Australian Bar Crawl

March 24, 2007

My friend and visiting fellow blogger from Australia, Dan, knows more people in New York than I do. At least at the moment, but most of them are just passing through.

"I'm meeting some Australian friends for a drink,” Dan said. “I'm meeting a guy I know from Sydney. A New Zealand band is playing at this venue, and then, later, an Australian band is playing at that one."

Daniel met up with the New Zealand band, Cut Off Your Hands!, yesterday afternoon to take promotional photos of them on the streets of New York City. After the shoot, the band played a gig at Pianos on the Lower East Side. Daniel tagged along, but since he'd just seen them play there the night before, he was keen to do something different. When I sent him a text to let him know I was meeting Signe and her friend, Heather, in Williamsburg, he decided to come to Brooklyn. "It's nice to meet some locals for a change," he said.

As we sat around talking about New York real estate, the Sydney music scene, and bed bugs, Signe got a text message about a job. Suddenly, she had to be up at eight o'clock. "Make that seven," she said, "since I need to feed and walk Shady first."

Signe apologized, “Nice to meet you, Dan. Call me later in the week, Jamie,” and left. Heather had a previous engagement in Manhattan, and she left, too, which left Dan and me wondering what to do and where to go next.

"Are there any other places nearby?" Dan asked.

"Union Pool is right down the street," I said.

The name of the bar was familiar to him. "What's the name again? Something Pool?"

"Union Pool."

"That's the place I was asking you about the other day," he said. "A Sydney band I know is playing there."

"When?"

"Tonight."

And off we went.

Before we even entered the bar, Dan saw a guy he knew standing curbside, having a smoke. Dan called to him, they hugged, good to see you, howzit going, this is my friend Jamie, I'm staying at his place.

"Where do you live, Jamie?"

"In Brooklyn."

"Whereabouts?"

"Bushwick."

"Where's that?"

Apparently, Bushwick lacks the international cachet of Williamsburg. I began to talk of neighborhoods and subway stops, but I may have been speaking pig Latin. That is, it kind of made sense, but the guy didn't have the patience to decipher it all. I don't blame him.

The guy finished his cigarette, and we followed him through a nearly congealed cement crowd of people to the back room where the bands play. We were just in time to hear the last half of Beast of Bourbon's final song. I liked what I heard, and was disappointed we didn't get there sooner.

Fighting the crowd for a drink was going to require a major offensive. The bar looked like the fertile edge of a giant egg surrounded by determined sperm swimming, squirming, and squiggling, fighting to be first. "Wait, Jamie. I'm going to have a quick smoke before we tackle that."

Union Pool has an outdoor patio where you can smoke, a rare thing in the city and something that undoubtedly contributes to the bar's success. The patio was equally crowded, and it was impossible to stand still without getting bumped. A drunk next to us, wobbling like a sway pole, had the cherry end of his cigarette knocked to the ground. "S'cuse me," he slurred to Dan. "Gotta light?"

Daniel lit the drunk's cigarette.

"I'm looking for a girl, but I'm never gonna find her," he said.

I couldn't decide if the drunk was referring to a specific girl or speaking generally, but either way, I got the feeling he was right.

When Dan and I moved in an attempt to find some breathing room, the drunk seemed insulted, took a drag from his cigarette, and muttered to himself.

We stepped onto a slightly elevated wooden deck, which gave us some height above the crowd. "It must be strange to be seven feet tall," I said.

Dan offered to get us drinks, while I stayed put and studied the honeybee wiggle dance of the swarm below.

"I'm too old for this," I thought.

An old friend from the old days was there, working security. I'd seen him there once before, on a slightly less crowded night roughly two years ago. At that time, we spoke about the crowd, about how New York has changed, about how we both have changed. "I never go out," he said, and then tried to convince me that Youngstown, Ohio, is more genuinely hip and happening than New York.

"Maybe so," I said, though he wasn't very convincing.

"All I do these days is hop on a train with my mountain bike, get out of the city, and ride. Seriously, that's all I do."

When I saw him this time, we simply slapped each other on the shoulder. How ya doin'? Good. How ya been? Good.

Dan returned with the beers sooner than expected. "Well done," I said. "Cheers."

I would've failed as a sperm, and if I'd been my own, I wouldn't exist.

We didn't stay long. We sat on a bench, watching as people watched until our bottles were empty. Then, we took a deep breath and carved a line through the bees.