Remembrance of things Pabst

There used to be this bar all the way at the end of Henry Street which was called the Back Lot. Now it had a movie sort of décor because I think the owner had something to do with the movies and he had an old fashioned camera and one of those speaking trumpets that the old timey directors used. Anyway it was the very first bar in Brooklyn when you got off the Brooklyn Bridge and made the turn onto Cadman Plaza which is the first exit. So we would have the cab drop us off there and start drinking. Then we would work our way through to all the bars in between there and Carroll Gardens
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This was in the early eighties and we were boozing it up pretty good in the Seaport and stuff. Videos had just started getting popular and Madonna and Michael Jackson and Lionel Ritchie all had big hits that were being played incessantly on a new channel called MTV. Anyway Bruce Springsteen had a big hit with this video called “Dancing in the Dark.” You remember it right? He’s singing in a concert and he pulls this girl out of the audience to dance with him on stage. And the girl turned out to be Courtney Cox. Well it was funny because she had stated to star in this creepy sci-fi TV show called misfits of science. Well one of my friends had a brother who was half a retard and he fell in love with Courtney Cox. To the point that he would send her gifts. Clothes to be exact. Thousands and thousands of dollars worth of clothes. Not good clothes. But cheap stuff you would buy from Century 21 on Eighty Sixth Street. Now all of this came out and my friend got really pissed. And he really started to hate Courtney Cox. To the point that whenever the video came on he would curse her out. Like he had Tourettes.

So one day we are in the Backlot and we are pretty toasted. I mean we had been drinking for hours and were on Sambucca and smoking big fat Cuban cigars. Now shots of Sambucca is what you drink when you want to just be obliterated as it is really really strong. And we are doing shots. Lots of shots. Only me and the English guy are still standing as they others are about out on their barstools. Anyway my buddy had borrowed his brother’s long silk scarf because he was freezing as he sort of dozed on the barstool as we were knocking back shots. Then the video comes on. Bruce is dancing away and my drunken buddy perks up and yells “You cunt” and falls back asleep. I was standing there rocking to the music when suddenly I got an inspiration. You see Bruce was wailing and he sang “You can’t start a fire without a scarf.”

So I set his scarf on fire.