I'll cut and paste for ya: (even though it looses the visuals and the formatting, lol)
Charles Nelson Wagon has been deemed freak show non-grata since birth. He has a inherited a face nobody would ever find attractive (even in Manhattan), and halitosis that could kill a Peregrine Falcon from four thousand feet.
He also has parents, who decided to torture this sloppy savant with that name. But, man can that guy make food.
He is my chef when I am in town and I pay him handsomely. But we have issues, if you can’t tell. That one eyebrow, orange marmalade sauteing, pothead fuck.
It’s just a rabbit, for Christ’s sake. But he ruined it.
Good! It was just one of those things that when I wrote it, I got really bothered about oranges all over the joint. Like, Settle down with the oranges already. No one wants that shit unless we are playing soccer, Mom. ha.
BTW, you and Jim Ruland are my favorite authentic writers. I really hear your voice in that Detroit way, the same way I hear Jim's in that SoCal absurdity.
I don't really have much of a clue what my voice is anymore, as I moved to Florida to disappear. It worked. I'm just a middle-aged dude in a sea of hip surgeries. That's kinda fun, though. Everyone looks at me like I am spry and shit.
I;m also not sure if you have read any of my stiff before, my epilepsy has left me half-brain dead. I will copy two more pieces that I like, for you to peruse at your leisure....
Bartending In Pontiac: The Night I Met Uncle Cliffy and Darko
NBA great Clifford Robinson passed away this week. A quick anecdote.
Located at the north end of the line of the world-famous Woodward Ave., the first paved street in America, lies a town called Pontiac. Roughly Twenty-Five miles from the border river that delineates Detroit, MI, USA, and Windsor, Ontario, CA. The city was named after Cheif Pontiac, the Ottowa Tribe leader, who many rumors abound around those parts of Michigan about where he laid his head at night and such (that’s a whole different topic.) As one can probably surmise, there was once a huge GM factory in Pontiac. It was shuttered. The main drag, Saginaw St., was nevertheless a mini Bourbon Street or 6th street, for you Austin familiar, with a small strip of massive nightclubs. The Pontiac Silverdome, where the NFL Detroit Lions played until 2002, was minutes away. Also nearby was the recently demolished Palace of Auburn Hills, where the NBA Detroit Pistons were based until 2017. This little tidbit of history is only provided to explain that it was quite common to see professional athletes frequent the VIP sections of those dancehalls, and when I bartended at a few of those places I became quite comfortable serving them drinks. Unfortunately, Pontiac has run into tougher times since those arenas closed.
Pro athletes can be a finicky client. Some of them were insanely generous, and others were…less than nice. It didn’t really matter because there was a lot of money flying across the “wood” in Pontiac. Plus, there were plenty of top tier musicians/entertainers who would come in after their shows. Tips were never going to be a problem. “Starstruck” was an emotion that went away quickly when you encountered it almost nightly. Besides, the bartender is the most important person in the place, anyways. In theory.
On to that Wednesday in the summer of 2003 (I know it was a Wednesday because that was my night there…college night.) The Pistons had just drafted Darko Milicic with the third pick in the NBA draft. He was 18 at the time and a pretty divisive choice for a team on the verge of a Championship. Clifford Robinson (a well-known marijuana advocate who dealt with more than one suspension over the years for violating league drug policies) was weeks away from being traded, a seasoned veteran that later was widely known by “those in the know” circles with helping develop the winning attitude that propelled the Pistons to victory in 2004. This flashback is about the momentary interaction between three very different people…
It was an unremarkably typically busy night, with roughly Sixteen-Hundred people in the building, and I am in the weeds. I’m serving drinks with the proficiency of an octopus and sweating profusely. It was hot in there, and I am having a great time and making great money for a single Gen X slacker, sort of fresh out of college, working a pretty prolific side hustle. I look up, and here in front of me are two very tall guys. A fresh-faced kid, and an older than me dude that clearly was dripping with wealth. Nice! Anyways, “Uncle Cliffy” orders two Coronas. As I grab the bottles, it snaps in my brain (interrupting the insanely loud music that was basically adjusting my cardiac rhythm every few minutes) who these incredibly tall guys are. I know their professional resumes. So the conversation as I hand them their beers goes like this:
“Darko! Welcome to Detroit! Here ya go. Good luck!” I say to the obviously underage kid, wishing him more that he gets comfortable, in what one assumes is an extremely foreign environment for a newly minted Eastern European millionaire 18-year-old.
“Thank you.” He butchers back in his fresh off the boat, thick Serbian accent.
(Next, I turn to Cliff, because he’s paying, and cash goes last. Efficiency is all about only spinning once towards the till and back per transaction.)
“Splifford!” I beam.
Well…Cliff rolled his eyes and replies in a not totally pissed off way, “Man, don’t call me that.” He was much more polite than I would have been.
So I say, “I’m sorry, Cliff. That’ll be twelve dollars.” Cliff smiled and handed me a twenty and they walk away, presumably so Mr. Robinson could show young Darko a bit of the spoils of his riches, and American girls and such.
The point of this little interaction is this. Cliff didn’t have to take this underage rookie out to help him get acclimated. There are handlers for that type of thing. But, he did. He also didn’t make a big deal about my less than graceful address of him in a moment of quick interaction.
The recant of this memory was sparked by the news that he had passed away from Lymphoma after suffering a stroke and the byproducts of that. While extremely sad, I reflexively chose to recall a moment where he was a positive checkmark in my book of character gentlemen.
Ya know, there is a saying that you can tell everything you need to know about a person in the first five minutes. If that is true, and I believe it is, Clifford Robinson was a class act.
I am thinking about writing a series regarding my time bartending to my most interesting customers. If you don’t mind, let me know if that’s a good idea. Thanks for reading! Cancer sucks.
(remember that all formatting is gone, and the pictures do more justice to it all:))
#2
The Jib Is Up
The course has been charted
I put her to bed, like every night. Non-invasive questions including “Did you have a good day?” are next. Her answers are equally not tailored, not anything of substance or depth in the way that she’s always had to respond. Tonight, I need more:
“Do you ignore me on purpose sometimes?” I ask.
“Not really,” she meekly whispers.
“Do you just get distracted?” I continue.
“Yes,” I barely hear.
“Does that bother you?”
“Not really.” she furrows.
“Night, Mom. I love you.”
“I love you, too.” I ascertain as her eyes close for the night.
So much going on there. Somewhere in me I have some small interest in hunting though few people know about it. But hunting groups freak me out and this sure helps show why.
I know this emotional tone well...
https://inyurbed.medium.com/rabbit-by-charles-dee0c1f2d429
I can’t read Medium links. I left there so long ago
I'll cut and paste for ya: (even though it looses the visuals and the formatting, lol)
Charles Nelson Wagon has been deemed freak show non-grata since birth. He has a inherited a face nobody would ever find attractive (even in Manhattan), and halitosis that could kill a Peregrine Falcon from four thousand feet.
He also has parents, who decided to torture this sloppy savant with that name. But, man can that guy make food.
He is my chef when I am in town and I pay him handsomely. But we have issues, if you can’t tell. That one eyebrow, orange marmalade sauteing, pothead fuck.
It’s just a rabbit, for Christ’s sake. But he ruined it.
“Orange marmalade sautéing”
Are you sassing me regarding spelling?
All good. To be honest, I didn't even know I had a Substack. Cool. I guess I should write more...
No, I fucking love the line
Good! It was just one of those things that when I wrote it, I got really bothered about oranges all over the joint. Like, Settle down with the oranges already. No one wants that shit unless we are playing soccer, Mom. ha.
BTW, you and Jim Ruland are my favorite authentic writers. I really hear your voice in that Detroit way, the same way I hear Jim's in that SoCal absurdity.
I don't really have much of a clue what my voice is anymore, as I moved to Florida to disappear. It worked. I'm just a middle-aged dude in a sea of hip surgeries. That's kinda fun, though. Everyone looks at me like I am spry and shit.
I;m also not sure if you have read any of my stiff before, my epilepsy has left me half-brain dead. I will copy two more pieces that I like, for you to peruse at your leisure....
Bartending In Pontiac: The Night I Met Uncle Cliffy and Darko
NBA great Clifford Robinson passed away this week. A quick anecdote.
Located at the north end of the line of the world-famous Woodward Ave., the first paved street in America, lies a town called Pontiac. Roughly Twenty-Five miles from the border river that delineates Detroit, MI, USA, and Windsor, Ontario, CA. The city was named after Cheif Pontiac, the Ottowa Tribe leader, who many rumors abound around those parts of Michigan about where he laid his head at night and such (that’s a whole different topic.) As one can probably surmise, there was once a huge GM factory in Pontiac. It was shuttered. The main drag, Saginaw St., was nevertheless a mini Bourbon Street or 6th street, for you Austin familiar, with a small strip of massive nightclubs. The Pontiac Silverdome, where the NFL Detroit Lions played until 2002, was minutes away. Also nearby was the recently demolished Palace of Auburn Hills, where the NBA Detroit Pistons were based until 2017. This little tidbit of history is only provided to explain that it was quite common to see professional athletes frequent the VIP sections of those dancehalls, and when I bartended at a few of those places I became quite comfortable serving them drinks. Unfortunately, Pontiac has run into tougher times since those arenas closed.
Pro athletes can be a finicky client. Some of them were insanely generous, and others were…less than nice. It didn’t really matter because there was a lot of money flying across the “wood” in Pontiac. Plus, there were plenty of top tier musicians/entertainers who would come in after their shows. Tips were never going to be a problem. “Starstruck” was an emotion that went away quickly when you encountered it almost nightly. Besides, the bartender is the most important person in the place, anyways. In theory.
On to that Wednesday in the summer of 2003 (I know it was a Wednesday because that was my night there…college night.) The Pistons had just drafted Darko Milicic with the third pick in the NBA draft. He was 18 at the time and a pretty divisive choice for a team on the verge of a Championship. Clifford Robinson (a well-known marijuana advocate who dealt with more than one suspension over the years for violating league drug policies) was weeks away from being traded, a seasoned veteran that later was widely known by “those in the know” circles with helping develop the winning attitude that propelled the Pistons to victory in 2004. This flashback is about the momentary interaction between three very different people…
It was an unremarkably typically busy night, with roughly Sixteen-Hundred people in the building, and I am in the weeds. I’m serving drinks with the proficiency of an octopus and sweating profusely. It was hot in there, and I am having a great time and making great money for a single Gen X slacker, sort of fresh out of college, working a pretty prolific side hustle. I look up, and here in front of me are two very tall guys. A fresh-faced kid, and an older than me dude that clearly was dripping with wealth. Nice! Anyways, “Uncle Cliffy” orders two Coronas. As I grab the bottles, it snaps in my brain (interrupting the insanely loud music that was basically adjusting my cardiac rhythm every few minutes) who these incredibly tall guys are. I know their professional resumes. So the conversation as I hand them their beers goes like this:
“Darko! Welcome to Detroit! Here ya go. Good luck!” I say to the obviously underage kid, wishing him more that he gets comfortable, in what one assumes is an extremely foreign environment for a newly minted Eastern European millionaire 18-year-old.
“Thank you.” He butchers back in his fresh off the boat, thick Serbian accent.
(Next, I turn to Cliff, because he’s paying, and cash goes last. Efficiency is all about only spinning once towards the till and back per transaction.)
“Splifford!” I beam.
Well…Cliff rolled his eyes and replies in a not totally pissed off way, “Man, don’t call me that.” He was much more polite than I would have been.
So I say, “I’m sorry, Cliff. That’ll be twelve dollars.” Cliff smiled and handed me a twenty and they walk away, presumably so Mr. Robinson could show young Darko a bit of the spoils of his riches, and American girls and such.
The point of this little interaction is this. Cliff didn’t have to take this underage rookie out to help him get acclimated. There are handlers for that type of thing. But, he did. He also didn’t make a big deal about my less than graceful address of him in a moment of quick interaction.
The recant of this memory was sparked by the news that he had passed away from Lymphoma after suffering a stroke and the byproducts of that. While extremely sad, I reflexively chose to recall a moment where he was a positive checkmark in my book of character gentlemen.
Ya know, there is a saying that you can tell everything you need to know about a person in the first five minutes. If that is true, and I believe it is, Clifford Robinson was a class act.
I am thinking about writing a series regarding my time bartending to my most interesting customers. If you don’t mind, let me know if that’s a good idea. Thanks for reading! Cancer sucks.
(remember that all formatting is gone, and the pictures do more justice to it all:))
#2
The Jib Is Up
The course has been charted
I put her to bed, like every night. Non-invasive questions including “Did you have a good day?” are next. Her answers are equally not tailored, not anything of substance or depth in the way that she’s always had to respond. Tonight, I need more:
“Do you ignore me on purpose sometimes?” I ask.
“Not really,” she meekly whispers.
“Do you just get distracted?” I continue.
“Yes,” I barely hear.
“Does that bother you?”
“Not really.” she furrows.
“Night, Mom. I love you.”
“I love you, too.” I ascertain as her eyes close for the night.
She continues sailing on.
(Cass Lake is my reference point here)
So much going on there. Somewhere in me I have some small interest in hunting though few people know about it. But hunting groups freak me out and this sure helps show why.
Oh dang!
Deer hunt or cunt hunt. Dangerous activities.
All of life is a dangerous activity. But we gotta live it
Alfred Hitchcock’s spirit just rose up and said ‘damn’.
That’s a great compliment
deserved. no joke.