BACK TO THE GOOD OLE DAYS
BACK TO THE GOOD OLE DAYS!
Back in Quito.
In my old room at The Loro Verde. I sleep pretty much for three days. Even venturing outside for food and beer is a major effort.
I am an emotional jellyfish.
The hauntingly relentless conflict that I have done Rocia wrong persists. I hope someday she can forgive me. I’m glad she has her family around her, at least. Someday, I’m gonna make all this right. Just not now.
A week has passed - and I’m on one of my now nightly self-destructive meanderings through the cold and misty streets of Quito - the usual obsessive search for stores that sell beer at an ever cheaper price - when I make a discovery.
A bar. Not just any old bar, but - ‘The English Pub’.
Right in the middle of Gringolandia!
Why haven’t I seen this before?
In any case, I stroll in, order a beer, and almost immediately strike up a conversation with the bartender, Sean. A real honest -to goodness- bloke- straight from Manchester, England. The genuine English accent, this guy is freakin’ hilarious, man. Good guy. One of those blokes who is really welcoming, no formalities. Great off-beat sense of humor. My kind of people. We hit it off right away. Joking, laughing, swearing… It's so good for me to be around this kind of energy again! Pretty soon, this place becomes my second home. Practically every night. He introduces me to all the regulars - lots of Englishmen, but also plenty of Canadians, Europeans - some Americans.
“This is Joe, he’s a writer, actor, comedian, boxer and muurderer”.
It’s too funny with that English accent! The customers are pretty witty, even rowdy, and a couple of nights later I learn to play the ‘very English’ game of darts. I soon become such a great entertainment addition that Sean actually begins buying me beers to keep the customers laughing.
Good thing too - my money is really running low. A short while later, I become the bar celebrity, which is the next best thing to the rush you get from being onstage. My constant state of inebriation and the resulting escapades always make for entertaining nightly stories. For instance, I always walk back to the Loro Verde after the bar closes at 2 AM - even though Sean and the rest of the patrons beg me to take a taxi back. Reina Victoria (the street it’s on) gets pretty seedy that time of night - pimps, prostitutes, drug dealers, etc., but I always feel I’m invincible. Aside from a few comments and sidelong glances, though, nothing really happens. One night, however, a group of transgender prostitutes nearly rape me, a narrow escape follows - and you can believe that makes a great story for many a night!
This feels like the good ole days of my adventures in 80s New York - especially Hell’s Kitchen - where I was a comedian performing quite a bit at The Improv, a famous comedy club in the area. I used to hang out at Rudy’s Bar after performing, usually around 2 AM. As I’ve stated before, Rudy’s was a great old genuine dive bar, not the quasi-WestWorld sports bars that pass for dive bars in today’s New York. This place was the real deal.
Frequented by the Westies, a vicious psycho Irish gang notorious for being contracted out by the Mafia to disembowel people - and thoroughly enjoying it at that. One of my favorite past times there was to do ‘the push-up dance’, something I made up when I was feeling really good. I would dance on a table to one of only two dance jams on the jukebox (the rest were Frank Sinatra songs), launch myself like a missile into the air, crash down on the floor, do a push-up - and come back up again on my feet. The pimps would love it! They’d be like:
“Yo, yo, that mofucka be no joke and shit, man!”
They would insert more quarters into the jukebox - exhorting me to do it again. It was fun, and they would supply me with a constant stream of 60¢ glasses of Schlitz beer. I got tons of stories like that, man, and I keep the loyal patrons of ‘The English Pub’ fascinated!
Back in the spotlight.
The center of attention again.
Famous.
I love it!
One night however, this Canadian, an older guy named Jean, whirls into the bar like a hurricane - and everybody gathers around him. Seems that he’s been coming here for years, and has a reputation for being a tremendous storyteller. His reputation precedes him. Apparently, this guy has been all around the world, and been involved in a myriad of adventures. Tonight he’s telling about the time that he lived in the Amazon Jungle. Now, this is way back in the 60’s or maybe the early 70’s - when the tribes had been living much as they had forever. He even has black & white Polaroid shots of him standing with the tribes back in the day… pretty amazing.
I guess he’s back in the area now, because he comes in every night and has the whole bar enraptured. I have been basically shunted off to the side, and I must admit, feel a strong sense of jealousy.Back in Quito.
In my old room at The Loro Verde. I sleep pretty much for three days. Even venturing outside for food and beer is a major effort.
I am an emotional jellyfish.
The hauntingly relentless conflict that I have done Rocia wrong persists. I hope someday she can forgive me. I’m glad she has her family around her, at least. Someday, I’m gonna make all this right. Just not now.
A week has passed - and I’m on one of my now nightly self-destructive meanderings through the cold and misty streets of Quito - the usual obsessive search for stores that sell beer at an ever cheaper price - when I make a discovery.
A bar. Not just any old bar, but - ‘The English Pub’.
Right in the middle of Gringolandia!
Why haven’t I seen this before?
In any case, I stroll in, order a beer, and almost immediately strike up a conversation with the bartender, Sean. A real honest -to goodness- bloke- straight from Manchester, England. The genuine English accent, this guy is freakin’ hilarious, man. Good guy. One of those blokes who is really welcoming, no formalities. Great off-beat sense of humor. My kind of people. We hit it off right away. Joking, laughing, swearing… It's so good for me to be around this kind of energy again! Pretty soon, this place becomes my second home. Practically every night. He introduces me to all the regulars - lots of Englishmen, but also plenty of Canadians, Europeans - some Americans.
“This is Joe, he’s a writer, actor, comedian, boxer and muurderer”.
It’s too funny with that English accent! The customers are pretty witty, even rowdy, and a couple of nights later I learn to play the ‘very English’ game of darts. I soon become such a great entertainment addition that Sean actually begins buying me beers to keep the customers laughing.
Good thing too - my money is really running low. A short while later, I become the bar celebrity, which is the next best thing to the rush you get from being onstage. My constant state of inebriation and the resulting escapades always make for entertaining nightly stories. For instance, I always walk back to the Loro Verde after the bar closes at 2 AM - even though Sean and the rest of the patrons beg me to take a taxi back. Reina Victoria (the street it’s on) gets pretty seedy that time of night - pimps, prostitutes, drug dealers, etc., but I always feel I’m invincible. Aside from a few comments and sidelong glances, though, nothing really happens. One night, however, a group of transgender prostitutes nearly rape me, a narrow escape follows - and you can believe that makes a great story for many a night!
This feels like the good ole days of my adventures in 80s New York - especially Hell’s Kitchen - where I was a comedian performing quite a bit at The Improv, a famous comedy club in the area. I used to hang out at Rudy’s Bar after performing, usually around 2 AM. As I’ve stated before, Rudy’s was a great old genuine dive bar, not the quasi-WestWorld sports bars that pass for dive bars in today’s New York. This place was the real deal.
Frequented by the Westies, a vicious psycho Irish gang notorious for being contracted out by the Mafia to disembowel people - and thoroughly enjoying it at that. One of my favorite past times there was to do ‘the push-up dance’, something I made up when I was feeling really good. I would dance on a table to one of only two dance jams on the jukebox (the rest were Frank Sinatra songs), launch myself like a missile into the air, crash down on the floor, do a push-up - and come back up again on my feet. The pimps would love it! They’d be like:
“Yo, yo, that mofucka be no joke and shit, man!”
They would insert more quarters into the jukebox - exhorting me to do it again. It was fun, and they would supply me with a constant stream of 60¢ glasses of Schlitz beer. I got tons of stories like that, man, and I keep the loyal patrons of ‘The English Pub’ fascinated!
Back in the spotlight.
The center of attention again.
Famous.
I love it!
One night however, this Canadian, an older guy named Jean, whirls into the bar like a hurricane - and everybody gathers around him. Seems that he’s been coming here for years, and has a reputation for being a tremendous storyteller. His reputation precedes him. Apparently, this guy has been all around the world, and been involved in a myriad of adventures. Tonight he’s telling about the time that he lived in the Amazon Jungle. Now, this is way back in the 60’s or maybe the early 70’s - when the tribes had been living much as they had forever. He even has black & white Polaroid shots of him standing with the tribes back in the day… pretty amazing.
I guess he’s back in the area now, because he comes in every night and has the whole bar enraptured. I have been basically shunted off to the side, and I must admit, feel a strong sense of jealousy
