My hour with the world's most boring man

(753 words)

When it was finally over, when the onslaught was complete, the three of us looked at each other the way I guess survivors of a storm at sea do.

It was like we’d spent the hour clinging to life rafts against a tide so ceaseless it threatened to swamp all in its path.

Compared to Joe, we were just dinghies against the current.

We can now wonder where he went and if he’ll be back, but none of us who were exposed to him has any doubt what he is doing right now.

He is talking.

In a lifetime of listening I’ve never heard a more prolific talker. The man could talk the ears off an acre of corn.

I walked in at 6 p.m. Bill was tending bar. It was just me, Gary, and a graying gent who immediately introduced himself as Joe.

Now, The Pond is already rich with Joes. As I’ve said before, it’s a bar full of Regular Joes, eight of them conveniently named Joe.

There’s Plumber Joe, Tequila Joe, Big Joe, Little Joe, Baseball Joe, No Show Joe, Mailman Joe and Game Show Joe.

Now we have the man we’ll surely call Talking Joe, a name that’s descriptive while failing to do justice to the true majesty of his gift.

To me, he’s The Grand Can-Yawn.

One of the things I relish about The Pond is that the nerve-rattling loud mouths are few and generally well-behaved. Many of the regulars are large stoics, large and stoic enough to make the big enigmatic stones on Easter Island seem chatty.

In fact, the stoics rule is often so complete the only sound you hear is the simultaneous hardening of all the arteries.

It’s a very peaceful place to sit and get soused.

I’ve known Gary and Bill for a total of about 20 years. This is bound to sound like an exaggeration, but after just one hour I now know more about Talking Joe than I know about either of my friends.

Joe’s wife is a waitress who likes egg drop soup when her stomach’s upset. Her boss is a real jerk who takes an unfair cut from her table tips, never throws a staff Christmas party and might be soured on life because of prior family tragedy.

His son has a good job at the airport, but thinks it would be better if they unionized. The kid just got a Harley sportster for $7,500. He thinks he got a great deal, but the high handlebars on those sportsters make his back ache.

Joe likes action movies, thinks the world would welcome a Jean Claude Van Damme comeback, and always gets the big popcorn even though he knows the price means he’s getting screwed.

I was seated immediately to his left. Gary was three stools to his right so most of his focus was on me.

Bill? He was as far away from the Joe end of the bar as he could possibly be. He was three feet and one brick wall away from being outside the building. Bill’s the exact opposite of Joe. He’s a man of few words, 80 percent of which are profane.

And Joe went on and on.

He talked taxes. He talked lawn care. He talked candy bars. He talked pretzels. He talked Pedro Alvarez. He talked balloons.

At one point I remember thinking, wow, this is the most self-centered, boring jerk I’ve ever met.

And when he got up to leave he redeemed himself with something so endearing we were all glad we’d been there to meet him. 

“Hey, Bill, buy these guys a drink,” he said, pushing Bill a pile of money that included a nice tip. “Fellas, I know I talk a lot. I just can’t help myself. Thanks for putting up with me. You guys are the best.”

And with that he was gone.

He’d said -- who knows? -- maybe 20,000 worthless words, but with those last few managed to reveal so much tender humanity I felt like giving the big talker a big hug.

I guess some people just have to talk even as they realize they have absolutely nothing to say.

That means some of us sometimes just have to listen.

I hope Joe comes back. I hope his endless talking eases some of his stresses and that he has a great time the next time he wanders into The Pond to blow off some steam.

I just hope when he does I’m two miles away at The Tin Lizzy.

Related . . .

Regular bar patrons need personal seat licenses

Wingin’ it at The Pond

Zombies at The Pond

Chile: The straw-shaped nation

Today’s a target-rich environment for bloggers too shallow to have developed a disciplined and thoughtful niche.

That’d be me.

First, we have the Steelers in the Super Bowl. Win or lose -- and the Steelers won’t lose -- the next 13 days will be for Pittsburghers like me the perfect holiday. You get all the holiday joy with none of the in-laws, the gift buying or any of that tedious churchy sobriety.

But if there’s one thing readers aren’t lacking in, it’s more Super Bowl jabber. I’m sure I’ll be contributing a few times so let’s shelve that for now.

I could write about SOTU and the new seating arrangement. Cynics are dismissive, but I think it’s a charming gesture of civility. Bravo.

But again, yawn. There’s plenty of that out there elsewhere.

How about the passing of Jack LaLanne? I’d love to write about him, but just did not too long ago. You can check it out here. 

So what does that leave us?

Chile!

Yes, the Republic of Chile, land of Andean Condors, Easter Island mysticisms and rescued miners always rarin’ to party.

I’ve become fascinated with Chile through the secret Stats page at www.EightDaysToAmish.com, over which I’ve been obsessing ever since it appeared in July.

Stats, in theory, tells me how many readers I have, their homelands and which posts are the most popular.

It’s a dizzying array of conflicting pseudo facts about the 10,151 people Stats says have been reading my blog since July.

Some of it fascinates: For instance, by far, the most widely read post was one about the top 25 songs as noted by my iPod play count feature. I'm dismissive of this because it's mostly a list that could have been constructed by a typing chimp.

Second is “Don’t Hate Me Because I’m Beautiful,” which has some actual constructed thoughts. Yet, I’m sure the reason that one does well is because it’s about and features a picture of the lovely Ines Sainz.

Others in the top 10 include a recent one about forgiving Ben Roethlisberger, a salute to Bob Seger and a nifty one I like about why even stink bugs need love.

I’m most drawn to the page listing where people who read my blog live. Of course, USA swamps the medal count here. 

What is entirely unexpected is that Denmark is number two by a landslide. I have more regular readers in Denmark than in Canada, U.K. and Russia.

That’s very endearing. But it makes me wonder what the Danes get that, say, the amiable hoseheads in Canada do not.

And if things keep going as they do, I expect to be zooming over to the Netherlands on May 5 in time for the Dutch to fete me for Liberation Day parades.

For reasons I cannot fathom, readers in the Netherlands have in the past seven days gone crazy for my blog. In one week, readers in the Netherlands have leapfrogged more populace countries like Brazil, France and Germany to become no. 6 on countries with the most people who read my barely coherent musings.

That’s so cool. Thanks, my windmill-revering friends!

In total, I’ve scored multiple readers from 52 countries, including Moldova, Ghana,  and Bangladesh.

But this isn’t about the countries that do read my stuff. This is about one of the several hundreds that don’t.

This is about Chile.

See, Stats has given my geographic comprehension an unexpected boost. The countries with my readers are highlighted in green.

That’s how I became fascinated with Chile. I’d never really paid much attention to its shape before. It’s amazing.

Check it out. There is Argentina hogging nearly all of South America.

Then there hard on the left on what looks like just the beach is the Republic of Chile. It’s a country imprisoned by the formidable Andes Mountains and their average height of 13,000 feet. I remember reading the book, “Alive,” about a 1972 plane full of students and rugby mates who crashed in the mountains and resorted to cannibalism to survive.

Happily, the story of Chilean cuisine doesn’t end there.

I did a little research. It’s a remarkable and vibrant country.

Chile is 2,700 miles long, or about the distance from San Diego to Washington, D.C.

But the width is just a wee bit bigger than the interstate highways you’d drive to traverse the two.

On average, it is just 109 miles wide.

Incredible. Some of our western Pennsyvlania high school football teams have offensive lines who’d have to turn sideways to jog through parts of it.

How I missed for my entire life this geographic oddity about a prominent country with more than 17 million mostly Spanish speaking people is on its face surprising.

But for some perspective consider this: I’ve lived long stretches of my life right next door to people and all I’ve known about them is that they bang on the walls when they think the Rolling Stones are being played too loudly.

So my ignorance of distant lands is par for the course.

I vow it won’t last long.

I’m going to bone up on Chile and am optimistic I’ll learn it’s a land worth learning about and maybe one day visiting.

Yes, I think I’ll find the world’s only straw-shaped country does not suck.