Of Man and Scotch

A poem by David Morris

Your civilizing kiss
I traveled on the road past the bazar
and became distraught by its cheap cacophony
of short-term gains and calculated flatteries
Have we regressed in the manner of a tragedy?
Or have we always been so wretched?
Later in the evening, I am in my domain
Everything in its place
and I receive my answer:
Your civilizing kiss

Society is good, and everything is going to be alright

Like most of us, I am a creature of habit: I wear the same pair of pants every day, and when I put them on, I always put the same leg in first. When I order eggs, I order them over easy--no exceptions. Coffee: black. Pigeons: wanly threatened with shoe. Cream: not in coffee. Day in and day out. You get the idea.

Well, the pattern holds up vis-a-vis my bike route to work, as I zip down Mission to 29th, then to Harrison, and on into SOMA: I always travel the same path. And the people I see blurring by in the periphery, themselves being creatures of habit as well, are invariably the same ones each day: the people ambling down the sidewalk on the way to the bus stop, the day laborers hanging out on the corners, the grizzled prostitutes, the folks selling boxes of grizzle.

Little could I have known that on a bright summer morning last week, the spell would be broken as--in what had to be the slowest bike accident in recent history--I serenely hurtled to the ground, tumbling on the cement and lightly scraping my elbow. It was a strange sensation, because I had so much time to think as it was happening. I wasn't falling, so much as being bureaucratically processed by gravity. At one point, I distinctly remember becoming bored with the whole situation and, after futilely casting around for something to read, finally resigning myself to counting the seconds before my body struck pavement.

When the ordeal finally wended its way to a conclusion, and I lay on Harrison St. tangled up with my bike like a mosquito squashed on a paperclip, I found--to my happy astonishment--that the previously static population of my bike route had come alive all around me. First, a biker: "You alright?" Then another: "Need any help?" Then a mom, with baby in sling: "You okay?" Then two dudes who just happened to be chatting by a stoop: "Hey man, you okay? You have to be careful".

Of course, I was fine. But I left the scene of the incident with a newfound feeling of safety and hearthlike warmth. There were people looking out for me; and everything was going to be alright.

Adding Injury to Insult

It is difficult being a Cal fan. It seems like we're always either losing, or winning and then losing. This season was no exception. If you're not familiar with Cal football, then just imagine the football equivalent of the Hindenberg, and multiply it by fifty. At about week 5 we were ranked #2 in the nation--which was the highest we'd been ranked since the 1950s, when we were coached by someone named Pappy Woldorff and the players ran around at about 14 frames per second. By the end, though, we were packing our bags for the lowly Armed Forces bowl. "Obscure" is a generous description of this bowl. So is "a shitty bowl".

Well, by the time the last game of the season rolled around we knew we were already finished as far as the Rose Bowl was concerned, but not all joy was lost, because we still had the opportunity to beat Stanford for the umpteenth time in a row. So, I was excited about watching the game. I recruited my roommates Shane and Aine to the cause, and together we hunted around for a bar that would be showing the game. Finally we found one--this place Kezar Pub on Stanyan.

I was expecting the place to be shabby and depressing, but it was actually quite nice inside. There were TVs everywhere you looked but it felt right--and the place was packed with cheery people dressed in team logos. We settled in at a table that was right next to a long table full of Cal fans, and began to drink.

The bar had a lot of Cal fans, and only two Stanford fans. They were a fairly rowdy minority, though. One of them was a girl hailing from Alaska, and the other was a vaguely sinister looking white guy--I don't know, there was something about the angularity of his face that some primitive part of my brain recognized as dangerous. In any case, they were both fairly nice and outgoing, and everyone seemed to be enjoying the jocular taunting and back-and-forths.

Now, these two Stanford people were friends with each other, but they weren't a couple. This was made clear by the girl, who went out of her way to drop this bit of information into the conversation. Shrewdly, I deduced from this that she was flirting with me, and what really confirmed it--subtle arm touches aside--was the fact that she loudly said, "Whooooaa, nevermind" when she found out I was about 5 years younger than her. Anyway, the flirtations continued after that although with the underlying understanding that nothing would come of it.

I seemed to get along well with both of these Stanford people. The guy and I carved out a relationship based on mutual respect and a willingness to acknowledge poor officiating that benefited our own respective teams. What made this feat of bisportsmanship even more featy was the fact that, as it happened, this guy used to actually be the Stanford Tree. So not only was I dealing with a Stanford fan, I was dealing with Stanford fandom incarnate--with the Platonic form of it, you could say. And so together we watched the game, our battle of wits mirroring the battle being played out on the gridiron. The weird combination of genteel adherence to rules of decency and the Stanford Tree's embodiment of abstract evil made it feel like something out of The Devil and Daniel Webster.

Well, I don't have to tell you what happened: Cal lost, and all of the Cal supporters in the bar had to bear witness to the spectacle of the Stanford fans hooting, hollering, and dancing around on tables in delirious victory (a spectacle, mind you, that might not have been tolerated by a different, more confrontational set of fans). With a collective sigh, people started shuffling towards the door.

On my way out, I passed by the Stanfordites, who were busy downing shots. The guy brought me over to him and asked if I would relieve him of half of his tequila shot, since it was a bit too much for him. I told him I'd take the whole shot, and threw it back. On the momentum of this bravado-in-the-face-of-defeat, I then turned to the girl, and exchanged, in a swaggering manner, some flirty lines back and forth. She was responsive to it, which was a bit surprising, considering her earlier verdict of "too young"--but I guess the dose of alcohol had changed her mind about a few of the logistical concerns she had earlier. However, underneath this flirtatious veneer I could catch just the slightest glimpse of something nasty, like the glint of a cat's eye in the shadows just before it pounces. And I realized that I, too, was getting ready to pounce.

The truth was, neither party was really interested in the other--the game of flirtation was a proxy for the game on the field. The Bears might have lost, but I'd be damned if I was going to eat out of her hand like a trained animal. Asking for her number would mean defeat. So what could I do?

It had come my turn to say something. At the nick of time, I thought of what to say--it would be perfect. It would totally deflate her, and bring the wicked game of flirtation to a close, myself the victor. I leaned in close to her and said the following asshole line:

"Do you want my phone number?"

The comment gave the girl pause, and then a mean smile came across her face. "No." I smiled back, probably equally meanly. But there was a further layer underneath even this layer of contempt--a layer that spoke of mutual respect, of appreciation for the game itself. What was taking place was, in a bizarre way, a form of sportsmanship. The sport in this case was not, however, football, but fandom--the commitment to a team across all social contexts and venues, no matter how petty and cruel, if only for a day. I may have won, but we both played an admirable game, subserving our very need to reproduce to the greater cause of Cal, or in her case Stanford, football. It was a nice moment.

Then the Tree had to go and fuck it all up.

Before I could turn on my heels after my deathblow of a line, the Tree slapped me across the face.

As you can imagine, I was not expecting this. My face emotionless, I turned and looked at him, and blinked a few times. After a few moments, he slapped me again. Across the face.

Sensing that laws were being broken and that the situation could spiral out of control, the girl admonished the Tree, telling him to stop it. After the third slap--and at this point I starting to get curious as to how many times he would slap me if I just stood there--she gave me an apologetic look to indicate that she was not on board with any of it.

Anyway, he finally stopped slapping me, and there was a sense that it was my turn to respond. After a beat, I turned to the girl, winked, said "See ya later", and left.

*** 

So, ouch. Getting slapped by the Stanford Tree after a Big Game loss--it stings. But victory doesn't buy you class.

Something hazarded, something gained

As I scratch my chin here on the sofa, memories of last evening come to mind. There I was, bouncing along in a taxicab looking smart in a suit and bow tie, accompanied by two lovely ladies--my friends Melanie and Mae. The destination: a California wine and cheese party somewhere in Hayes Valley.

 Fast-forwarding a few hours, we see myself and a green-dress-clad girl named Dimitri bickering about when it was, exactly, that California joined the Union. This was not the first incident of me bickering with a girl at the party. Earlier, this other one Heather and I had gone next door to the convenience store so that she could buy a Duraflame log and I could buy a sandwich. I tried paying for my sandwich with a credit card but the guy said that unless I spent four more dollars, I would have to pay a fee of $1.50, which I refused to pay. I tried getting Heather to lend me money, which she wouldn't, on account that we would probably never see each other again. I told her that she was smart, because if she had lent me the cash, I would have made sure that we never saw each other again. In the end I had to buy a second log to avoid paying the fee. Anyway, now I was at it again with Dimitri, and about to be horrified beyond my imagining.

Before I continue, though, a few words about the internet. Besides overwritten blogs, it's useful for a great many things--it is, after all, an enormous repository of all the world's information that is accessible instantaneously from any location. To this end, it is ideal for settling bets.

 Dimitri was of the opinion that California was established in 1849; I argued that, no, it was sometime in the 1850s. I asked if she wanted to make it interesting. She said yes, and that she had a lot of money. I said that I had a lot of money, too, and wildly set the bet at $100. She dialed it down to $20, which I was immediately thankful for. But she said it was unfair that she had to guess the exact year, while I only had to get the right decade. So I gave her 2 - 1 odds. She agreed, and proceeded to produce an iPhone from her bosom.

People with iPhones are inherently annoying. They're always producing the wretched thing from a pocket or shirt sleeve with that "It just so happens that..." arch of their eyebrows. This time was no different. Nor was it particularly ladylike.

Anyway, I soon became the proud owner of $10 worth of credit due to me--just about covering the cost of a sandwich and a Duraflame log.

With a winning twirl of my bow tie I high-tailed it out of there, drunk and in love with myself.

Much More Desperate Sounding

You remember that movie Get Rich Or Die Tryin'? You know what would be a much more desperate sounding title? "Have Sex Or Die Tryin'".

 That's pretty true, huh?