Stephen King, �Wolves of the Calla�
Reading this while I was working as a cashier at the club, I don�t know how many times people asked why I was reading something that looked like a dictionary. When they saw I was reading Stephen King, probably 90 percent of them rolled their eyes and asked why I was reading such trash.
Of course, out of those people, at least 70 percent of them said, �It�s a really awful book,� so that has to say something.
I used to be able to defend my reading of all things King. He was one of the first �adult� authors I started reading after tearing through all the Encyclopedia Brown books. I still love The Stand. And of course, I have a penchant for nostalgia. Don�t even get me started on The Muppets. Thus, even though I pretty much hated the majority of the Stephen King books released past 1990, I picked this up just two months ago in a used bookstore near the university.
The whole Gunslinger saga also reckons back to me as a kid, and I really liked the first three. The fourth book in the series wasn�t great, but it was good enough. So when he finally finished up the saga, I knew I was going to read them. After all, there was the nostalgia factor, plus I�m one of those people who finish what they started.
Why, you wanna start something?
But jumping Jesus in a corset with fishnet thigh-highs and garter belts, this was one shitty 723 page lump of crap. I�m too tired and too busy to go into some sort of summary on the cast of characters and plot lines, but seeing as people either aren�t interested or already read it, you should be able to follow along.
I mean, isn�t the main character supposed to be on a quest? Isn�t he, in fact, pursuing somebody? What the fuck is all of this crap about stopping and camping out to save the children? Somebody correct me if I�m wrong here, but wasn�t the entire world supposed to be destroyed if he didn�t catch the Man in Black? (No, not Johnny Cash � he�s dead. Though this resurgence of his popularity should be stopped as well.)
Let�s put this into Mad Max-ian terms. You have the first movie, where he finds his purpose, which is killing crazy people on the road. In the second movie (The Road Warrior), he�s on a quest. A quest to kill crazy people on the road, and find gas so he can get to the next crazy person on the road. The second movie is the best out of the trilogy.
Then there�s the third film, which was bad, bad, bad. Bad in the Waterworld terminology of bad. Because not only has he stopped his quest of finding gas and killing crazy people on the road, he has to be the first person who actually falls for �What about the children?� line espoused by Washington wives who want to save us from gangsta rap, Grand Theft Auto video games, and the Dead Kennedys.
So he stops his quest of finding gas and killing crazy people on the road to save the children. Why? Were there more bullets on the hood of his car that he needed retrieved? Or did he really just want to wrestle Tina Turner? His actions in the third movie are at odds with the character that we know, and that�s just one of the reasons that that last movie sucked.
Ok, arguably, all the movies sucked, but the third one really sucked. But of course, now I�m going from talking about Stephen King to Mad Max movies. I think it�s high time to remind you people that I am, in actuality, super cool.
Tonight (last night really, as I�m typing this at 3:45 in the morning) I went to visit my boss as he was having a party for his newborn son. It turns out the kid is 100 days old (well, 101 now, but you get the idea). I had no idea about the significance, and made jokes about how it must be a celebration of restraint like Lent, because babies look so much like food that the temptation to throw it into a skillet must be overwhelming.
As it turns out, I�m not that far off the mark. Apparently, Korean infantile death rates used to be quite high, and so the 100 days celebration is like an �All Clear� signal, not only for the child, but for the mother as well. Anyway, so it was a significant occasion, and I thought I could use the opportunity to travel up to Aiea (about a half-hour from my home) to find a bar to review.
I walked in and congratulated the mother for not dying. I saw the baby and said the same to him. He remained unimpressed with his accomplishment. My boss sat me out on the back porch to feed me beer and food in an area where I could still smoke, though he ended up stealing the majority of my cigarettes. During the course of the evening his downstairs tenant joined the smoking party. Since this new arrival was young and in the military, I asked him for advice on where I should go to find a bar in the area. He started telling me about a small lounge down the road.
�Oh, not that place,� my boss said, �that�s a hostess bar!�
Most of you should remember my first experience with a hostess bar from about two weeks ago. No? Christ, television has destroyed your memory capacity.
What were we talking about again? Hi!
Oh, yeah, hostess bars. Also known as �Buy me drinkie bars.� After my first unintentional run-in with this phenomenon, I was intrigued and asked around. Nobody admitted to being in one, and people provided a gamut of exclamations that the women simply sat and talked with you and kept you company, to others whom insisted the girls gave you blow jobs in the booths toward the back.
The debate raged on. �No,� said the tenant, �it�s just a little dive bar! They have this small little bar area and on the side they have these booths with the really tall backing like in a restaurant...�
�Oh, come on!� my boss interrupted. �They have the high booths so others can�t see what�s going on in there!
�Well, I never got approached...�
�Did you go in there by yourself?�
�Maybe. I think most of the time I was with friends...�
�Well, he won�t be going in with friends, will he?�
The party lasted much longer than I expected, with myself not going back into my car until a little before 11 p.m. I was tired. My boss made good arguments that it would be another hostess bar joint, and I was alone. Driving back down the hill, I saw where I had been directed to turn. A left turn would shoot me onto the freeway and back home. Turning right took me to the unknown.
I turned right. Again, I�m super cool. But we�ll get to that.
I walk in, and it�s pretty much as described; thin, small, large booths with plush seating where the backs go far higher than necessary. I make my way past the booths and sit at the corner of the bar. I order a beer and observe, taking mental notes. One woman comes from the back and queues up the karaoke machine. Five, ten minutes pass, and then the same woman approaches me asking if I�d like something to eat. I tell her no, but I wouldn�t mind looking at the menu.
She asks how I happened to come here. I tell her that I work for the newspaper doing reviews, and this place was suggested to me. Her demeanor and the fact that she was ordering around the bartender makes me think she owns the place, so I ask if that�s the case.
�Oh, no,� she says, �I just volunteer here.�
�Volunteer?� I ask. �So you don�t get paid for all this stuff you�ve been helping with?
�Oh, you know,� she responds �People buy me drinks and I get to keep the money from that.�
Woah. My boss wins the debate.
Yeah, yeah, I�m sure you�re saying. �but how does that make you cool?� I�ll tell you. About that time, I had finished my beer. She and I had been talking for about fifteen minutes by that point. The bartender, whose English skills were limited, pointed at my drink in the universal �want another one?� fashion, and the girl waved her hand in front of the bartender.
�I got his,� she said.
That�s right. The �buy me drinkee� girl bought me a drink.
I think, perhaps, I should make this a quest of my own.
