This is going to be brief. I have to try and get back to work tomorrow at noon, so I’m posting everything early this morning (it’s currently about one-thirty in the morning EST, USA.)
So the Daily Photo will be up soon and since I usually write the Condensed Gossip at around 11:30 am when I wake up, but at this time of night no one has updated anything, so I’ve decided to do a special, “Hi Asshole!” Condensed Gossip. And I’ll post part two of my true-life arrest tale, “A Real Beer Bust.”
And I love the Home Page art by “Boris” today! Great work Daddio. “Boris” is available for freelance artwork be it something to spruce up your website, a CD cover design, logos, retouching or you name it. Just shoot me an email from the Home Page and I’ll forward it along.
Okay, on with the fucking show, this shit is cutting into my drinking time! Happy Friday everyone.
P.S. The show will be back in its regular format tomorrow. Tune in around noon if you can! Thanks!
Contributing Writers (Comments section, listed in order of comment): JHwang Gene1 Aaron Zioum Zioum the Chainsaw grompf biff Gidget Joey D Professor Dungpie, Fountainhead of Enlightenment!
Thanks for tuning in and contributing everyone, we’ll see you tomorrow at THE MARTY WOMBACHER SHOW!
This is a story I wrote for Gadfly http://www.gadflyonline.com/ magazine years ago (I also incorporated it in my 99 Beers book). It’s a Rudy Giuliani New York era tale of how I was thrown in jail for the hideous crime of drinking an open can of beer on the street in Manhattan. This is a long-ass story, so I thought I’d post it in two parts to close out this month’s “Writer’s Week.” Enjoy! ---------------------------------------------------
A Real Beer Bust in New York City--Or-- How I Was Rudy Giulianied Out of Sleep One Fine October Morning (Part One)
Waking up to the words, “Open up, it’s the police!” at seven in the morning is the definitive example of a rude awakening. I know because about a year ago two plain clothes cops were screaming the above statement and pounding on the door of my apartment. And to make matters worse they had a warrant allowing them to do this.
And I’m willing to confess that just like Gary Gilmore and Randy Newman, I too was indeed guilty.
“Guilty of what?” you wonder.
Well, this is the tough part, coming clean in public. But it’s time I admit my wrong-doing and maybe then society will forgive me for my heinous actions.
I’m fighting back Jimmy Swaggart-like tears as I prepare to type in this next gut-wrenching, confessional sentence. Okay, here goes...I willfully committed the following crime in broad daylight: I drank a beer in a brown paper bag on the sidewalk in New York City.
Yes, the city of New York, in all its infinite wisdom, paid for two cops to almost bust down my door, handcuff me, take me to jail and then drive me to a court of law, all over one can of beer. There’s a million stories in the Naked City and now there’s one more. Here it is.
It was a muggy August evening about 6:00 at night and I was walking home from midtown to the Upper West Side of Manhattan where I lived at the time. I was thirsty and stopped in at a deli and bought a sixteen ounce can of Budweiser. The Indian gentlemen behind the counter placed it in a small brown paper bag. I coughed up a buck and a quarter and was on my way.
Here in New York you can buy single cans of beer on almost every corner at a bodega or deli. The reason they put it in an individual brown bag is because they assume you’re going to drink it on the street. Now while it is against the law to drink an open can of beer, it’s a law assumed by most to be enforced as vigorously as the “no spitting” law. Hence you’ll see people on almost every block wandering around with a brown paper bag containing a can of beer.
In New York where you’re assaulted by people begging for money, trying to sell you drugs, screaming gibberish, waving flyers in your face and vomiting and pissing in stoops on the corner, an open can of Budweiser seems to be the least of anyone’s worries, especially the cops. But thanks to Mayor Rudy Giuliani this is no longer the case.
When the whip-haired Giuliani was elected a few years ago he vowed to clean up the city and bring the crime rates down. And he’s succeeded. Crime rates have fallen. Most of the murders on the streets are now committed by the cops. Times Square has shuttered up all the famous porno theaters and seedy strip clubs and replaced them with family sports cafes, Starbucks and a giganzo Walt Disney store/mall thingy. Of course I haven’t seen any of this, once the porno theaters and strip clubs shut down there was no reason for me to visit Times Square anymore.
One of Mayor Giuliani’s tactics in overpowering crime in the Big Apple was to employ what is known as a “sweep” of an area and arrest anyone who is doing anything against the law. And Johnny, I mean anything. A friend of mine was busted in a sweep of Alphabet City for smoking a joint on the street and he spent a night in jail. The fact that he was arrested in front of an apartment building that houses several crack dealers was truly an ironic moment that went over the Gestapo-like policemen’s heads as they handcuffed him and ignored the steady stream of people wandering in and out of the building gleefully making purchases of rock cocaine.
Well, on that fateful August night it was my turn. I had walked about a block on Columbus Avenue and had maybe two sips of the illegal brew when a police siren went off howling behind me. Unfazed I continued to walk, sirens go off in the city as frequently as Donald Trump changes girlfriends, so you tend to ignore them.
But a few steps later the police car sidled up to me and a sporty, pumped-up young police officer jumped out and told me to stop.
“Stop what?” I asked this furrowed brow defender of the law.
“What’s in the bag?” He asked in a Joe Friday monotone, that was a stark contrast to his boyish face and blonde crew cut.
“A can of beer.” I answered.
Ba-da-bing, Ba-da-boom! Junior Johnny Law had his man. Without so much as a hot light overhead he had whipped a confession out of me.
“Do you know that it’s against the law to drink open alcohol on the streets?” He quizzed me with ever narrowing eyes.
“Yeah, but this is just a beer,” I countered. Somewhere Perry Mason was blushing.
“A can of beer is an alcoholic beverage sir.” He said in clipped, curt tones while folding his arms and shaking his head at my pathetic defense ploy.
“Oh, right.” I sheepishly replied.
You see I drink beer so often that I don’t think of it as an alcoholic beverage, but more as a staple of life. Like cigarettes. But the young officer had made his point and I was willing to let him have his day.
“Well I’ll just throw it out and be on my way,” I offered and started to walk in the direction of a garbage can.
“Hold it right there sir!” He commanded. “I’ll take the beer, have you got any I.D.?”
With much sadness I surrendered the beer. I almost detected a faint smile as he poured the beer out in front of me and then threw the can out into the street.
“Hmm, the poor fellow must have been out sick on the day that they taught the young cadets that littering is against the law,” I thought to myself as he took out a book of tickets and started writing on the pad.
“Sir we’re doing a sweep of the Upper West Side tonight,” he explained in the Sgt. Friday monotone. “Now while you may think it’s perfectly innocent to be walking along with a can of beer, this kind of behavior leads people to think they can sit on a stoop and smoke pot. Next thing you know they’re selling crack in broad daylight.”
I didn’t want to spoil his lecture by telling him that over in the park at 72nd and Broadway they were probably not only selling crack, but mescaline, heroin and all sorts of illegal, mind altering substances.
“I could’ve taken you to jail tonight, but I decided to write you a summons instead,” he continued. “You’ll have to show up at court on this date and you’ll probably be issued a fine.” He ripped the ticket off the pad and handed it to me in one fell swoop. Then with panther-like moves he jumped back into the car where his partner had kept the car running, wasting taxpayer-funded gasoline.
“Stay out of trouble,” he warned jabbing a finger in the air and the car sped off, probably in hot pursuit of jaywalkers over on Amsterdam and 73rd.
Well I did what any right thinking New Yorker would do. I pitched the ticket in the garbage and bought a six of sixteen ounce Budweisers from another deli and drank them in the safety of my apartment.
By all accounts that should be the end of this story, but it’s not. Let’s fast forward to the first week of October.
It was a Tuesday night and I had been sitting in the P&G Tavern on the corner of Columbus and 72nd drinking, yes that’s right, beer. Even though I like to drink a lot, I know when to say when. So at 4:30 in the morning after ingesting enough Budweiser to make a Clydesdale puke, I decided it was time to say “When.” I stumbled home and passed out on the bed.
The knock on the door came roughly two hours later.
“BOOM, BOOM, BOOM!” Went the door. Now the earliest most of my friends rise is at the crack of noon, so I knew this was either someone at the wrong door or an unwanted visitor.
“Get the fuck out of here, I’m sleeping!” I graciously informed the uninvited knocker.
And that’s when those five horrific words penetrated my eardrums.
“Open up, it’s the police!”
I sprung up off the bed like a piece of bread popping out of a toaster whose timer had gone horribly awry.
“What?” I asked throwing on a pair of shorts and groggily stumbling towards the eyehole on the apartment door.
“Open up, this is the police and we have a warrant to pick up Martin Wombacher,” the voice from behind the door informed me.
Well now my brain was spinning in a hyperactive hurly-burly mode. This was just too much information to process with a head full of beer and a body functioning on two hours of sleep. I peered through the keyhole and saw two potbellied men whose ages were somewhere between mid thirties to early forties. They each adorned the tops of their heads with baseball caps and were wearing tee shirts straining under the girth of their guts.
“How do I know you two are really cops?” I countered while staring at the dullardly duo from the eyehole.
With this they each produced silver badges on chains from underneath their tee shirts. Even in my fuzzy condition I couldn’t help but notice that they produced the badges and held them out at exactly the same time without blinking with the precision of two synchronized swimmers. These guys were cops alright.
And I should point out that at this time I had long forgotten about the beer ticket. I have trouble remembering things that happened a few hours ago, much less two months ago. So I figured something was amiss.
“Look I think you guys have made a mistake, I haven’t done anything,” I explained wiping crud off my bloodshot, maplined eyes.
“This is Martin Wombacher I’m speaking to right now?” One of them questioned.
“Yeah, but I haven’t done anything.” I whined.
“Open up or we’re going to break the door down.” One of them threatened.
“Holy shitballs,” I thought.
I felt like Otis in an Andy of Mayberry episode gone terribly wrong. I took a deep breath which nearly caused me to faint and opened the door.
Fat and Fatter burst in. The one on the left was holding the warrant.
“Get dressed we’ve got to take you to the holding cell at the precinct jail until the court opens up.”
Was this all some sort of bad acid flashback? Was I dreaming? This had to be a mistake.
“Jail? Jail? Jail?” I was repeating it like a mantra. It was like my brain was a record that the needle kept sticking on. My mouth tasted like a dirty bath mat that had been soaked in rancid beer.
One of the fat boys took a step towards me.
“Have you been drinking?” He asked as his pudgy, silly putty-like face was twisting into a scowl.
If ever there was an appropriate time to emphatically utter the words, “Uh, like, Duh!” it was right then. But I decided to be more diplomatic.
“Well, I was a few hours ago, but then I fell asleep and didn’t expect all this,” I said with a dramatic sweep of the arm. As upset and tired as I was I thought this was nice touch to punctuate my feelings. The fat boys remained unimpressed.
“You like to drink, don’t you,” The other one asked. He was slightly taller and I realized he was chewing gum. I resisted the urge to ask if he brought enough for everybody in the room.
“Yeah, so what? What’s going on here?” I asked in ever-growing belligerent tones. By now I was awake and starting to get pissed. I was also still drunk. I was sure this was the problem of some computer glitch and couldn’t wait to throw these two low rent, overweight Barney Fife’s out of my apartment like yesterday’s rotting garbage.
The one with the warrant shook the paper in my direction and spoke with one of those “gotcha” smiles.
“Do you remember receiving a ticket for an open beer on Columbus Avenue last August?” He asked, flashing his badly stained choppers at me.
Slowly, through the mist of beer floating in my brain, it came back to me.
“Oh yeah,” I replied as I was becoming stupid with shock. “But you don’t mean you’re hauling me off to jail over an unpaid ticket?”
“Bingo!” The one holding the warrant sang out. “Mayor Giuliani has instituted a new policy where we pick up people with outstanding tickets and take them to court, Now get dressed, you’ve got to sit in the holding cell until the court opens at 10:00.”
It’s Thirsty Thursday, whatever the fuck that means. I guess it means I’ll tell you what I’m drinking today. Right now I’m drinking diet Mountain Dew. I’ll have a few more glasses then move on to my homemade lemon water, which is tap water mixed with lemon concentrate. I drink that all afternoon and then I get a bottle of this Zero berry juice thing at the deli before work and then I fill that bottle up with water from work throughout the night. And then it’s home and time to drink beer. The number depends on my mood and how many are in the refrigerator.
And now on to the show, day four of “Writer’s Week,” and me spotlighting new and old stories I’ve written. Today’s story is one I wrote for Gadfly magzine years ago. It’s a true story of me getting arrested here in New York and it’s called, “A Real Beer Bust.” I’ll be posting it in about an hour. Till then, I’ve got a brand newDaily Photoand Condensed Gossipcoming up soon. So pour yourself a glass of Ostrich piss and stick around!
And once again more cool-ass art from “Boris” on the Home Page! It’s a My Favorite Martian Magic Slate! Genius work, “Boris!” And if you have a website and would like to add some cool art like this to it, “Boris” is available for that and CD cover designs, logos and much more. Just send me an email and I’ll pass the information along.
Contributing Writers (Comments section, listed in order of comment): Joey D JHwang grompf Zioum Zioum the Chainsaw Heide "Boris" Professor Dungpie, Fountainhead of Enlightenment! biff
Thanks for tuning in and contributing everyone, we’ll see you tomorrow at THE MARTY WOMBACHER SHOW!
It’s Wednesday as I continue Writer’s Week this week. Next week we’ll be back to the old format, but I’ve enjoyed doing this, so I think the last week of every month I’m going to do this. It’ll keep my writing chops up. I hope you’re all enjoying the stories, if you have time to read them.
Today’s story is about my favorite Cheap Trick concert, but before that gets posted, I’ll update the Daily Photoand Condensed Gossip.
“Boris” did another great job with the daily “writerly” Home Page art. If you have a website and want it spruced up or if you have a CD cover you need designed or any other artwork done, just send me an email and I will forward it to our resident artist, “Boris.”
Contributing Writers (Comments section, listed in order of comment): Marty (Louisville) Professor Dungpie, Fountainhead of Enlightenment! Zioum Zioum the Chainsaw biff Joey D JHwang Beau Brooks Gene1 grompf
Thanks for tuning in and contributing everyone, we’ll see you tomorrow at THE MARTY WOMBACHER SHOW!
Most people never think about writing a book and they are the lucky ones. You have to be some sort of serious lunatic to entertain this notion. I mean think about it, you think that you can string a bunch of words together to hold someone’s interest for 200 to 300 pages? You have to be one egotistical asshole to think you can pull some shit like that off. And that’s exactly what I am. My name is Marty, and I am an author. Of not one book, but two books. And today I’m writing about my book “99 Beers Off The Wall.”
They got respect, oh yeah, He wants the same, oh yeah, And its a certain kind of fool who Like to hear the sound of his own name.
A poster on a storefront, the picture of a wanted man, He had a reputation spreading like fire throughout the land, It wasn’t for the money, at least it didn’t start that way, It wasn't for the runnin’, but now he’s runnin’ everyday.
Those lyrics above are from an Eagles song entitled, “A Certain Kind Of Fool,” it was written by Randy Meisner, Don Henley and Glen Frey and for me it describes a writer to a “T.”
It’s a rarity for a writer to make an honest living typing out words. For every successful one, there’s a thousand more trying to make it and thinking in vain that they will. And it’s not about the money, in the end it’s all about the byline. Writers will act like they’re in it for some grand illusion, but in the long run, it’s the thrill of seeing the words: “By Marty Wombacher.” The first time you see your name in a byline in a newspaper or magazine, it’s the equivalent of shooting up pure heroin while smoking crystal meth and having an army of whores facilitating your every whim and fancy. And it takes a certain kind of fool to chase something like that. And I’ve done it and luckily I’ve lived to tell about it. And it’s not for the running, but soon, if you’re a serious writer, you’re on a treadmill looking for the next deadline, the next story, the next BIG THING. You’re running every fucking day and it never ends. And you’re always scared that you will run out of ideas. You’re constantly running and thinking and you’re always scared. It’s not a normal way to live, believe me I know. I’ve been doing this shit for over 20 fucking years. So why do it? For the byline, baby, for the byline.
Writing is weird. I think deep inside every writer is a voice screaming, “They’re going to find out you’re a fake, asshole!” over and over on an unending loop. Because what is a writer? It’s someone taking words we all have access to and assembling them in a certain fashion and then having the balls to put their name on it and expecting everyone to read it. It’s like being a fucking circus clown. Everytime someone says to me, “I just read that article you wrote,” I think, “Fuck, don’t you have anything better to do?” But yet, I continue to write and expect people to read the latest formation of words I’ve putten together. Crazy when you think about it, and I obsess over it every fucking day of my life. It takes a certain kind of fool to surrender his life to this shit.
And articles are one thing, but committing to a book is nuts. I’ve done some joke books and things, but I’ve only written two books that I consider “real books.” The first one is titled, “99 Beers Off The Wall,” and that’s what I’m writing about today, and expecting people to read this shit.
I got the idea for “99 Beers Off The Wall,” after reading a Zagat’s guide book and checking out a bar that they reviewed as a first class dive bar. I went there and it was nothing like the review said it was. Then I learned that anything in a Zagat’s review that’s in quotes, is something that’s sent in and isn’t fact checked. And I realized what a fucking scam the Zagat’s guides are. Basically, if you have a bar, you can send in phony reviews, Zagat’s reprints them, the bars put the reviews up in the window, it’s free advertising for Zagat’s and everyone wins except the poor schmuckola who believes the fake review.
This really pissed me off and I decided to write my own guidebook. I’ve written bar reviews for Time Out New York and citysearch.com, so I considered myself a seasoned bar reviewer and writer. I took seven days off from work and went to 99 bars and drank 99 beers and took notes to write reviews of the bars. And in between I took notes on travelling around New York City, drunk as a skunk, reviewing bar after bar. The seven day research part of the book wasn’t tough, I knew that if you drank one beer an hour, you wouldn’t get drunk, so from noon to six, I would pace myself. Then from six on, things got a little hairier, but that made for good copy in the notes. I did this in the third week of August, 2001. I went back to work, rested up a bit and then in the first week of September, I started writing my book.
Starting a book is always scary. It’s really daunting and weird thinking that you can fill up 200 pages or more with words that people are going to continue reading. But a true writer needs to have confidence that borders on stupidity and I have that in abundance. So I started on the introduction and soon I had banged out that and the first chapter in little over a week. And I was working with an independent copy editor who was howling at my results and telling me it was really funny and decent writing, and outside of the usual grammar and punctuation corrections, didn’t have a lot of notes for me to try and correct. Hallelujah! Maybe I was on to something! And then I found out I was on to something and that something was something we now know as September 11th. Fuck!
I was working a 7 at night to 7 in the morning shift on September 11th, 2001 and was dog tired that morning. I came home chugged a few beers and went to bed. When I woke up it was a different world and I was in shock. I didn’t even think about the book for about a week and when I did I tried to write and nothing happened. This wasn’t good. I remember one Saturday sitting at my computer for about seven hours with my fingers on the home row and nothing happening. The brain pistons weren’t firing and I was afraid that through all the shit I had seen and lived through that it had taken away my ability to write. And for about a week, every day I would sit at my computer with my hands on the home row and nothing would move. And then I remembered something I had read about Hunter S. Thompson. As a young writer he would type the entire novel of “The Great Gatsby” to get a feel of the sensation of writing words that ended up being that novel. One of my favorite books has always been “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,” by Mark Twain, so I went to my bookshelf and typed a chapter of that in. Minutes later my notes were out and I was banging out the second chapter of “99 Beers Off The Wall.”
My friend Joe Freedman published and designed the book and we got some publicity in the Peoria Journal Star, The New York Press and some websites, but I almost hit the motherlode with this one. About a week after it came out I got a call from ABC news. It was a producer wanting to know if they could film a segment for their overnight newscast. Well, gee, I guess so!
It turns out, someone I had comped the book to at People magazine knew a producer at ABC, gave them the book and the producer thought it would make a funny segment for their overnight news program. So we went out and went to three bars I had reviewed with an ABC film crew and for eight hours filmed segments with one of their on air people and myself talking to people in the bars about the book. It was really funny because since there was an ABC film crew, people thought I was a known author and wanted to buy an autographed copy of the book. Luckily I thought this might happen so I brought along a bag of books and sold them for ten bucks apiece.
After we were done, the producer said she would call me when the piece would air. We filmed this in May and by the end of June I had not heard from her. So I called her and she said they were waiting for a slow news night. By July they were still waiting. September came and she said they were busy getting ready for the one year anniversary of September 11th and the piece had been spiked. She said she was sorry.
Fuck, I got hit by September 11th twice. In the end, we sold about 800 copies and I was depressed about this, till Joe said to me, “When you were a kid, did you ever think you would write a book and that 800 people would buy it?” And he was right, that made me feel okay and proud of what I had done. It also caused a question to form in my mind, “Didn’t those 800 people have anything better to do?”
Below is an excerpt from the first chapter of “99 Beers Off The Wall.” Enjoy and thanks for reading!
Sunday Sunday Bloody Sunday
11:30 a.m. Jesus God, it’s hotter than Satan’s ass out here. I’m walking eastbound on 19th St. heading towards 3rd Ave. It’s already in the 90’s and the weather (on the ones) on NY1 said we could break heat records all week long. I’m sweating like a lunatic.
12:05 p.m. I made it to the first bar on my schedule (Paddy Maguire’s, I decided to go to Irish bars all day) but the stout Irish woman behind the bar told me to come back at 1:00 when they open. I called the night before and some Irish hooligan told me they opened at noon on Sunday. I’ve got to stop being so trustful of people. This asshole single-handedly fucked with my schedule and now I’m paying the price for it. He’s somewhere in this city having a good old “Irish chuckle” at my expense right at this stinking moment. Oh well, fuck it, I’ll walk around and find a diner to get something to eat. 12:10 p.m. I’ve walked three blocks and can’t believe what I’m looking at on the corner of 22nd and 3rd: The Lyric Diner. The fucking Lyric Diner...hah! Hah, hah, hah! No, I haven’t started drinking yet, it’s just that one of my favorite New York stories took place right here in the Lyric Diner.
And here it is: In ’97 or ’98 a guy we’ll call Alvin (I swore to him I’d never tell this story, so the least I can do is change his name) had moved here to Manhattan. He was a writer I had known for a while and we decided to have lunch. He was going to tell me his plans for the future in this city some call the Big Apple. I never do...call it the Big Apple that is. I meet him and he suggests we go to his neighborhood diner, The Lyric Diner. So we walk to the diner, it’s Sunday around 1:30 p.m., and it’s jam-packed with patrons all hungering for a patty melt and fries with gravy and other daily diner specials.
We get a table towards the back in the middle of the rectangular, brightly lit diner. I usually don’t eat much in the daytime, so I have a diet Coke and a glass of water. But Alvin really packs it in. Eggs, sausage, toast, bacon, potatoes, jelly, butter, coffee and I think cheese was involved somewhere in the course of the meal. It was the brunch special and it was more food than I’d ever seen someone eat for breakfast in my entire life of watching other people eat breakfast. And he was really shoveling it down fast and furious, Fatty Arbuckle style.
He had just jammed the last forkful of the gargantuan feast in his mouth and started to say something, but then he gags. His eyes cross for the briefest of moments, and then he starts choking. I ask him if he’s alright and he puts his hand to his mouth. Only one second of normalcy remained for the rest of our stay in The Lyric Diner. For it was then that puke started to stream between his fingers and he stood up over the table and let out an ear-piercing BARRRRRFFFF!! sound and puked all over the table. And then he did it again. And then, just for good measure, he did it once more with feeling.
By now I’ve jumped back from the table which is literally dripping with puke. And we’re talking really gross throw up here folks, big grey chunks and sickening looking multi-colored runny matter all over our table and dripping down to the floor. By now Alvin has stopped puking and is standing there kind of in a daze. His face is red and his eyes are watering. I look around the diner and it’s like someone has shot an Uzi off in the joint. No one is talking, no one is eating, no one is moving. In one instant it went from the typical noisy, clinkity-clank-silverware-hitting-plates diner noise to complete and utter silence.
Everybody is staring at us and the puke-riddled table. It’s like time was frozen. And it’s at this moment that I see something that I’ll never forget. I look a couple of tables ahead of me and off to the left in a booth is a typical Manhattan yuppie power couple with their two boys who look to be roughly five and seven years old. Dad and the boys have on navy blue suits, white shirts and ties and mom is decked out in a summery white dress and wearing jewelry that maybe I’ll be able to afford after three lifetimes of working hard labor. The entire family is shiny, clean and polished ten times from Tuesday. And the whole stinking lot of them are staring wide-eyed, open mouthed at our table which has been turned into a vomitorium. And they all have full plates of food in front of them, they had just been served. I instinctively know that their cherished after-church weekly brunch has been ruined, maybe for the remainder of the summer, perhaps for the rest of their lives. The children would be scarred, that much was certain. But I couldn’t waste valuable time worrying about them, I just had to get out of that place and away from the puke.
By this time Alvin cleans himself up by fouling every napkin at our table. We walk up to our wide-eyed, frozen waitress in the corner and she nervously scribbles out our check. All eyes are glued to us as Alvin places a twenty on her tray and apologizes for the mess she’s going to have to clean up. She just stares ice at us. We pay the bill up front to the sickened cashier and as we leave there is still entire silence in the diner. Right at that moment I felt as if I were a member of the Symbionese Liberation Army holding up that bank with Patty Hearst back in the ’70s. I hadn’t been back to this place since. And now, four years later, here I am. I have a weird feeling that as I walk in, someone will say, “There he is, one of the throw up guys, lynch him!”
1:00 p.m. I made it safely through breakfast (diet Coke, order of toast, hold the puke) and walked around the neighborhood to kill 17 minutes. It’s finally time to duck into the first bar before the sidewalks and street people spontaneously combust into flames from this godawful and terrible heat. I’ve worked up a powerful thirst. Luckily I’ve scheduled myself for 17 bars today. Like I always say, “If you can’t stand the heat in the kitchen, well...you know, just start drinking.”
Hello and welcome to day two of writer’s week! If you missed yesterday’s show, all week long I’m showcasing a writing story instead of the usual installments. I’m going to do this one week out of the month, because I started this show to showcase my writing, but when I’m constantly updating, there’s no time to write. Today I’m going to write about my book, “99 Beers Off The Wall” and include an excerpt from the book. And I’ll also be updating the Daily Photo and Condensed Gossip, so check back for those and for the main story of the day, right here at the Daily Post. Happy Tuesday!
P.S. And “Boris” has worked up special “Writer Home Page Art” for the entire week and they are all great, including today’s vintage typewriter. Thanks Daddio! And know that “Boris” could be dressing up your website as well. And he’s also available for freelance work on CD covers and logos and more. If you need some artwork or Photoshoppery done, just send me an email and I will forward it on to “Boris.”
Contributing Writers (Comments section, listed in order of comment): Professor Dungpie, Fountainhead of Enlightenment! Zioum Zioum the Chainsaw biff "Boris" Joey D Aaron Gene1 meleah rebeccah JHwang
Thanks for tuning in and contributing everyone, we’ll see you tomorrow at THE MARTY WOMBACHER SHOW!
Friday, July 31, 2009 at 1:28AM 
