01/01/2012/14.16h. Happy New Year. Watching the bleary-eyed and bloodshot great 2012 from my office at the bar in The Lakeview. This place never closes. Reading Hunter S. Thompson and taking stock with the staff. It's 40 minutes for a table but there's always space at the bar.
Various girls I've met and offended at local bars wander in and pretend not to see me.
Frankel and I held a private celebration last night. Sat around his living room drinking wine and talking about a story I'm pitching around, about the time I went to the KKK's national congress. The racial angle could go either way in these times when the Globe & Mail won't even report 'the N-word'. Not even a quotation.
'Why do we give that word so much power?' Frankel's probably the only guy who can look intelligent with or without a rolled-up five dollar bill sticking out of his nose.
'It's a question of sensitivity - of not using a word you know causes pain.'
'I'll admit the sensitivity point - fully. But I'm talking about reporting something that actually happened. It's very troubling to me. Very troubling.'
We make plans for a retaliatory t-shirt saying something like 'You fucking N-word'. I'll probably end up wearing it, though, because between the two of us I look the most like a grade school boy scout liable to being taken advantage of by roving gangs of racist jackboots.
The line for tables is backed out into the street now, but it's still just me at the bar, labouring over this first article of the year. My shirt's on inside out, which may be scaring people away from the stools.
Jesus, I just remembered: the amount of blow on the table last night was making me sweat, and I never touch the stuff. Taking a deep inhale around Frankel sometimes knocks me out for an afternoon; he has to wash his credit cards before flying to the U.S.
A woman just left wearing a rabbit fur coat and aviator sunglasses. That's a helluva good omen, so I'll just say 'hello' to a few tables filled with girls who never called me back and head out into the afternoon's cold indifferent rain.
