Keep Missoula Weird

There’s really no rhyme or reason dictating which cities inherit the weird gene. Or is there? I’m not talking about the kind of weird you find in a town of three hundred where the local cross dresser/ex-high school football hero hunts nite-crawlers by lantern light in the median on Main Street (true story Mendicino, CA). I’m talking about mass consciousness weird in large urban centers with universities, millions in city taxes, Masonic Temples and freeway interchanges. Take Austin, TX population two million.  Here we have the state capital in the middle of a conservative state, to say the least, but also one of the most openly strange and viscerally weird places in the US.  Let’s now drive 1,800 due north to Missoula, Montana. Yep. Missoula. I’ve been around a bit in this life and job and can say with certainty that Missoula is vibrating on a different frequency.

Both Montana and Texas are big states with big skies and conservative ideas that hinge big on tradition. Maybe just as diamonds are created under pressure, so is The Strange. The more conservative the state the more potent the ironic by-product. Whatever it is, the strange and highly weird seem to have rolled down the Rockies and pooled here in the Garden City en masse.  Someone with a lab coat should be studying this place because there’s definitely something going on here. Especially on a Tuesday night.

While the contract with my employer prohibits me from blogging offensive and foul material I can tell you that my Tuesday night in Missoula involved a Union Hall, rented dart guns, people missing body parts and a woman named Debbie with two black eyes* drinking Slo-Gin in her lemon yellow Volkswagen Scirocco while listening to old Cheech and Chong cassettes.

I planned on staying in Missoula for a few days in pursuit of the storied Top Hat Lounge, but the snow started to fall and Sun Valley had to be made by midnight. My last hours in Missioula were spent hunkered down at Reds Bar, home of the infamous Dead Pecker Row, desperately trying to get in touch with the owner to talk t-shirts and figure out what exactly is a dead pecker.

From somewhere out there,

Gabe

* Debbie’s eyes were blackened by a stairway misstep on her birthday the night before.

Get What You Need

The other day I found myself in Eischen’s bar in Okarche, Oklahoma at eight am explaining myself to seventy five year old Ed Eischen as he swept the floor of the bar his family had owned since 1896. He and his brother Chief were the third generation of Eischens to keep the only bar in a small farming town of two thousand a little North East of Oklahoma City. A bar like Eischens has seen a lot; two world wars, a depression, a devastating fire in the nineties and now some guy from Seattle muttering something about t-shirts.

“Well”, says Ed, “The thing is, trucks come on Wednesday. Today’s Wednesday. Today’s no good.”

When you drive a forty year old machine with no heat down bumpy roads in the dead of winter for twelve bloody hours thinking about one thing it’s a cold pill to swallow when you feel that one thing slip through your fingers. Sure, I could have given him that sob story or I could have taken a room in town and come back day after day until I wore him down and somehow gained his confidence, but I learned a while ago that in this job, some shirts are just not meant to be.

It’s not that Ed didn’t care or that it was Wednesday and the trucks were coming, but rather that Ed liked things the way things were. He liked the town of Okarche and the fried chicken his customers raved about and he liked his floors swept by nine. And while I can’t be sure, I think that maybe he liked his shirts worn only by people who walked through his grandfather’s 100 yr old doors.

Ed and I shook hands and I let him get back to his floors.  I bet by the time I reached the farm road heading north, Ed had forgotten all about the guy from Seattle talking about the t-shirt thing.  Sure, I’d rather have the shirt but as the miles rolled on I smiled when I thought about Ed and the way he swept the floor like his father and his grandfather, and the way he listened to me respectfully in a place where I’m sure he’s heard everything. This time I didn’t get the shirt but at least I got that. And that’s OK with me.  Thanks Ed.

“You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need.”

and thank you Mick.

From somewhere out there,

Gabe

Louie & Me

“If at any point in the next 24hrs the red swelling extends beyond this shape,” says Dr. Jim, “you need to come back immediately.” “You mean outside the shape that is the giant sperm you just drew on my arm?”, I ask.

“…yes”, he replies.  “And you’re going to need a shot. A not-so-pleasant shot.”

This is how I came to know Louis the Arm Sperm Ambassador and the life and death struggle we would share here in the Mile High City. Louis and I actually met sometime in the early morning hours the day before in a dark room of the Ambassador Inn,  Lamar, Colorado. It is worth pausing here to appreciate the tremendous leeway a designation like,”Inn” gives an lodging establishment. I’m not surprised when my Hotels are expensive and clean nor when my Motels are cheap and smell like curry and damp cigarettes. Fair warning.  So do we choose The Ambassador Hotel, The Ambassador Motel or The Ambassador Inn whilst passing through a town of five thousand?

“I’m on a budget yet value my health. I’ve got a few choices but, an Inn just sounds nice.”

This internal debate was conducted while pulling into the unlit parking lot of The Ambassador Inn and concluded when I accepted the key to room 112* from the Indian “Inn Keeper” behind the bullet proof glass.

I first noticed the swelling around seven am when I was pulling out of Lamar. Things continued to get worse throughout the day until I checked into a hospital after noticing a red line tracking up my arm from the swelling in my hand. The good news is that after a $200 anti-biotic cocktail I made my way the the Lion’s Lair on Denver’s famed Colfax Avenue and met the barmen, Twig and Shorts. Good fellas all around and nice hosts for not kicking me out after explaining Louis. T-Shirt coming soon.

It’s been a few days in Denver now and time to move on with a few new t-shirts in hand for the collection; The Three Kings, The Candlelight and of course The Lions Lair. Louie’s not looking so well and I fear he won’t survive the drive north to Breckenridge. I’m going to miss him.

From somewhere out there,

Gabe and for the time being, Louis

* Please note that room 112 of the Ambassador Inn in Lamar, CO does not have any lightbulbs and the heater is broken.