The God Damn Pater Familia.

Every son has hero dad stories. I certainly do. Some are decidedly better than others, but now that I am (allegedly) an adult, I realize that the grand stories are not what makes a good father, or a good man for that matter. That was something that my Dad always talked about. I know a lot of really shitty, boring, terrible people who have moments of greatness in their own way. But its not enough to be Ghandi 5% of the time and Hitler the other 95%; that still makes a shitty person by way of averages. That's the sort of sensibility that my father always lived by.

And thats sort of the thing, isn't it? Being a good person and a good father boils down to unremarkable, every day, consistent behavior. Make no mistake, my father is a remarkable man. He is a terrifyingly brilliant statistician, and I am not exaggerating. Listen, I'm a relatively smart and well educated person, and when he talks about his work, I have literally no clue what he is talking about. I'm pretty sure he is still speaking English but the words make no fucking sense. He is hilarious and kind. In a world full of people that desperately want to be special and generally are not, my father actually is, and doesn't really care. I am quite sure that if he could be left to do math that he finds challenging (that sort of math where they use symbols that mean too much stuff; like staring at a chalk board, Good Will Hunting, fucking Rain Man math) in a room on his own for exactly 8 hours a day and get paid, he would. The only thing preferable would be some sort of puzzle.

However, that being said, I have a Dad-Hero story to top them all.

My parents had just moved to Ohio, and my father had a rock sticking out of the ground in his front yard. My father has an affinity for rocks, (which is seeming much stranger than previously thought now that I constructed the sentence...) in the way that some people really enjoy lawn gnomes or other such foolishness, and the only thing the god damn Pater Familia likes more than rocks is order. So the moment I laid eyes on the 12 inch protrudent in the lawn I knew my father would not be able to just mow around it. In that respect I am not my father's son, because I would never waste hours of my life to remove it. Oh no, I would bitterly gaze out at my nemesis over my coffee every morning, allowing that inanimate object to slowly but surely fester into a seething and visceral hatred for the rock, the lawn, and eventually rocks and lawns everywhere. But make no mistake, I would never do a god damn thing about it.

Weeks later I started getting a saga of emails, texts, and photos of the process of my father removing the rock. He discovered that much like an iceberg, the protrudent represented a much larger presence below the surface. It was thus christened "Rockzilla." Now, had I been given this task and could not avoid it, I would rent a back hoe, and pop that sucker out with he help of 2000 years of human technological advancement. If that didn't take, I would consider explosives ('merica!). But no, not the old man. I'm not sure if it was fear of him damaging his lawn or he simply considered it good sport, but at some point Dad decided that the removal process would be limited to physics and his own two hands and back.

I need to repeat this so you understand very clearly what was happening. My father was not only willingly and happily choosing to resort to the labor practices used famously in ancient Egypt (see: Pyramids), to move a fucking boulder that he didn't need to, he wasn't even gonna be the guy with a whip and a decidedly better standard of living. He was gonna be the other guy, ie, the slave. BY CHOICE.

[Authors note: I just texted my mom and told her I'm trying to write about my Dad, and explaining that only now that I have put this stuff in writing am I realizing what an absolute lunatic he is. The construction of the previous paragraph was the most hilarious thing I think I've ever written, and only myself and my mom really get the joke.]

The correspondences in the following weeks would be the highlight of my day. I would be reading these things to friends and coworkers, and pulled up my favorite paragraph from one of the old emails to give you a taste:

"That’s my present state.  I thought about filling the hole in again, but management (ie Kathy) opined that maybe I should leave the hole as is and think about it further.  Which I have been doing.  My present choices seem to be 1) keep trying to get at Rockzilla, 2) fill in the hole and go buy some big rocks for the wall, 3) fill in the hole and go to various parks and other places and find some big rocks to liberate, or 4) change my designs.  Choice 2 is simply not happening, my intrinsic cheapness and minimal respect of dubious laws which make it illegal to go find and then appropriate rocks on public land that no one besides myself value (other than perhaps some conservation nut or a park ranger with a limited imagination who doesn’t really consider the intent of rules before arbitrarily enforcing them)  make that a no-go.  Choice 4 is also terribly unattractive, and as for choice 3, well, I just don’t like giving up, as we all know.  So now I’m kind of anticipating some elaborate process involving further excavation, building ramps, and pulleys and sleds.  Kind of like constructing the Pyramid, except with less access to slaves.  And don’t mention go rent a bobcat.  You also know my lack of enthusiasm for utilizing powered equipment when other approaches work, which is less about money than it is my general disdain for mechanical solutions unless absolutely necessary."

Just reading that paragraph, listening to him troubleshoot a problem that he made for himself is astounding.

Anyways, Long story short, he got the rock out of the ground and used it to complete a hand built rock wall. Here's a photo of him in the process, measuring with a shovel, my best guess being that there was no tape measure in Pharaoh Khufu's toolbox so it would've been cheating.

I don't expect it to make perfect sense as to why this is a hero story, but it represents something very special to me. Life is full of grey areas, little half-truths and moments that are difficult to label as "bad" and impossible to label "good." The other night I ran out of toilet paper and remembered after the grocery store closed, so I took a roll from the restaurant. It's something I've never done and won't do again, but I can't really say that I'm particularly ashamed of it. Life is filled with these small moments where true altruism may not be the choice we always make. I did; however, replace it with a roll I bought the next day. My father would've as well.

Of course, the man isn't perfect. I know he made mistakes. After all, he gave me a bowl cut for about six years, allowed me to wear JNCO's out of the house (holy shit remember those!?!?!), and tricked me into thinking that Grandma's house would be MUCH more fun than a boring ol' trip to Egypt he and my mom took sans children. But I never heard the old man lie. I never saw him steal. I never saw him cheat.

I have never beaten him at chess.

I have neither my father's mind nor his temperament; I am far more like my Mom, who is more creative and socially minded, and a saint for living with such a weirdo, and am sure I am happier for it. Being brilliant must be fucking exhausting; after all it means that you have to dig rocks out of the earth on principle that you never really explain. My father has no manifesto, no set of rules, but the principles are clear. Just not to anyone but himself.

I've been staring at this screen trying to figure out the conclusion to this, one of the strangest things I've ever written. For all the thoughts that my father has which must be just much more complicated ideas than I could ever fathom, he always went for the very simple solution. My goal has always been to make decisions in that way, and thus far has served me well. Admittedly, I wouldn't trade my life, no matter how tumultuous it has been, for his. I do not know if I will ever be as successful as he is. But I do know that if I keep making the simple decisions, the ones that align with my own set of principles, that I'll be fine.

I know one thing for sure: there aren't enough men like him.

Happy Fathers Day,
The Bar Fight

Goodbye, D.C.

I haven’t slept in about 8 months. I know you’re thinking, that impossible, and it is. I don’t mean it in the literal sense. I simply mean that I haven’t rested in 8 months. I fall asleep out of necessity these days; I sleep because I must and only for a few hours and then I am awake again. I can’t help it.

When I was in college at Emerson (Boston), there was one day that I decided to leave class early. I’m not sure why, I just decided it was time to go, and I walked out. As I exited my building and took a left onto Boylston Street, I heard a sound I’ll never forget.

You see, my first job ever was cutting trees, and when a tree “cracks out,” or essentially breaks the wrong way, it makes a terrifying groaning sound. The wood bends and twists and cries to let you know that something unnatural is happening. I heard something like that, but worse.

About 30 feet away, a body slammed to the concrete in a spray of blood. Moments after, I watched as an entire crane flattened a car with somebody driving it wearing scrubs. I’ll never forget the look of utter terror and confusion they had as that body hit the ground in front of them moments before their death. They were probably on their way to work.

I ran to the construction worker who hit the concrete first. I wanted to help, but the contents of his head were spread on the asphalt; there was nothing I could do. The crane had flattened the car. There was another caught in the bent and mangled crane. At the time I was an aspiring conflict photographer so I ran and got my camera. I still have those photos but have shown them to no one. My parents saw me on the news as they reported about it. The Herald offered me money for the photos, but I decided to not sell them; if that happened to me, I wouldn’t want my mom to see me like that.

The months following were a blur. I wasn’t necessarily traumatized; it wasn’t the first time I had seen death. I continued on with my life, but I do remember that the world seemed muffled. Everything felt hazy. Colors weren’t as bright. Sounds weren’t as sharp. And I couldn’t focus and I couldn’t sleep. That went on for months, and it took getting very far out of Boston for a few months to make it better. That half awake, half asleep feeling where you’re perpetually tired and hazy is a terrible way to live. And that’s how I’ve been living the last 8 months.

Have you ever broken something very fragile and tried to glue it back together? I have. I got some silly tourist mini vase in Greece for my mom when I was 16 and broke it on the way home. I was crushed. I tried to glue the pieces back together, but in my panic, I would grip them too hard and they would break further. In the end all that was left was a pile of dust.

I couldn't put into words how I really felt until I was re-watching Parks & Recreation, and I saw it perfectly.

Yup. Nail on the head.

I have always felt the presence of a flame that I used to have burning in me that drove me forward. I could feel it, the engine, the forward movement, the determination, the push. And that flame is gone. I knew there was a problem when I just had nothing else to write. I would write and delete and walk away, try again, and fail. It got to the point of breaking, no matter how much I tried to work through it or get out and be happy, I knew there was something that needed to be done that I was not doing.

I've learned a lot of hard lessons over the past year. I've learned that sometimes your best laid plans will simply fall to shit. I've learned that people change in drastic and painful ways. I've learned that if you don't pay attention to how you change, it can result in disaster. I've learned that no matter how tough you think you are, everyone has a breaking point.

I've learned why they name hurricanes after people.

I came to the realization that I was broken. What was frightening is that I didn't (and maybe still don't...) know how to fix it. And then, I watched this:

It occurred to me that I needed time away. But vacation was not the answer, because a week or two away wasn't it. No, the answer was sabbatical. I've been working in restaurants, placing myself aggressively in high stress management positions and I remembered when my life was simpler. I would bartend and that was that. Make drinks, hear the stories, live the life. I was discovering DC and that's over. Many things are over. I wanted the creative shot in the arm I've been missing for the longest time.

Some of you have heard this, but many of you have not. This is my plan.

The Bar Fight is going on the road.

I have the privilege of living in a gigantic country and have a skill that I can use in most any city in the US. I am going to sell the things I don't need and put the rest of it into storage, pack my basic possessions and my dog into my car, and hit the road. My goal is to find a new place every few months to go. I want to get behind bars all over this country. If you're reading this than you know me - know of a place that would want to hire an accomplished bartender for a couple months? Reach out to me.

I am putting a period at the end of the sentence that has been the last few years of my life and doing something I havn't done before. I'm looking at Charleston, Charlottesville, St. Louis, Nashville, Pittsburgh, Minneapolis, Seattle, Portland, Austin, San Diego, Chicago, SOMEWHERE in Montana, New Orleans, maybe the Florida Keys. I don't want to travel like a tourist, which I did years ago on a road trip. I want to take the time to live in these places and understand the culture, live the food, and serve the drinks. I want to teach and I want to learn, one bar at a time.

I don't know what I'm looking for and I don't know what sort of answers I am trying to find. I spend a good bit of time worrying that perhaps I am making a mistake, walking away from everything that I have built here. Just as I know that everything one does can be destroyed, it also means that it can be rebuilt. To anyone I've disappointed, I am sorry. Those of you who feel that I've let you down, I apologize. I just know that I need to do something to try to put the pieces back together.

This will be the new story of The Bar Fight, or perhaps the story that it should've always been. This will be the story of a man and his dog, finding a way to bring that small fire back to life that I feel has gone out. I want to bring back the passion and love of this industry that I once had, and I feel this is the way.

To all of the friends that I have made in DC over the years, thank you for your inspiration and kindness. To everyone I've worked with or for, thank you for the opportunities. Goodbye DC. Hello....well I don't know yet. You'll know as soon as I do.

I've come to understand that in the end, I am trying to find my way home. I just don't know where it is.

Safe Travels,
The Bar Fight