Wednesday, July 9, 2025

"Bar Bores"


A sadly true tale of la vie de la bohème by Dan Leo

Illustrations and additional dialogue by rhoda penmarq, exclusively for quinnmartinmarq™ productions

This episode brought to you by the Husky Boy™ Tobacco Co.

"Be sure to collect all one hundred and one 'Forgotten Authors' trading cards, included in every pack of Husky Boy cigarettes!" – Horace P. Sternwall, author of the "stunning"* new novel Annals of the Damned, Vol. I: A Lad of the Slums

*Flossie Flanagan, "Book Notes", The New York Federal Democrat

for previous story, click here

to begin series, click here





"This place doesn't seem so bad," said Addison, drawing a dirty ashtray closer, and tapping his Chesterfield ash into it. "Don't you agree, old man?"

"In the sense that no one has tried to beat us up yet, yes, it doesn't seem so bad."

A bartender came over. He was big and large all over, and wore a red bow tie. His dark hair was slicked back and he looked bored. 

"Do you want anything?" he said.


"We would like two beers, please," said Addison.

"Okay," said the man. "We have Schaefer beer."

"Any other kinds?" said Addison.

"No," said the man, with just a slight note of sadness in his voice. "Schaefer is the only beer we carry."

"Well, I guess we'll have two Schaefers then," said Addison.


"Is draft okay?"

"Do you have bottles?"

"No."

"Let's make it two draft Schaefers then."

"Is a mug all right?"

"Are there any other choice?"

"No, we only serve beer in twelve-ounce mugs."

"Okay, then, two mugs of Schaefer, please."


"Do you know what they say about Schaefer beer?" said the man, after a brief pause.

"That it's the one beer to have when you're having more than one?"

"Yes," said the man. "And do you know why?"

"Because Schaefer's pleasure doesn't fade even when your thirst is done?"

"This is true," said the man. And then, after a brief pause, "The most rewarding flavor in this man's world, for people who are having fun."


He stood there.

"So," said Addison, "two mugs of Schaefer then?"

"If you like," said the man.

"We would like," said Addison.

"Okay. I'll go get them now."

He went away, presumably to the beer taps.

A man to Addison's left leaned in to face the two friends.


"Don't mind Joe," he said. "Do you know what Joe's problem is?"

"That he's insane?" ventured Addison.

"Ha ha, you jest," said the man. "Ha ha." 

He was a fat man, yet another one. It seemed that nearly everyone they met was either fat or thin. Where were the normal people? 

The fat man addressed Milford. 

"Your friend is a jester, sir!"


Milford said nothing. He had learned very little in his years spent as a young alcoholic, but one thing he had learned is that you should never encourage conversations with strangers at bars.

"I'll tell you what Joe's problem is," said this new fat man, unbidden. 

Neither Addison nor Milford said anything. Even Addison could tell the man was a bore, and Addison admittedly had a very high tolerance for boredom, but he did have his limits.


"I said I'll tell you what his problem is," said the new fat man. Neither of our heroes said anything, and so after a moment he said, "I'll tell you what his problem is. Do you want to know?"

"Is it," said Addison, "that he is an uncomfortably oversized human being who has the ill fortune to tend bar for a living?" 

The man took pause.

"You are very astute, sir," he said. "Very astute. Hey, Clyde," he spoke in a louder voice, apparently addressing someone to Milford's right.


"Yes, Kevin?" said this other man, and Addison and Milford turned to look at him. This was a thin man, with a long face the color of the winter sky before a snowfall.

"I said did you hear what this astute young fellow said?"

"I confess that, yes, I was eavesdropping," said the man apparently named Clyde.

"He divined Joe's problem," said the fat man, presumably named Kevin.

"Well done," said Clyde. "A most perspicacious fellow!"


The bartender was back, at last, and he put mugs in front of Addison and Milford. The beer in the mugs, if beer it was, had no head, just a sad tracing of white on its surface.

"Here's your beers," said the bartender. "That'll be ten cents."

"Let me get this," said Kevin.

"No, I've got it," said Clyde.

"That's okay," said Addison.


"No, I insist," said the fat man.

"I insist as well," said the thin man.

"No, please," said Addison.

"Let me get it," said Kevin.

"No, it's on me," said Clyde.

"Let me just dig a dime out," said Addison, making no move to put a hand in a pocket.

"I wouldn't hear of it," said Kevin.

"Nor I," said Clyde.


"Here," said Milford, and he laid a quarter on the bar. "Keep the change," he said to the bartender seemingly named or known as Joe.

"Thanks," said the bartender.

"You're welcome," said Milford. He grabbed his beer mug, all his reservations about drinking an alcoholic beverage temporarily vanished.

"It's so good to see some new blood in this establishment," said the fat guy, leaning in so close to Addison that their arms touched.


"Yes, we need fresh new blood in this place," said the thin man, also leaning in, the whole side of his body from his arm down to his thigh pressing against Milford, who cringed even from his mother's touch.

"I'm wagering you two are literary men," said the fat guy Kevin.

"They possess all the earmarks," said the thin man Clyde. "On the one hand the shabby suit of threadbare flannel and a decrepit fedora, with a chin bespeaking the only occasional use of a razor, and that with a blade at the minimum six months old,

while on the other hand the ostentatiously demotic uniform of peacoat and dungarees, complete with newsboy's cap, worn by a young fellow whose lily white hands have most obviously never wielded a longshoreman's hook nor hauled on a bowline."

"Tell us," said Kevin the fat man, breathing his warm beery breath into Addison's averted face, "if you don't mind, your names, or noms de plume, so that we may keep a weather eye out for your work."

"My name is –" said Addison, and he paused before continuing, "Maxwell Thornburgh. And my friend's name is –"


"Mack Jackson," said Milford, and he compulsively lifted his mug and gulped down half of it, his alcoholism be damned.

Addison also lifted his mug and drank down half.

"Maxwell Thornburgh," said Kevin. "Mack Jackson? And have you gentlemen published?"

"We are both in the midst of huge massive projects, and so our books have not yet reached the shops, although we have contracts with major publishers," said Addison. 


"I am impressed," said Kevin. "May we know what sort of massive works you both are embarked upon?"

"I myself am composing an epic novel, or perhaps a roman fleuve, on the hideousness of contemporary America, while my friend Mack is writing, uh –"

"An epic poem, in hexameters," said Milford, "on the hopelessness of human existence."

"Oh, I'd love to read that," said the thin man, what was his name, Clyde. "What do you think of Robert Frost?"


"I think he's a fraud," said Milford.

"You say you are writing an epic novel," said Kevin, addressing Addison, "perhaps a roman fleuve. May I ask your opinion of Marcel Proust?"

"He's okay," said Addison. "If you don't mind reading about mind-numbingly tedious dinner parties for thousands of pages."

"Ha ha," said Kevin, "oh, dear. I hesitate to ask what you think of Mr. James Joyce!"

"What does it matter?" said Addison.


"I beg your pardon?"

"What does it matter what I think of Joyce?"

"Gee."

"Hey, buddy," said the thin man, Clyde, leaning in so close that his own beery breath assaulted Milford's nostrils with the force of a miniature noxious gale, "Kevin is only trying to make conversation."

"Excuse me, what is it, Clyde," said Milford, to the face that was only three inches from his own, "but would you mind leaning away from me?"


"Oh," said Clyde, backing up his face only an inch, "am I intruding upon your personhood?"

"Yes, you are, and, if you don't mind my saying so, your breath smells like a sewer. A sewer on the street outside a slaughterhouse. A backed-up sewer. In August."

"How dare you?" said the thin man, Clyde.

"Hey, that's not nice," said the fat man, Kevin.


"You know," said Addison, addressing the fat man, "while we're on the subject, I wish you also would lean away from me, and, if I may say so, your breath also is quite vile. May I recommend Dubble Bubble gum? It sweetens the breath, and you can also make bubbles with it, and when the bubble has reached its maximum diameter you can let it explode with a most satisfying popping sound."

"How dare you," said the fat man.

"Yeah, how dare you both," said the thin man.


"Hey, everything okay here?" said the bartender, who was standing there again.

"Me and Clyde were just trying to be friendly," said Kevin, "and now these two scamps insult us."

"Saying we're sitting too close to them and and that we have bad breath," said Clyde.

"Why don't you two just leave them alone then?" said Joe the bartender. 

"What?" said Kevin the fat man.

"Yeah, what?" said Clyde the thin man.


"I'll tell you why you don't leave them alone," said Joe. "It's because you're both inveterate bores, like everybody else in this place, and you're not happy unless you're boring someone and sucking the life force right out of them."

"Well!" said Kevin.

"Yeah," said Clyde, "well, indeed!"

"My advice to you two guys," said the bartender, addressing Addison and Milford, "is to finish your beers and get out of here and never come back. Unless you want to wind up like these two. Unless you want to wind up like me."


"Well, I never!" said Kevin.

"Yeah, I never either," said Clyde.

"The nerve," said Kevin.

"The unmitigated gall," said Clyde.

"Okay, let's go," said Milford to Addison.

"All right," said Addison, with a note of sadness or regret in his own voice. He lifted his mug and drained it. He put the mug down and glanced at Milford's mug, which was still half full. "Aren't you going to finish that?"


"You can have it," said Milford, who knew Addison all too well.

Quickly Addison picked up Milford's mug, and it was the work of a moment for him to empty it and place it back on the bar top.

"Okay, I'm ready," he said.

"Please don't go," said Kevin the fat man. "We won't suck your life force anymore."

"We won't lean in so close either," said Clyde. "We promise."

As one Addison and Milford climbed off their stools.


Addison addressed the bartender.

"Thank you, sir," he said.

"You're welcome," said the man. "And now, leave, if you value your souls, leave at once."

"Please don't leave," said the fat man.

"Yeah, don't go," said Clyde the thin man. "We'll be good."

"Listen," said Kevin the fat man. "I know we got off to a bad start, but give us another chance. Let us buy your next couple of rounds of beers."

"Schaefer beer," said Clyde. "Schaefer's pleasure doesn't fade even when your thirst is done."

"The most rewarding flavor in this man's world," said the fat man, "for people who are having fun."


"And shots of whiskey, too, Kevin," said Clyde. "I propose that you and I both buy a round of shots and beers!"

"Hang it all, Clyde," said Kevin, "but you're talking turkey now! Sit back down, fellas, because we're just getting started."

"Schenley's whiskey," said Clyde. "and Schaefer beer. On Kevin and me – free, gratis, and for nothing."

"Doesn't get much better than that," said Kevin. "So, please, we implore you, resume your seats."

Addison hesitated, taking a drag from his Chesterfield, but Milford, despite his aversion to touching other human beings, grabbed his friend's arm and pulled him away, towards the exit, through smoke and soft jukebox music and the babbling of crashing bores.





Wednesday, July 2, 2025

"The Bore-Ass"


Another true tale of la vie de la bohème by Dan Leo

Illustrations and additional dialogue by rhoda penmarq, exclusively for quinnmartinmarq™ productions

This episode brought to you by the Husky Boy™ Tobacco Co.

"Be a man, boy, and light up my Husky Boy!" – Hyacinth Wilde, star of Horace P. Sternwall's "engaging"* new stage comedy, Pillow Fight, now playing at the Demotic Theatre (group rates available)

{*Flossie Flanagan, The New York Federal Democrat}

for previous story, click here

to begin series, click here





The two companions walked down the dim corridor in silence until they came to a junction where the corridor continued straight ahead into darkness, but was now bisected by another corridor going to the right into distant darkness and left also into darkness.

"Didn't that fellow say to turn right at the corner?" said Addison.

"You're kidding me, right?" said Milford.

"In what sense?" said Addison, taking out his Chesterfields.


"In the sense that I already told you I was barely listening to him, and, even had I been listening, intently, or as intently as I am able to listen to anyone, I have never in my life been able to follow the simplest directions."

"Me neither, to be quite honest," said Addison. "Chesterfield?"

"No thanks," said Milford. "I might as well have another 'Husky Boy'."

He took out his pack of Husky Boys, and Addison gave him a light with one of his Bob's Bowery Bar matches and then ignited his own cigarette.


"Did you ever wonder what people did before they invented cigarettes?" said Addison.

"No," said Milford.

"I mean," Addison blew the match out and flicked it away, "did people just exist? Just stand around doing nothing?"

"Yes," said Milford. "They just stood there, arms at their sides, staring into space."

"Like dumb animals," said Addison.

The two friends stood there and smoked, like sentient animals.


"Oh, well," said Milford. "Let's just pick a direction and resume walking."

"Okay," said Addison. "Right or left?"

"You decide," said Milford.

"Right then?"

"Okay," said Milford. Then, "No, let's go left."

"Sure, why not?" said Milford.

They turned left, walked farther, then turned right at the next corner, then right again at the corner after that.


They reached a dead end, with another corridor, or the same one, going to the left, and so they walked on, turning left at the third corner they reached, and then they walked down a narrow hallway that grew increasingly darker, then completely dark, but they continued on, carefully, walking slowly, their arms brushing, until the darkness grew less dark, and then became merely dim, and up ahead they saw a light, and they walked toward it.

"If that's a doorway there, I'm going through it," said Milford.


"Yeah, I'm with you," said Addison.

"Because this is insane," said Milford.

"One could say," said Addison, in that particular "George Sanders" voice he used for philosophical pronouncements, "that this is a metaphor for modern man, walking aimlessly down dim corridors, searching for but never reaching his supposed destination."

"Yeah, and you know what else?" said Milford.

"What's that, old chap?" said Addison.


"All of life is a metaphor for all of life."

Addison said nothing to this. 

They walked on towards the light, which turned out to be a bare bulb above a door that had a hand-painted sign on it which read

The Bore-Ass

with a crude painting of an ass or a donkey seen from behind, the animal's head turned to look back sadly at the viewer.

"This isn't the place," said Addison.


"I know," said Milford.

"Shall we go in anyway?"

Milford's Husky Boy had burnt down to a half-inch stub. He sucked one last lungful of smoke from it, and dropped it to the floor. He ground it out with the sole of his workman's brogan.

"Yes," he said. "Let's go in."

Addison let his own Chesterfield butt drop to the floor.


"Yes," he said. "This is our fate, to wander from unknown place to unknown place. To meet strange unpleasant people. And then to go to other unknown places, to meet more unpleasant people. But, perhaps – perhaps I say – in due time, we shall indeed reach our destination, and the lovely ladies we left behind, and then –"

"Addison," said Milford.

"Yes, old man?"

"Can we just go in, without the commentary?"


"Ha ha, yes, of course."

Milford walked over and stepped on Addison's cigarette butt. He looked at Addison. 

"Ready?"

"Willing and able," said Addison.

The door had a curved tarnished-metal handle, with a thumb press, Milford put his hand on it, and managed to pull the door open.


A wave of soft nameless jukebox music, the babble of dull voices, the all pervasive smells of smoke and whiskey and beer, humanoid forms in dimness, pinpoints of light like despairing stars, and another man sitting on a stool next to a table for one by the doorway.

"Hi," he said.

"Hello," said Addison. "May we come in?"

"That depends," said the man, who looked like a dead weed disguised as a man, wearing a grey suit and a black tie, and what looked like a garnet-colored toupée. He held a smoking pipe in his thin bony hand. "First you must answer a few questions."


"Of course," said Addison.

"First question. What is the meaning of life?"

He was looking at Milford. 

"I haven't the faintest idea."

"Wrong answer," said the man. He looked at Addison. "Your turn. What is the meaning of life?"

"To sit in bars, drinking, and speaking nonsense?"

"How did you know?"


"Just a wild guess."

"Okay," said the weedy man. "Second question. What's better, to speak nonsense or to say nothing at all." He looked at Milford. "You go first."

"I choose to say nothing at all in answer to your question."

"Wrong answer again." He looked at Addison. "Your turn. What's preferable, speaking nonsense or keeping quiet?"

"Speaking nonsense, of course," said Addison, taking out his Chesterfields.


"Correct," said the man. "Third question, and last. Which is better: to be dead, or to live and speak nonsense." He looked at Milford.

"To live but not to speak nonsense," said Milford.

"Wrong, and doubly wrong, because you only had two choices, and living and not speaking nonsense was not one of them." He looked at Addison again. "What's better, being dead or living and talking nonsense?"

Addison lighted his Chesterfield, waved the match out and placed it in a dirty ashtray on the table next to the weedy man.


"Could you repeat the question?"

"Which is preferable, being dead or living and talking nonsense."

"Living and speaking nonsense?"

"Correct again. You can come in."

"What about my friend?" 

"He got all three questions wrong, so he is banned for life."

"That hardly seems fair," said Addison.


"Since when is life, or death, fair?"

"Let's go, Addison," said Milford. "This was a mistake."

"But wait," said Addison. He addressed the man on the stool. "Ask my friend one more question. If he gets the answer right, can he come in then?"

"That would be against the rules."

"He's young. Give him one more chance."

The man said nothing at first. He looked into the bowl of his pipe, which had apparently gone out, then picked up a box of Ohio Blue Tip kitchen matches from his table, extricated a match, struck it, then applied the flame to his pipe.


After puffing and sucking for a few moments he finally spoke. 

"Very well," he then said. "One more question." He gazed at Milford. "Have you ever had a person – man, woman or child – look at you and say, 'Please, tell me more?'"

"No," said Milford.

"Good answer," said the man.

"Great," said Addison. "So can he come in now?"

"I suppose so. What are your names, anyway?"


"They call me Addison," said Addison. "But, in point of fact, that appellation is by way of being a sobriquet, a nickname if you will, although I have come to look on it more as my nom de guerre, its origin being –"

"Look, pal, I didn't ask for a whole long disquisition, I just wanted to know what to call you."

"Addison will do."

"Fine, great. Paddington it is then." He looked at Milford. "What about you, sonny Jim?"


"Milford," said Milford. "It's actually my last name, but I prefer it to my alleged Christian name, not that I consider myself a Christian, but –"

"Dilford?"

"Milford, actually."

"Fine. Provisionally pleased to meet you, Quilford. My name is Ben, but everyone calls me Ben the Bore."

"Why is that?" said Addison, with a straight face.


"To differentiate me from one of our regulars, known as Boring Ben."

"Oh, okay," said Addison. "Thank you. So, can we just grab a couple of seats at the bar?"

"Sure, unless you want a table."

"Are there any tables available?"

"No."

"So I guess we'll just find seats at the bar?"

"I don't care what you do. Once you're in here, you're on your own."


"Oh, okay."

"Just don't cause any disturbance. If you do I will have to throw you out. I might not look like much, but I have a sap in my pocket, and I'm not shy about using it."

"We'll behave, Ben."

"'Ben the Bore'."

"We won't cause any, uh, disturbances, 'Ben the Bore'."

"See that you don't."

"Okay, well, thanks again."


"You're welcome. By the way, if you're hungry, we have a baloney and American cheese on white bread sandwich special tonight, with your choice of Gulden's yellow mustard or Hellman's mayonnaise. It's a bargain at two bits."

"We'll bear that in mind," said Addison.

"Enjoy yourselves. If you can."

"Yes, well, thanks again. Again."

"You're welcome, again."


For some unknown reason, or reasons, Addison seemed unable to disengage from the weedy man, so Milford, as much as he disliked touching anyone, put his hand on Addison's arm.

"Let's go, Addison," said Milford.

"Oh, yes," said Addison, and they headed toward the bar, which was long, and packed with hunched humanoid shapes.

"Just one beer," said Addison. "Just to regroup, and marshal our forces, plan out our next maneuver."

"Okay, fine," said Milford.

There only seemed to be two contiguous empty stools at the bar, right near the middle, and the two companions claimed them. 

It felt better to be seated at a bar again, or, if not better, not worse.