The Daily Id - Issue #1: Sweatin’ Whisky/Good Coffee
I’m at the Pourhouse on Kirkwood trying to remember last night with an oily cup of ”Quarry Hole.” But this place is distracting. I get lost analyzing the strange cast of characters this place casts on a daily basis; it’s a strange mix. A gang of homeless men usually congregate in the back to steal the WiFi on a communal laptop, which I imagine gets passed around like the communal whore. I always catch myself day dreaming about being homeless: “If only, then I would finally have time to write!” But like all free time, it would all just go to masturbation and rewatching Arrested Development episodes. Then of course there are the Bible thumpers at the long oak tables in the middle of the coffeehouse. I enjoy watching Bible study groups competing with gaggles of hipsters for those precious few long tables. I overhear pretty much the same kind of conversation either way:
“No, it’s not okay! In Leviticus God says homosexuality is immoral.”
“Yeah, the new Band of Horses record is horrible. Pitchfork only gave it like 4.4 out of 10.” (Side note: How the hell do you determine if a whole album deserves .1 more or less points? At some point you are just being a dick.)
The middle age townies usually fill out the front section. The music’s not loud or too out there and the coffee’s cheap. They usually just keep to themselves and read the paper.
I’m situated in the front left corner of the store sitting on a makeshift stage sweating out the cheap whiskey. My body is sticky with the sugar and I smell like what Rip Torn looks like. I don’t usually drink like that or at least not for a long time. I remember starting at the Bishop. Still nothing.
I’ve moved on to watching the inaudible conversation happening just on the other side of the big front window. An older hipster (only meaning his over 30) and a young African-American hipster are smoking hand rolled cigarettes and looking very serious. I am vexed by this. I feel as if he’s ironically being black. It’s fucking with my simplistic compartmentalizing Teutonic brain. I’m actually frustrated, like he’s being a particular kind of race just to fuck with me. I have that kind of egocentric brain that can perform such staggering feats of rationalization.
I don’t like this feeling. I have so few memories as it is. No one really remembers their first 6 or 7 years; I lost my teenage years somewhere deep in my head and the first year of college inside a bottle. I feel like every picture of me that is older than a year is not actually of me. It seems impossible that I was ever that person. People like to nostalgically remind me of past stories, but I just nod my head like a man who woke up from a coma with no memory. I like remembering things. For the first time in my life I got stuff worth remembering and things I don’t want to forget. Still nothing.
