Busting Chip's balls
(... payback's a bitch.)
Time for my annual Thanksgiving story. It may not seem like a
Thanksgiving story at first, but hang in there. One of our own is in
trouble.
Chip Tait, owner of Lovejoy's brew pub ($2.50 pints, every
night) has a great sense of humor. But then Chip's a friend of mine, so
a great sense of humor is pretty much mandatory if you're going to hang
with me.
Here's an example of the legendary Chip wit:
One afternoon, two surly rednecks walk into Lovejoy's and
order a couple of Budweiser's. Lovejoy's doesn't sell Budweiser, only
beer and cocktails, so the bartender talks the two 'necks into a couple
of Amstel Lights. They sit in a corner and stew, as they drink their
pussy beers. When they finish, one of the guys approaches the bartender
and asks, "Is this a gay bar?"
"You'll have to ask the owner," she says and points to Chip at
the corner of the bar.
"Hey, you. Is this here a gay bar?"
"Nope," he says. "But you boys are more than welcome to stay."
See what he did there?
A few months ago, Chip and I hooked up in California. I was
staying in the beautiful hick town of Windsor where I was in charge of
feeding my mother morphine, and Chip was on a cross-country tour with
his wife and kid in a Winnebago. One afternoon, he called me up.
"Yeah, I'm in California. I tried to stay in San Francisco,
but I couldn't find a place to park the trailer. I kept going north,
past Marin, then past Petaluma, Santa Rosa, and now I'm stuck in the
middle of nowhere in a place called Windsor."
"Heh. I think you're in the right place. Did you pass the
Larkfield Shopping Center on your way up the Old Redwood Highway?
Right. About a mile down the road. Cool. There's a bar there called
Eddie's. I'll meet you in 20 minutes."
Thirty minutes later, I walked into Eddie's and Chip was
already working the jukebox for all the Stevie Ray and Johnny Cash he
could milk. Eddie's about as Texan a joint as you can find in
California, so milking the jukebox for old-school country and blues was
entirely possible.
We sat down for a beer -- he had a Sierra Nevada, I think,
while I mocked him with a Budweiser -- and he told me his latest plans.
Although he owns the bar in Austin, he had moved back to Maryland a
couple of years ago to be closer to his family.
"You're right, Jasper," he said. "It was family that brought
me back, and it'll be family that sends me away again."
His new plan was to move to Oregon and learn furniture making
in a four-month accelerated course at the Thomas Chippendale School of
Furniture. After that, he wasn't sure where he wanted to live, but the
cross-country tour was giving him some good ideas.
"Do you think you'll ever move back to Austin?" I asked
"I don't know. That town... Liberty Lunch is gone, the
Steamboat's gone, the city council doesn't backup the Sixth Street
entertainment district. I don't know. And on top of that, Austin's got
so many guys suffering from the Peter Pan Syndrome it's unreal. You
wouldn't believe how many 45-year-olds I've interviewed who decided
they want to become bartenders in their middle age."
"Yeah. That book changed my life. I read The Peter Pan
Syndrome and when I finished it I thought, 'Hey. Maybe I could write a
book.'"
That's what I said. Here's what I was thinking: Chip. Baby.
Sweetheart. Do you even know who the fuck you're talking to here? I'm
the king of the Peter Pan Syndrome. I was a 40-year-old doorman at
Lovejoy's, for crissakes. Meanwhile, you're planning to pack up the
family, move them from Maryland to Oregon, and then enroll in the
Chippendale school a few weeks after your 37th birthday just so you can
major in wood shop.
There's your Peter Pan Syndrome, pal.
The conversation turned to baseball for awhile, and since
Chip's a Cal Ripken fan he went off on a rant about upholding the honor
of the game. Baseball fans hold many traditions near and dear, but if
you're a Ripken fan you'll defend these traditions more than most.
After all, you're rooting for the most anal player in the history of
the game, the man who broke Lou Gehrig's record for consecutive games
played, the man who didn't take a fucking day off in 16 years. What
else can you possibly talk about? The Orioles run at the pennant?
I don't think so.
"I love what Davey Lopes did," Chip said about the Milwaukee
Brewers manager. "I thought it was great when he told Rickey Henderson
during a press conference that he was 'going down' after he stole
second. You just don't steal second with a seven-run lead. But that's
Henderson for you, the ultimate hot dog."
"Yeah," I said. "The last I heard, Rickey Henderson was still
living with his mom. So he's probably already going down."
I didn't have the heart to tell him the rest of the story.
When Davey Lopes played for the Dodgers, he stole second six times when
his team held a lead of seven runs or more. So old Lopes is just a tad
hypocritical.
We finished our beers and promised to meet again at Lovejoy's
in late September. Unfortunately, the 9/11 bombings in Manhattan
derailed my travel plans and I didn't get back to Austin until October.
Two days ago Chip called and told me he was back in town. The
bad news? The landlords of the building where Lovejoy's sits decided to
build a new roof a couple of weeks ago. A week after work was underway
-- the unfinished roof exposed to the elements -- torrential rains
swept through Austin like a biblical plague.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that the landlord's
decision to put in a new roof at Lovejoy's caused all the rain in
Texas. But you have to entertain the possibility.
You wouldn't believe the mess. Monday night, pieces of
fiberglass insulation were stacked in a pyramid on Lovejoy's floor like
an Aggie bonfire (but more structurally sound, of course). None of the
rubble could be removed from the bar until the insurance adjuster came
to get a peak of the carnage, and Mr. Adjuster was taking his sweet
time. Tuesday night, the insurance man still hadn't shown up to survey
the scene, but he gave us permission to remove the rubble.
So I joined the volunteers at Lovejoy's and pitched in to
clean up the joint. It's amazing what you can accomplish while drinking
beer. After the floors were hosed down and the furniture moved back
inside, we entertained ourselves with a wet slab of concrete, freshly
laid to cover a hole in the floor. Some signed their names, some
created artsy designs and others left their palm prints to be forever
immortalized. What could I possibly do to top that?
You guessed it. A cement imprint of my penis now decorates the
Lovejoy's floor.
"Aren't you worried about the cement covering your dick?" Jenn
asked.
"Are you kidding me? Do you know how much I spend on Viagra in
a year?"
So you see, this column's a Thanksgiving story after all. I'm
thankful to have a hangout like Lovejoy's where nobody gives a damn how
old I am, what job I have (or don't) what tattoos I wear (or won't) or
where I stick my cock. And yes, everybody knows my name.
It's Peter Pan, I tell you.
So if you live in Austin, come join me in a beer Saturday
night at the grand reopening of my own private Never-Never Land --
Lovejoy's at 604 Neches between Sixth and Seventh streets. And if you
don't live in Austin, isn't it about time you planned a visit?
We've got to save this club, people. We've got to. Austin's
lost entirely too much of its character during the past few years, and
Lovejoy's is one of the few authentic Austin bars left where you can
get a great beer at a great price. So come say hello to Lisa, Chance,
Kelly, Sam, Reckless, George, Leyla, Kyle, Ferret (yes, Ferret)
Jennifer and the rest of the crew. Tell 'em Jasper sent you.
Believe me. You don't ever want to see me write this line
about Lovejoy's ($6.50 pints, every night).
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STANDARD DISCLAIMER: This column aims to be funny. If you can read anything
else into it, you're on your own.
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