I’m pretty sure the cliche of the mid life crisis is just a simple realization that you’re no longer the best version of yourself and when you were, you had no idea and took it all for granted. It has nothing to do with sports cars and chasing young women or men. I think men will do that sort of thing at any age, it’s just more pronounced when you’re old. I have no idea why this is on my mind this morning. I mean, I don’t have much to report from behind the bar except for inspiration zero. I tried to make a rhubarb, raisin, and rum cocktail last night and it was very ho hum. In my mind was rum raisin ice cream combined with my friend’s mother’s legendary rhubarb raisin pie. The cocktail tasted fine but had no wow factor for me. I get that they’re not all supposed to blow your hair back, but this was too ordinary. Maybe our standards are too high. I don’t know. Maybe I’m overcomplicating it, maybe it was the wrong spirit. It seems the harder you push for things sometimes, the more you actually push them away.

I’m now thinking whiskey is the way to go. That lime and rhubarb have a difficult time going elbow to elbow during the old do-si-do. Lemon might be a better choice. WWNDSD? (What would Nico de Soto do?). The guy just put a fermented garlic honey cocktail on his menu over at Mace. Hey, the point is to break the sound barrier, not to stay underneath it out of fear. The more peripheral and overwhelming events going on in my life, the more the cocktail selections at the restaurant seem to take a dive. The menu is far from dire straits but the tiki section has been dead for awhile with no light at the end of the tunnel.

Around the corner, however, is tiki season. Yup. It’s early August and in a few weeks the good habaneros will be around. I missed the farmer’s market this week due to some unforeseen events that ended up being a red herring. Real soon, and I mean real soon, all the cool shit like quince, guava, dragon fruit, and passionfruit will be around. Oh passionfruit! Where have you been hiding? It seems so long since we’ve been able to connect. What will be in store? Another seasonal tiki section on the menu? Hopefully.

Even old dogs have the desire to bite, to tear and rend flesh, and they’ll do it if pushed. Power is the last thing to go. The size of the wand matters not, it’s the magic contained in the stick. I could keep going. The point is not to look in the mirror and see the wrinkles and purple eye bags and yellow chipped teeth and the receding hairline and the stiff back and the swollen knuckles and the sagging paunch and the desire to not want to speak to stupid young people as bad things. They’re earned. It’s not the years, my friends, it’s the mileage. There’s no defeat unless you acquiesce. Maybe it’s time to listen to this one, yes, yes, the totally overdone one, but still the one and only Dylan Thomas voice which booms and chills you to the bone. Shit man, he died at 39 years old after having a heap of whiskeys. 18 shots, to be exact, over at the White Horse Tavern in NYC, the second oldest bar in the city down on Hudson. I went there once to check it out. The details are extremely fuzzy. I’m usually more coherent on these matters but I can’t remember who I went with or what even happened. Shit, I think I may have gone down there with old Paul Inserra but I can’t be certain. Now there’s a face from the past I haven’t thought about in a long time.

This crazy guy now owns American Meltdown, a grilled cheese food truck down in North Carolina. He grew up on City Island in the Bronx. Ever heard of this place? It’s actually a small island community, yes, the Bronx like the New York Bronx. It’s a well kept secret up there.

And from what I hear it’s a bit like a little New England fishing town. Boy, I haven’t thought of any of this stuff in a while. Paul may have been the most fun guy to go drinking with back in the day. At some point he and I ended up in Times Square one real late night at a Bubba Gump Shrimp. We went in there after it closed but someone forgot to lock the door. There was no one in there so naturally we helped ourselves to some beers off the taps and a couple shots of whiskey. We sat and drank and marveled at the sheer weirdness of the place, how every square inch of available space was taken by some sort of advertising and a price ending in .99. We got pretty comfortable, but I wasn’t so drunk to realize that this little adventure would come crashing down on our heads at any moment. I drank more beer to steady my nerves. Paul was too far gone. He was behind the bar filling a pint glass in total comfort like he had been there to serve me all along. It was my first and last time inside a Bubba Gump. A tourist trap to be sure but something very alluring lurked about the place nonetheless. A corporate hellhole designed to suck you in with its faux nautical theme. Maybe the promise of an ironic t shirt, or just the odd color scheme of reds, oranges and unlimited hues of beige created to soothe the unsuspecting visitor and lull them into spending their hard earned coin on deep fried shrimps of all varieties. I could hear and see them all now quoting Bubba from the movie, laughing, quaffing massive volumes of beer down their gullets.

The TVs were all still on which masked some of our behavior. I fought the desire to bolt and just leave Paul there. The thought of a New York City jail jangled through my drunkenness and kept me sober and fearful, my eyes darting back and forth around the enormous, empty space but always being distracted, hypnotized by the sheer amount of cheesy decorations–anchors, fish netting, plastic octopi–festooned around the joint. We busted on the place, two guys who worked at a “real” restaurant in the Upper West Side, that people actually spent money there.

Paul had pulled some shit like this earlier in the night at a bar in the Lower East Side. We had met up with some of his New York homies. Big, well to do guys with gel in their hair and large silver watches. I drank beer and was handed a shot every five minutes. At some point the bartender went to the bathroom and Paul helped himself to the beer tap, leaning over the bar and pouring, then reaching all the way over for the bottle of Jack Daniels. When the bartender caught him, the result wasn’t the expected shame but instead he and his buddies got super aggressive and told the guy they would kick his ass. I slinked out onto the street but got caught in their wave and stuffed into a cab.

When all the jabronis were gone Paul and I found ourselves wandering around Times Square looking for an arcade that had once been down there many years previous. Lost and drunk we looked for a bar. Nothing was open, except for the well lit entrance to Bubba Gump.

We sat and laughed at the whole strangeness of the night. Giddy with the sense of menace and mischief. And then, like something out of a bad comedy, a janitor with a mop peeked his head around. A large, older white guy with a humpback and hairy ears. I panicked and was an instant away from sprinting, but Paul kept his cool and acted like we were supposed to be there. Two inebriated dudes in heavily wrinkled oxford shirts with the sleeves rolled up and the collars stained with beer sweat.

“Hey man,” Paul said.

“I don’t think you guys are supposed to be here,” the janitor said.

“We’re just finishing up now,” Paul said, pouring himself another beer. “We work here.”

“I’ve never seen you before in my life.”

“We’re new, just finishing up.”

“I’m going to call the cops.”

Paul took the time to drain his fresh beer and the two of us dashed off like lightning down the stairs and to the nearest subway entrance.

“We should split up,” he said.

“I think they had cameras everywhere,” I said.

We made our separate ways. He to Brooklyn and me to the Upper West Side. For days after I thought there would be a knock on the door but I don’t think anyone cared about two idiots having a couple of drafts on Forest and Bubba’s tab.

I’m going to have to get in touch with Paul and see what he’s up to. Cue “One of these days” by Neil Young off Harvest Moon.

The details of the White Horse Tavern are now starting to infiltrate my memory, but it’s a story for another day.