Drunk and Feeling Like Kicking Out The Jams

Just the jams?

Not sure about that: I'm thinking more about wielding the hammer of the gods right about now.

Yes, I'm drunk.

To set the mood before I go on, have a read of the lyrics from the song I'm listening to, another Tom Waits toon called 'Shore Leave'. If you can listen to the song, even better. If not, imagine a man who's been drinking shoe polish strained through bread for most of his adult life, howling out an ode to his wife, a woman at home while he's at war.

Mood set? Good.

I've just been to an end-of-year work function, although 'function' is probably the wrong word to use, as it was never an official event. Just the boys getting together with the aim of eating our entire body weight in curry.

And I think I did.

We went to a not plush, but excellent little Indian restaurant in Annandale called 'Surjits', right on Parramatta Road. The place was cramped, and the decor was only impressive in that there was a Shrine To The Gods Of Cricket in the corner; the centrepiece of which was a sculpture of a cricket bat combined with someone like Imran Khan. But I don't really know cricket, so don't count on that being right.

The chairs with small and dull brass bells hanging from the back, decked out to look like the Taj Mahal, those chairs were tight. Tight so you couldn't spread your arms to get the curry or rice into your bowl, tight so you couldn't gesticulate about the topic of choice when you'd had too much Indian beer and Black Label Johnnie Walker.

But that didn't stop us yelling and screaming our way through the meal, also known as the Maharaja's Banquet. All you can eat, and I mean it.

After this barbaric feast, a few pitiful stragglers--including yours truly--wandered down to the only place I knew nearby, The Empire. Usually it's a blues joint, but tonight it was host to 'The Dolly Rockers'.

We didn't end up staying for the headline act, but the support was plunking out suitably cheesy Ramones-style riffs on their passably distorted guitars. We drank Heinekens from tap, which tasted more like Toohey's New. The clientele was mostly of the biker variety with the odd university feral thrown in.

I bummed a lift off one of the guys whose pregnant wife with a new license came by to pick us up. We didn't finish the beer. It just plain couldn't fit.

Damn finite stomachs.

Now I'm home, listening to the same song on repeat because it's setting a drunken and pitiful and glorious mood that I want to hang on to, but can't. I'm getting sober as I type, and as I edit, and as I drink this damn green cordial.

I think it's time I row down on Cuban heels to the blood bank and shoot billiards with a midget until the rain stops.