family’s single-parent history.

“She screamed that McGraw and I were cowards, the most despicable kind of cowards, because we didn’t fear failure, but success,” Moehringer writes.

And the one thing that is working out for him in his life, the bar and all those in it, he analyzes it to death, trying to fit the bar into explanations of life, suffering and achievement. He grinds the gin mill so hard, trying to crack a meaning to life out of it, that he misses life coming in and out every night.

I suspect the high drama of the inner conflict in Moehringer’s life results from a case of heightened emotional memory. It is easy to look back at formative events with an amplified sense of meaning. In Moehringer’s constant search for the token metaphor, the smallest action becomes a pivot of change. The decision to have that second drink means he’s given up on Sidney and the chance of ever finding love.

Driving the recount of his early days are the men of the bar and their interactions with Moehringer’s life. After each episode, a devastating week at Yale, an unforgivable blunder at The New York Times, a bad date, a failed escape from Manhasset to New York City, the folks at Publicans are there to offer a drink, good-hearted jabs – and what Moehringer needs the most – advice and encouragement. Through these conversations, the personalities of Uncle Charlie, Joey D, Bob the Cop, Colt, Dalton and Steve emerge.

Moehringer captures each character through barroom banter. They are built with same blueprints, a telling nickname, drink, history, but Moehringer picks up on the anomalies that set the cast apart and hold them together. His skills as a reporter shine, seducing each character into conversation and revelation. He endears the men to readers where you worry when Joey D gets too drunk, understand why Smelly attacked Moehringer one night, hurt for Bob the Cop when he reveals his past and well up and belly up to the bar when Steve dies.

Honest and transparent, Moehringer understands the men at the bar. I am not convinced, however, that Moehringer understands himself. It’s a reporter’s curse; apt to tell stories, struggles to tell his own.

BONUS DRINK RECIPE

(I’ve never tried this. We don’t have Sweet Vermouth at the Aupperlee compound right now.)

The Manhasset

1 ½ oz. Blended Whiskey

1 ½ Teaspoons Sweet Vermouth

1 ½ Teaspoons Dry Vermouth

1 Teaspoon of lemon juice

(It’s a little drink. I’d double it.)

Ann Coulter put me in a bad mood today

Posted by Aaron - 13/12/08 at 05:12:00 pm

Note: Never start your mornings with Ann Coulter.

I rolled out of bed this morning and decided to immediately check my blogs. A journalism blog led me to a video of Ann Coulter, the queen of conservatives, reveling in the failure of newspapers.

Thanks Ann. Ruined my morning. Even my coffee tasted sour.

Things in journalism are bad enough as it is. Selections from this week’s headlines rival that of the auto industry.

• Tribune Co. bankrupt
• NPR lays off 64 folks
• Detroit Free Press scales back home delivery
• Aaron Aupperlee still out of a job

We could use a pick-me-up (read: BAILOUT) or just a free Kindle so that when old skool newspapers, the kind printed on paper, disappear we can make the digital transition easier. Will the government help with that one a la digital television.

So thanks Ann. Your acute observation made a room full of young conservatives laugh and destroyed the first few hours of my day.

Made up for though. To let of steam, my dad and I went to the local farm store to get a new battery for his tractor — a 1956 John Deere 420.

/////// BONUS ANN COULTER PERSONAL STORY ///////

I met Ann Coulter once, sort of. I interned one summer for the Department of Labor in Washington D.C. and a fellow intern asked if I wanted to go to a Young Americans lecture in Georgetown. Ann Coulter was speaking.

A few days later, I stood outside the lecture hall waiting for the other intern to arrive. Standing next to me a tall, skinny blonde with tussled hair below the shoulders, short sleeveless black dress, stiletto heels and “I’m going to the club” make-up was finishing her cigarette cursing and cursing at the man standing next to her.

Her attire confused me as 20-somethings filed passed me in suits, ties, skirts and blouses. It was, after all, a “Republican” function, not a pub crawl.

A few minutes later, the skinny blonde in the black dress whipped hundreds of young Republicans into a conservative frenzy. That’s Ann Coulter.

////// EXTRA BONUS ARCHAEOLOGICAL FIND //////////

<3 farm store.

Birds that can’t fly make easy targets

Posted by Aaron - 10/12/08 at 04:12:00 pm

This is what happens when you can’t fly.

And just before lunch. I don’t think a turkey sandwich will suffice. Or fish.

photo by Andy Aupperlee

What does the ostrich have to say?

photo from some creepy gamer message board.

Time to take your head out of that hole … and run.

////////////////////BONUS SCIENCE LESSON/////////////

Did u know that ostriches poop out little birds?

photo from www.howstuffworks.com

TRU. It’s science.

A Barstow curse?

Posted by Aaron - 10/12/08 at 03:12:00 am

Next week, teenagers and 20-somethings in Barstow will attend the funeral of one of their friends. This seems to happen all too often.

Miguel Flores fractured his skull in a horrific accident in San Diego on Dec. 8. He died later at the hospital. He was 22.

A 20-year-old friend in Barstow, a dusty small town in the middle of the California desert, said he had to use two hands to count the number of funerals he has been to for his friends. After the latest funeral, for a 20 year-old man killed in a car crash in September, he said it seemed routine. You see the same people, say the same things, and when it’s over, you go home until the next one, he said.

“It’s the Barstow curse.”

In the two years I spent in Barstow, four friends of friends died. One was shot. One died of cancer. Two were killed in car crashes. And now Miguel, who I knew briefly, but knew well enough to know that he did not deserve to die so young.

A health columnist at the Desert Dispatch, the paper where I used to work, tackled young deaths after the fatal car wreck in September.

Our children have buried more friends; there are more parents grieving. Barstow, are you reeling? My daughters, the oldest being only 21, have already seen more friends die than I have in more than 50 years. They are too young to cope with such great loss.

When did our children start dying so early? It’s not like this new generation invented parties in the desert, driving too fast or too carelessly, drugs. For heaven’s sake, my generation was awash in a sea of acid when their heads weren’t in a fog of smoke. But we didn’t kill each other. And we didn’t bury each other. We lived through our teens and beyond; long enough to torture our parents and then, maybe, see them finally proud of us. It wasn’t an easy journey, but we made it. How can so many young lives be lost? They leave behind such grief!

Some dispute the existence of a death curse. My editor said it is similar in other small towns around the country.

It wasn’t where I grew up, in middle and upper class conglomerations of suburbs outside of a Grand Rapids, Mich. We dealt with icy roads, car-dodging deer and loose gun laws, and I never had a friend die until college. Our freeway speed limits are as high as California’s.

In 2005, there were 4,762 deaths in Kent County, the county in Michigan where I grew up, according to the county’s health department. In San Bernardino County, Barstow’s county and also the largest, area-wise, county in the continental 48 states, there were 12,299, according to their health department. The populations do not compare at all, but more people died there.

Is it true? My friends in Barstow think it is. They agree that there is a Barstow curse. And today, as I called many of my friends to see how they were coping with Miguel’s death, I asked why so many kids in Barstow die. Everyone said they just do. No one had a good answer.

My friends in Barstow know this too well. One wrote this on myspace.com the night Miguel died.

having a loved one in your phone who you can never talk to again is the most depressing thing, but hes in a much better place now. Its comforting knowing hell never hurt again.

Another friend posted this the morning after.

rest in peace my brother and say what’s up to all our lost love ones…

Don’t drink brandy

Posted by Aaron - 09/12/08 at 05:12:00 am

A better writer told me this was a great guide to writing. So what did I learn? A few tips from Ernest Hemingway’s “A Moveable Feast”

• Write until you know what comes next, then you won’t worry about what to write about the next day.
• Transplant yourself.

“In one place you could write about it better than in another.”

• Start with one true, simple, declarative sentence and then from there.
• When finished writing, read.

“It was necessary to read in order not to think or worry about your work until you could do it again. I had learned already never to empty the well of writing, but always to stop when there was still something there in the deep part of the well, and let it refill at night from the springs that fed it.”

• Don’t drink brandy. As Ford Madox Ford said to the young Hemingway:

“What are you drinking brandy for?” …Don’t you know it’s fatal for a young writer to start drinking brandy.”

• The writer’s essential tools: notebooks, two pencils, pencil sharpener, a table, the smell of early morning and luck
• And the most important: Obey the THE “MOT JUSTE” the one and only correct word to use…and no adjectives.

“The only thing that could spoil a day was people and if you could keep from making engagements, each day had no limits. People were always limiters of happiness except for the very that were as good as spring itself.”

Who should Obama invite?

Posted by Aaron - 08/12/08 at 07:12:00 am

Tom Brokaw asked Barack Obama about the tonal shift due in this country’s leadership in a few weeks.

from Meet The Press, 12/7/2008 (transcript)

Question comes at the 40:30 mark.

MR. BROKAW: Who are the kinds of artists that you would like to bring to the White House?

PRES.-ELECT OBAMA: Oh, well, you know, we have thought about this because part of what we want to do is to open up the White House and, and remind people this is, this is the people’s house. There is an incredible bully pulpit to be used when it comes to, for example, education. Yes, we’re going to have an education policy. Yes, we’re going to be putting more money into school construction. But, ultimately, we want to talk about parents reading to their kids. We want to invite kids from local schools into the White House. When it comes to science, elevating science once again, and having lectures in the White House where people are talking about traveling to the stars or breaking down atoms, inspiring our youth to get a sense of what discovery is all about. Thinking about the diversity of our culture and, and inviting jazz musicians and classical musicians and poetry readings in the White House so that, once again, we appreciate this incredible tapestry that’s America. I–you know, that, I think, is, is going to be incredibly important, particularly because we’re going through hard times. And, historically, what has always brought us through hard times is that national character, that sense of optimism, that willingness to look forward, that, that sense that better days are ahead. I think that our art and our culture, our science, you know, that’s the essence of what makes America special, and, and we want to project that as much as possible in the White House.

He wants to strengthen and challenge the cultural fibers that hold us to together as Americans.

But who should he invite?

I’ve been thinking about that all day. I even made a pot of coffee after dinner to give myself a few more hours tonight to mull it around. I thought about trolling the Internet for the latest upstarts in physics, the leaders in environmental technology, the biological researchers at some university working on a cure for some disease. I thought about the great musicians of our time. I thought about the great authors, poets, thinkers, critics, those who shape the fabric of America.

I didn’t come up with much. I didn’t list one name.

In part, I don’t know who Obama should invite to speak at the White House. In part, I am perfectly fine with this not being my call. I’m going to sit back and see who shows up, and I’ll probably learn a thing or two.

I never expect much in the way of culture coming from the government in Washington to challenge me. Everything was watered down, acceptable for an entire country, with which, chances are good, half of I don’t agree. I never paid attention to who was visiting or performing or speaking at the White House. I’m not sure it mattered.

But something about the way Obama answered Brokaw’s question Sunday morning on Meet The Press told me I better start.

So who is Obama going to invite?

I could have been more help

Posted by Aaron - 06/12/08 at 03:12:00 am

but I tried too hard to be funny.

A friend asked me to help him with his econ101 homework. I h8 econ, but I love proving to people that I am smart, and if I can be funny in the process, I believe they call that a win-win in the econ world. Here are a few selected answers to my friend’s homework questions:

Q) Why do you often hear people shouting rather than just talking to one another at parties?
A) The bass. Duh. Is this a real question.

Q) What incentive problem explains why the freeways I cities like Los Angeles suffer from excessive congestion?
A) LA sux. I’m not answering this question.

Q) How would you explain to a friend why the optimal amount of freeway congestion is not zero?
A) Because that would mean there are not cars on the road at all which means the other forms of transportation are way congested or that everyone is sitting at home smoking dope and then the price of dope would go up. Plus, why would you need to explain that to a friend anyway. If you went around explaining that to shit to friends you would need to get new friends fast. Explain that.

Q) Explain why the wearing of high-heeled shoes might be viewed as the result of a positional externality.
A) No, that only happens when the high heeled shoes (and that dress) come off … if you know what I am saying … cause I don’t.

Q) Explain why a gallery owner who sells a painting might actually create more economic surplus than the artist who painted it.
A) Artists are a drain on the economy. idk.

By the way, if you actually know the answers to these questions and others possibly on the Barstow Community College Econ 101 final, let me know. My bud could use some help.

Tea parties, srsly

Posted by Aaron - 06/12/08 at 03:12:00 am

Those who know, know I am in the market for a new job these days.

What I didn’t know is that there are Web sites where freelance writers can bid on different gigs. Sites like www.elance.com and www.guru.com are full of zany jobs open to writers. Here are a few I found:

• Eight articles about used cell phones (Didn’t know there was a market for this. Didn’t know there was a market that facilitated eight articles for this)
• 50 exotic and luxury car write ups (I figure they have to let me drive them.)
• Writers on caffeine (Aren’t all writers on caffeine, for the morning, then something a little harder as the day grows old)
• Compose a love song for a wedding (In 8th grade, I wrote a song about my friend Jim and how he had red hair, was colored blind and had a cool basement to chill in. I’m a shoe-in for that one.)
• Bingo articles. (Bingo? Bango, bongo!)
• Humor writer for dog column (My father suggested retelling the story when I was hit in the head with a pooper scooper (no wait, even better) it sounds so adorable during my speech impediment days)
• And maybe the best… Teen mama drama (two years in Barstow makes me an expert) … but that could be out done by Write how to tea party articles (How to tea party? All I have to say is how to not tea party.)

So there are some serious writing opportunities on these sites, but they pay pretty pathetically. One gig offered to pay $3 for every 500 words. GROSS.

So I make fun of these possibilities now but get back to me in a few weeks, and I’ll let you know how the used cell phone market is doing, clue you in on the latest teen mama drama and maybe have a few tips on how to tea party.

vodka martinis for the rest of the Friday yall.

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