The Kronikle Volume 5, Issue 6: The “That’s SOOO Wrong” Historians or “Baby, You put the Johnson in my LBJ.”
![Picture](/uploads/1/2/3/8/12382595/1403645427.jpg)
Early in the week, I ran into Old Boss 2, Jay, and Not-So-Silent Bob standing outside the CVS that serves as the nearest breath mint and condom supply dump to the ruling class bacchanal called 4th Street Live !™. Not that I am making assumptions about the three historians loitering just beyond the entrance, they could have been taking a break from a George Whitefield-inspired bout of street preaching for all I know. After salutation, it became clear that a two year absence in no way altered our Wonder Twin(Quadruplet?)-like ability of manipulating a truly profound knowledge of history into the punchlines for inappropriate jokes. Promptly, we maligned the memory of Andrew Jackson and exchanged promises to “go for a drink”.
Several days passed before the realization of those commitments. I meet up with the “That’s SOOO Wrong” Historians outside of the hotel restaurant that elicited both intrigue (deconstructed southern cuisine) and fury (their open-air patio bar so frostily air conditioned that I think I found the ACTUAL source of global climate change). Like many social activities during a iReading, this was a group of almost random people. Old Boss 2, Jay, and Not-so-silent Bob’s friendship, forged in a fiery trial of faith and flesh now referred to as “Year Zero”, is one of those unforced, supernatural occurrences that few are lucky enough to personally experience. The trio served as the spine of the group and everyone else connected to them in some permutation.
We march approximately 1/3 of a block to the giant brewery that supplanted the bookstore during my absence and now serves as a more fitting anchor to the aforementioned 4th Street Live™ affair. We straddle up to the patio. During the long span of time it took for anyone to take our order, we tentatively explored the group dynamics. I also learn that Old Boss 2 has been at this work for a full week by the time the rest of us had shown up on Travel day, scrubbed clean and full of positivity. “Thousand Yard Stare” does not adequately explain the haunt in his eyes. I think if I had to pick a descriptive term, I would go for “Guantanamo” because “CIA target held at a black site in Syria” doesn't roll off the tongue easily enough, although the latter is slightly more fitting. I do know that, when I traveled with him, people moved out of his way rather than the other way around and that the hospitality industry kept giving him free stuff in what I speculate was a communal, instinctual attempt to keep him satiated and mollified.
The waitress who eventually came to take our order had eyes that evoked the memory of the non-Jodie Foster female character in Silence of the Lambs whose kidnapping served as the catalyst for the story. She took our order quietly and quickly and left. It took her a really long time to come back. She apologized profusely when she did and only made minor errors in the drink distribution. She left for another donkey year (I just looked that up—it means “a long time”) and eventually took the order for the second round.
We got to work, discussing JFK’s personal life in a way that made the Misfit’s classic “Bullet” seem respectful. I discover one of the participants, Lemondrop, is a stone cold straight man. We crowdsourced the circumstances of a post-apocalyptic iReading, concluding that we would ride donkeys and then slaughter them upon arrival for food (and that it would still taste better than what was being served this year). We made fun of people with tuberculosis, and then played a game where we took a proper name from the Vietnam War and turned it into a double entendre. I share all of this with you not to make you jealous that you weren’t there to make your own jokes about “Dien Bien”ing over but to establish how outside the bounds of good taste the whole course of conversation was because when the Saddest Waitress Ever returned, she had the second round on a tray which she very effectively dumped all over herself. She apologized numerous times as she left the patio without turning her back, like how people are supposed to leave the presence of a king. I made a joke (I promise) that maybe she did that for tips. You could actually hear the needle scratch the record as the entire table, maybe the entire street of ravenous revelers, stopped and stared at me, totally appalled that I went there. I sheepishly claimed my innocence of premeditated nastiness. Fortunately (or not), the Saddest Waitress Ever came back soon after and explained (after apologizing and giving Old Boss 2 a free drink) that this was her first week back after having a baby and it had been tough-going. We finished our round and paid the Saddest Waitress Ever tips approximately equal to the bills we received. At least now she is better equipped to buy some baby booties, or some laundry detergent, or part of the bail for the inevitable DWI she got while driving home in beer-soaked clothes.
I guess I was forgiven for my transgression because they allowed me to accompany them on the last evening. I met up with them this time in a park where I think, while waiting for them, I watched a couple of The Wire-style drug deals go down. From there, we traveled through the 4th Street Live™ zone after Not-So-Silent Bob got carded and I was told a water bottle was a disallowed accessory to walk down a street. We wove our way through the fleshy, inebriated crowd. Stopping and looking up at the midpoint of the block, we found ourselves looking at very young, very fit, very scantily clad pole vaulters launching themselves in the middle of the street while many, many pairs of wolf eyes willing to use their imagination for the little bits unseen concentrated on the scene. I later learned that the event named “Vault in ‘Ville” featured the best in Kentucky’s best high school pole vaulters.
Confused and unsure, we landed at the Seelbach Hotel which is apparently a pretty famous landmark because it shows up in some 1920s writer named Fitzgerald’s book. Old Boss 2 wanted to participant observe elderly readers in their natural environment. I was distracted from the group’s sociological endeavor (and there were a lot of old people there) because of the wobbly table and the server who managed haughty and glum at the same time. Convinced that his spot-on Eeyore impression was the result of medication taken in an ongoing, personal struggle with bipolar, I ultimately tipped well for his poor service because, if what I observed was that guy’s midrange emotional palette, then his crests and troughs had best be avoided and I wanted to make sure he could afford this month’s dosage. Then we got of there pretty quick because they found the old people boring.
We walked around the block in order to avoid the crowd garnered whenever there are naked people and poles in proximity. I, surprisingly, know little about the availability of drinking establishments in Louisville, because left to my own devices, I am content to pour my stuff in an opaque container, sit in a park, and watch free enterprise. My companions briefly considered one location and then decided to go check on another before committing. We descended an outdoor staircase that I chanced by earlier in the week during a hungry part of a wander. Upon setting foot on the landing, I took in a scene of an astonishing (even for Kentucky) number of bottles of alcohol. The place came highly recommended by Old Boss 2 because of a server named Morgana Le Fey.
In an evening, Morgana Le Fey managed to redeem the entire population of the unperceptive poor managers of time that was the service industry in Louisville. Most importantly, she knew her line of products far beyond what she was paid to know. She was comfortable offering guidance in the selection of those products. Beyond that, she, about twenty-five, was cool in the way that I wished for when I was that age but definitely WAS NOT. She fell into the pattern of our humor easily and held her own. I even found out that we share the hobby of taking photos of grocery store items with profane names. She was an asset to her business and her profession and has since moved to Las Vegas, leaving Louisville in the dust. Morgana Le Fey, if you ever need a letter of recommendation, you contact me; I will gladly sing your praises.
Until next time, I remain…
Carrie the Red (stripe)
Several days passed before the realization of those commitments. I meet up with the “That’s SOOO Wrong” Historians outside of the hotel restaurant that elicited both intrigue (deconstructed southern cuisine) and fury (their open-air patio bar so frostily air conditioned that I think I found the ACTUAL source of global climate change). Like many social activities during a iReading, this was a group of almost random people. Old Boss 2, Jay, and Not-so-silent Bob’s friendship, forged in a fiery trial of faith and flesh now referred to as “Year Zero”, is one of those unforced, supernatural occurrences that few are lucky enough to personally experience. The trio served as the spine of the group and everyone else connected to them in some permutation.
We march approximately 1/3 of a block to the giant brewery that supplanted the bookstore during my absence and now serves as a more fitting anchor to the aforementioned 4th Street Live™ affair. We straddle up to the patio. During the long span of time it took for anyone to take our order, we tentatively explored the group dynamics. I also learn that Old Boss 2 has been at this work for a full week by the time the rest of us had shown up on Travel day, scrubbed clean and full of positivity. “Thousand Yard Stare” does not adequately explain the haunt in his eyes. I think if I had to pick a descriptive term, I would go for “Guantanamo” because “CIA target held at a black site in Syria” doesn't roll off the tongue easily enough, although the latter is slightly more fitting. I do know that, when I traveled with him, people moved out of his way rather than the other way around and that the hospitality industry kept giving him free stuff in what I speculate was a communal, instinctual attempt to keep him satiated and mollified.
The waitress who eventually came to take our order had eyes that evoked the memory of the non-Jodie Foster female character in Silence of the Lambs whose kidnapping served as the catalyst for the story. She took our order quietly and quickly and left. It took her a really long time to come back. She apologized profusely when she did and only made minor errors in the drink distribution. She left for another donkey year (I just looked that up—it means “a long time”) and eventually took the order for the second round.
We got to work, discussing JFK’s personal life in a way that made the Misfit’s classic “Bullet” seem respectful. I discover one of the participants, Lemondrop, is a stone cold straight man. We crowdsourced the circumstances of a post-apocalyptic iReading, concluding that we would ride donkeys and then slaughter them upon arrival for food (and that it would still taste better than what was being served this year). We made fun of people with tuberculosis, and then played a game where we took a proper name from the Vietnam War and turned it into a double entendre. I share all of this with you not to make you jealous that you weren’t there to make your own jokes about “Dien Bien”ing over but to establish how outside the bounds of good taste the whole course of conversation was because when the Saddest Waitress Ever returned, she had the second round on a tray which she very effectively dumped all over herself. She apologized numerous times as she left the patio without turning her back, like how people are supposed to leave the presence of a king. I made a joke (I promise) that maybe she did that for tips. You could actually hear the needle scratch the record as the entire table, maybe the entire street of ravenous revelers, stopped and stared at me, totally appalled that I went there. I sheepishly claimed my innocence of premeditated nastiness. Fortunately (or not), the Saddest Waitress Ever came back soon after and explained (after apologizing and giving Old Boss 2 a free drink) that this was her first week back after having a baby and it had been tough-going. We finished our round and paid the Saddest Waitress Ever tips approximately equal to the bills we received. At least now she is better equipped to buy some baby booties, or some laundry detergent, or part of the bail for the inevitable DWI she got while driving home in beer-soaked clothes.
I guess I was forgiven for my transgression because they allowed me to accompany them on the last evening. I met up with them this time in a park where I think, while waiting for them, I watched a couple of The Wire-style drug deals go down. From there, we traveled through the 4th Street Live™ zone after Not-So-Silent Bob got carded and I was told a water bottle was a disallowed accessory to walk down a street. We wove our way through the fleshy, inebriated crowd. Stopping and looking up at the midpoint of the block, we found ourselves looking at very young, very fit, very scantily clad pole vaulters launching themselves in the middle of the street while many, many pairs of wolf eyes willing to use their imagination for the little bits unseen concentrated on the scene. I later learned that the event named “Vault in ‘Ville” featured the best in Kentucky’s best high school pole vaulters.
Confused and unsure, we landed at the Seelbach Hotel which is apparently a pretty famous landmark because it shows up in some 1920s writer named Fitzgerald’s book. Old Boss 2 wanted to participant observe elderly readers in their natural environment. I was distracted from the group’s sociological endeavor (and there were a lot of old people there) because of the wobbly table and the server who managed haughty and glum at the same time. Convinced that his spot-on Eeyore impression was the result of medication taken in an ongoing, personal struggle with bipolar, I ultimately tipped well for his poor service because, if what I observed was that guy’s midrange emotional palette, then his crests and troughs had best be avoided and I wanted to make sure he could afford this month’s dosage. Then we got of there pretty quick because they found the old people boring.
We walked around the block in order to avoid the crowd garnered whenever there are naked people and poles in proximity. I, surprisingly, know little about the availability of drinking establishments in Louisville, because left to my own devices, I am content to pour my stuff in an opaque container, sit in a park, and watch free enterprise. My companions briefly considered one location and then decided to go check on another before committing. We descended an outdoor staircase that I chanced by earlier in the week during a hungry part of a wander. Upon setting foot on the landing, I took in a scene of an astonishing (even for Kentucky) number of bottles of alcohol. The place came highly recommended by Old Boss 2 because of a server named Morgana Le Fey.
In an evening, Morgana Le Fey managed to redeem the entire population of the unperceptive poor managers of time that was the service industry in Louisville. Most importantly, she knew her line of products far beyond what she was paid to know. She was comfortable offering guidance in the selection of those products. Beyond that, she, about twenty-five, was cool in the way that I wished for when I was that age but definitely WAS NOT. She fell into the pattern of our humor easily and held her own. I even found out that we share the hobby of taking photos of grocery store items with profane names. She was an asset to her business and her profession and has since moved to Las Vegas, leaving Louisville in the dust. Morgana Le Fey, if you ever need a letter of recommendation, you contact me; I will gladly sing your praises.
Until next time, I remain…
Carrie the Red (stripe)