Dierberg’s you woo me with your cheap gin prices. $7.49 for a bottle of Gordon’s and Vess Tonic water for only 79 cents. Including tax, my habit did not break a ten spot, would that the Schnuck’s would be so bold as to meet this price challenge. They have better chicken wings, but the gin’s the thing wherein you’ll catch the conscience of the king! (From the mousetrap scene of course, there are more things in heaven and in earth then are dreamt of in your cocktails, Horacio).

Mary requested that I blog about the ghetto Schnuck’s at which we sometimes shop. Brad has spoken to the manager about their dearth of tonic. Can you imagine that scene? An irate Brad mad enough to get after the manager, “Where is the fucking tonic? You obviously have a demand for it, you would think that would inspire you to stock more!” Mary brought grapefruit juice over last night as she encountered yet another run on the precious anti malarial (the origin of the gin and tonic – the best way to take quinine in southern climes and if you want to, you can add limes). Gin itself was developed as an anesthesia, image that, the crack cocaine of the eighteen fifties fresh off the Christmas tree and ready for surgery. Ghetto Schnuck’s can be distinguished from Ladue Schnuck’s, Esquire Schnuck’s, and many other Schnuck’s by its’ ghetto fabulousness. This is a self conscious quality perhaps best exemplified by the last time I rented movies there (Monday and Wednesday .99 new releases on DVD). Imagine that Florence from The Jefferson’s is checking me out - “Can I see your license? I know you’re the only one with that name in this computer.” Canned laughter follows the scene; this is what Willis was talking about. We love the ghetto Schnuck’s as it cuts against everything that Schnuck’s is about, wealth and privilege meets the hood. Ghetto Schnuck’s is high-end food for low-end people, livin liminal and livin large.

Another day, another dollar, punctuated by yet another trip to the airport. I drove V to fly out for the funeral of her ex mother-in-law in L.A. Brad is taking care of the dogs tonight and then I have them for the weekend. Pretty dogs, but totally undisciplined Weimaraners. http://www.akc.org/breeds/recbreeds/weim.cfm

I also have the brand new Jetta, which is a fun change from the super fund clean up Chevy, but was given to me with the gas gauge on empty so that’s no good for broke man, who is of course broke again having made my monthly blood letting payment of $650 to the creditors. My car with the full tank is parked over at V’s (a half hour away with the overdo movies in the glove box of course) and the high end German driving machine will have to prove to me that better gas mileage is not just a function of German diesel engines, so look forward to my blog about running out of gas on a St. Louis highway.

Are you a St. Louis resident in exile, reading my blog for the casual mention of touchstones from your own youth? Well, if you are I have sad news. Everyday for the last three years I have gone zinging by the Parkmore diner on my way to work. Just the other day I came over the rise and saw only half a roof. A giant device of destruction was slowly eating its way through the restaurant in the way that countless drunken patrons had systematically moved through their meals ad infinitum below that hojo orange roof. The Parkmore has been closed for years, but you can picture it easily. It was located on the busy corner of Clayton and Big Bend avenues, sandy brown stones quarried from the limestone cliffs of south-county, set into the concrete like the Vegas eateries of the fifties. It quietly screamed to me on each passing, “you are destined to open a Tiki bar within these very walls.” But alas, it was not to be, Walgreens has beaten me once again. The interior was nearly identical to the diner in Pulp Fiction – orange carpet, brick and the never ending counter with coffee station upon coffee station for all that “honey” cares to drink.

The following story is pure fiction and fantasy – don’t believe a word of it.

The last time I dropped Acid I was in the Parkmore. I was in my year off after high school, but I was hanging out with high school girl named Nanette. She was a theater tech and into all things French. Nanette and I had gone to the diner, this would have been April of 1992, and we were having food when she slid a tab of white blotter across the table to me. Sure, why not, she’s kicked it up a notch and I am generally game. I put the tab of paper, generously soaked in psycho-tropics, under my tongue. I went to hippie High School, Clayton in the eighties thought it was 1968, so there was some experience with this sort of thing. White blotter acid is a mild trip, sort of an emotional intensifier. You’re not going to see God barreling into your chest in the form of a rainbow (that’s another story), but you might find something very funny.

Post dose, Nanette and I decided that it was spring and we needed to fly a kite. We walked up to Walgreens and found a kite with a giant mermaid on it. The fish woman was having a mild flirtation or conversation with a Dr. Seuss fish and this seemed perfect. We had one significant problem, which was the total lack of wind. I suggested that wind often comes off of bodies of water so we should find water. She reminded me that St. Louis is really just an island mid-river, so we picked the Mississippi and headed for The Arch. At 10:30 that night we were under the center of The Arch. I found enough draft to get the kite air born and we were enjoying the mermaid’s ascent under the metal work and above the grass that had replaced the blighted warehouses of the previous century.
Got a ghetto? Level it and put in a national monument with a conspicuously forgetful history museum in it. If that doesn’t work try putting in a couple of four lane highways, nothing kills a cultural district like dropping a four-lane highway on it, just ask Mayor Dailey. You can do all kinds of social engineering with a well-placed highway, it works just like a moat, only cars at 70 mph are harder to get across than a lake full of gators. If that doesn’t work, move out to the county and only come in for ball games.
The Arch is a national, rather than merely a local fixture, so when the mounted police rode up on their Arabian bred stallions with their shaved heads and Dudley-Do-Right hats we did consider the possibility that we were in federal, rather than state or local, trouble. Bad cop called me over sternly, I gave Nanette the reigns of the mermaid, who was gliding effortlessly higher, though without enough string to reach the red blinking light at the apex of The Arch. The light is right below the window from which you can see both the house I grew up in and the curve of the earth. Good cop leaned off his horse, the lights of city hall behind him and groups of drunken tourists moving across the lawn, “The Park closes at eleven. I like your kite.” Good and bad cop rode off to a safe distance and watched the gentle scene. They really liked the kite. At ten fifty we reeled in the mermaid and drove out to a parking lot near Lambert to watch the planes take off. Near dawn we were in Forest Park, the fountains weren’t filled yet so we watched the morning mist rise from the grass from our dry vantage point in the unfilled concrete basin just below The Spanish Pavilion. I remember watching a bridge appear out of the mist and talking with Nanette about the parity between the morning and an impressionist painting. When I took her home around eight or nine her mother cursed a blue streak at us both, I haven’t seen Nanette since, but I kept the kite until just a few years ago.

Ah well, off to bed in preparation for another long day. A storm is coming in and Sebastian is upset.