No Paxil for me, young man!

OK, maybe not all drugs are bad, but it would be nice if our health care professionals would give us more of a lowdown on the dangers of the drugs they prescribe.
Like for example, when they say Hmm, you're really bummed, dude. Wife left you for a fat ugly unemployed loser with a little dick? No wonder you're bummed. Here, start taking these. You might get fat, but you won't be bummed out and they'll keep you from getting so horny. He (or in my case she), as well as the scientific community who writes about this crap, should probably add when you stop taking them, you're not going to be the same as you were before you started them.
Like LSD, Paxil changes you forever. At least the people pushing LSD will warn you of this. The people pushing legal, prescription dope don't.
I haven't taken Paxil for almost two months, but when I drink, sometimes the cartoons still come out. They're just more photorealistic cartoons now.
I met the lady in red from The Matrix. Not the actress who played her, but the actual character. She put on a little weight since Neo saw her in his training session with Morpheous.
It sucks where I live now. There are only three bars within walking distance, two run down little redneck bars and one fancy high priced joint. None of them has live music. The music is mostly downtown, and I'm over two miles away now, far too far to stagger when you're wasted. So now I can't get wasted on the weekends, at least downtown.
Bummer.
Anyway, I saw in the Illinois Typo that Perfunctory was playing at Dempsey's Friday.
I'm not really much of a deadhead, but for some reason I wind up having a real good time whenever I go see this band. Maybe it's the other people in the audience?
So, at any rate, unlike past summers when I would get a head start on the bar beer with some much cheaper grocery store beer, I held off until 8:30 or so, when I drove downtown to Dempsey's.
The band was setting up when I got there. They appeared to be not very steady on their feet. I drank a beer, and they still weren't playing. I got up and walked down the street, thinking I'd stop at Bread Stretchers for a fifty cent per bottle cheaper beer, as that damned Rier stopped having the dollar Rolling Rocks and was now selling them at $2.25 like the rest of his domestics, higher than anybody else in town.
I haven't been spending nearly as much time at Dempsey's lately.
Bread Stretchers looked like they were setting up for a tenyboppper show. I kept walking. The Firehouse was having a DJ, but since he hadn't started I went in and got a beer. At a quarter cheaper than Dempsey's, I might add, and walked back down.
There was no pretty bartender at Dempsey's Friday. Rier and some other guy were tending bar.
Damn.
The band was playing when I walked back in. I got another beer, and found a stool. It wasn't nearly as busy as usual on a Friday. The band wasn't playing as well as they normally do, either. I think they got a head start on me when it came to the night's drinking.
I looked around, and there was teh lady in red from the Matrix; the program that Mouse wrote for the training program to distract new recruits.
She gained a little weight. Mouse's programming skills were deteriorating, it seems.
She was with some skinny little short guy from the band, or at least, appeared to be. I sipped on my beer, not wanting to hire a cab to go home in.
A man walked in with one of the homeliest women I've seen in quite some time hanging on his arm. She sat down next to me and smiled, he walked up between us like he was afraid I'd take the ugly bag away from him. I scooted my chair over to give him room, and he thanked me.
The lady in red, who appeared to be with the band, walked up to the bar next to me and ordered a beer.
Note to Mouse: you really should have her drinking wine. Beer makes you fat.
She turned to talk to me, and I conversed with this attractive program. No, she wasn't that fat, just a little on the heavy side, for a computer program. I guess Mouse must have gotten a job with Microsoft. She then went back to her seat with the fellow who resembled her programmer, at least in height.
Now, pay attention, K5 geeks, I'm about to reveal to you why you can't get laid.
It's not because you're a fatass from sitting at the computer all day eating pizza and drinking Jolt. No, I see fatassed bastards with attractive women all the time. It's not because of your ugly face. Indeed, It seems that women are attracted to butt ugliness.
No, it's because the part of your brain that is supposed to go toward being able to tell when a woman is flirting has been hijacked for other purposes; say, understanding the behavior of neutron stars, or knowing when to loop and when to branch.
It occurred later that she had been flirting. I could have gotten laid. In the things that matter in life, I'm the biggest fucking retard on the planet.
The Lady in Red left with some fat ugly nerdy looking guy.
Like always, I went home alone, especially annoyed because my daughter had said she was spending the night with her mother.
And speaking of Patty, she doesn't like the new apartment. The first night there as I was showing it to her, a snake slithered across the doorstep as we approached, and a spider scurried out as we entered.
Looking around, she whined my old room was bigger than this apartment!
The next evening, Saturday, I decided to drive down to St. Louis and party with old friends. I couldn't find any.
First I stopped by Jeff's. Jeff wasn't home. I called Mike, who didn't answer the phone. I drove by Johnny's, and there was no car in the driveway. And so on and so on. Nobody home.
Damn. I drove out to Mike's, thinking maybe he was just in his barn or feeding the animals or something.
Nope.
So I decided to go to Pop's Saloon, where I hadn't been in years. In fact, it wasn't really the same place, as the old Pop's had burned to the ground several years ago and been rebuilt about 200 yards away from the old one's ashes.
I paid six bucks to get in. That's twice the cover I'm used to paying, when I even have to pay a cover at all.
The place is huge, and it was nowhere near crowded. The band sounded like shit. The singer couldn't hold a tune if you gave him a bucket and a pair of vicegrips. Luckily, I'd walked in at the last song.
The audience was young. For my six bucks I got a fluorescent green band around my wrist. Apparently, they allow kids in this bar but the kids can only drink if they have the arm band. Unlike B.B. King's bar in Memphis, where my then sixteen year old daughter was served, and brought me the shot glass as a souvenir.
What'll ya have? the guy behind the bar asked. Rolling Rock.
Um, don't have it. Heineken is about the closest, he said. At least he knew the difference between a lager and a pilsner. Some bars in Springfield have only pilsner beers (usually the more redneck bars).
I paid three and a half bucks for a can of beer. A damned can! Wow, this place has no class whatever. Even the redneck bars in Springfield have bottles, but they don't have bottles because cans don't make as good a weapon as a bottle.
At the bottom of the can the next band was all ready to play, so I bought another can, wandered over to the merch table and bought a five dollar CD, which still sits in my car's front seat, unwrapped.
The band started up. They were technically proficient; the gay-looking singer could hold a tune, and in key, unlike the previous band.
But they still sucked. It was the new commercial sound, the minor key whining of an emo wannabe, the same shitty sound you hear on the pop radio stations. Ugh.
Mind if I sit here?
Sure, I said, and looked up. It was some guy about a foot taller than me and twenty pounds lighter. Like the Lady in Red, I've gained a bit of weight since you've seen my picture.
Black hair down past his shoulders, and face made up like he was a member of Kiss or something. You don't look very happy, he said.
It's this minor key music, I replied. Plus, you're not a woman. I drained my beer and went home.