[joe-frank-list] 'To the bar life'

[rbell at alumni.caltech.edu]

	Bud (Larry Block), a customer at a bar, wants drinks that Ray
(Ryan Cutrona), the bartender, doesn't have.  (I take the names from
'In the middle of nowhere'; they mention the towns of Paisley and
Kimball, which also appear in 'In the middle of nowhere'; Block and
Cutrona played the same characters in it; Block's car was broken in
both.)
	1:50: Joe recites a prayer, some parts taken from the
Tridentine mass.
	2:10: Bud and Ray return, arguing about drinks.
	4:50: Joe describes the appearance and behavior of a homeless
man on Venice beach.
	7:00: Johnny (the homeless man) was born in NYC in August
1921.  His mother, Blanche, 23, died in childbirth; she designed
clothes for Broadway shows.  His father, Arthur, ran a family
cooperage in Hoboken.  Arthur gave Johnny to Blanche's mother, a
widow, to raise.
	8:30: Grandmother and Johnny sailed to Brittany, where the
grandmother's family lived, when Johnny was 4.  A French boy 4 or 5
years older kissed him on the ship; Johnny avoided him after that.
	9:40: They lived on a farm near Rostrenen; they visited
Lourdes.
	10:50: Joe invites us to drink holy water (perhaps an
allophemism for alcohol) in memory of Bernadette (the patron saint of
Lourdes)
	11:10: They returned to NYC in 1926 (a year later).  They had
a daily routine on the town: shopping, church, movies.
	12:50: Grandmother began taking Johnny to visit his father in
Englewood, New Jersey.  The grandmother and Arthur argued.  Arthur
married Anne Stevens, who came to take Johnny home with her after
school one day after fighting over him.
	13:40: Joe invites us to drink to the wisdom of Solomon.
	14:00: Johnny moved in with his father and stepmother.  Arthur
tried to make a man of him.
	15:30: Joe invites us to drink to the mouse Arthur made Johnny
incinerate in 1927.
	16:00: Joe tells us how pretty Anne was; she looked like Mary
Astor (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Astor).
	16:30: Arthur disciplined Johnny with beatings.
	17:50: Joe invites us to drink to Blanche.
	18:00: Arthur, hopeful at the repeal of Prohibition, invested
all his money in up-to-date equipment for the cooperage, but wooden
barrels became out-of-date what with bottles and steel barrels, so he
went bankrupt, lost everything.
	19:40: They moved in with Anne's parents, Charles and Ida
Stevens, in 1937.  Charles Stevens worked for the Hudson River Day
Line, which ran ferries on the river.  They'd ride them on the
weekends.
	21:10: Joe drinks to afternoons on the river.
	21:40: Hudson River let Charles Stevens go.  Arthur began to
drink too much, got violent.
	22:40: Johnny stood up to Arthur for the first time when he
came home drunk.
	23:20: Ida Stevens died.  They held a big wake.
	24:40: Arthur got fat and sickly, lost his teeth.
	25:30: 1939 September 1, the war started.
	26:30: Anne kissed Johnny.
	26:40: Johnny took a train to Montreal to join the RCAF.
	27:30: 'As time goes by' - Dooley Wilson
	29:00: A woman, who sounds like she's in a club, talks about
how much he likes love and kisses; Dooley Wilson's 'As time goes by'
plays in the background (re-used in 'Love is' and 'Where will it
end?'.)
	30:00: Bud and Ray are back; Ray still can't make any drink
Bud wants.
	31:00: Joe talks about liquors (Kessler, Johnny Walker, Old
Bushmill...) as though they were people.  He quotes 'A Shropshire
Lad', 'Malt has done more than Milton can...'.
	32:10: Bud and Ray return, arguing about drinks.
	33:20: Johnny arrived in Montreal, joined the RCAF.
	34:40: Joe invites us to drink to fond farewells.
	35:00: After training in Toronto, they shipped out of Halifax
to Liverpool.
	36:20: Johnny's plane, Wellington bomber AG725L of the 165th
bomber command, had its engines fail over the Channel, into which it
crashed.  Johnny, a turret gunner, was the only survivor.  He spent
the rest of the war at a desk job.  He loved the bar life, drinking
from 9 PM to 4 AM.
	39:10: Joe invites us to drink to the bar life.
	39:30: Johnny returned after the war.
	40:20: Johnny went to Villanova on the GI Bill.
	41:00: Inspired by Thomas Merton's 'The seven-storey mountain'
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seven_Storey_Mountain), Johnny
found god and became passionate about his faith.
	42:10: Someone (George Murdoch?) recites Merton's eulogy to
his brother, who died in the war, 'For my brother, missing in action
1943'. (https://www.poemist.com/thomas-merton/for-my-brother-missing-in-action-1943)
	45:00: The poem 'pierced Johnny's heart'; he joined the
monastery at Gethsemani, Kentucky, where Merton lived
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbey_of_Our_Lady_of_Gethsemani).  Joe
describes monastery life.  The abbot became increasingly familiar at
their weekly conferences.  When the abbot kissed him on the lips,
Johnny left, drifted west, ended up in Venice.
	48:40: Joe quotes 'Matthew' 26:48-49 on the betrayal of Jesus.
	49:00: Bud and Ray return, this time Bud unhappy that Ray has
none of the bar snacks he wants.
	50:30: Joe recites a poem in praise of drinking.
	55:20: Bud and Ray return, arguing about bar snacks.

	http://jfwiki.org/index.php?title=To_The_Bar_Life

russell bell