The first time I saw a bartender set a stream of Jack Daniels on fire along the length of a wood bar, then dance through the flames, there was a twenty-foot stuffed great white shark covered in hundreds of lacy bras hanging above the top shelf liquor.
A 300 pound biker staggered over, handed me a toy Jack-in-the-box, and thanked me for letting him borrow it. When I told him it wasn’t mine, he waved his girlfriend over to ask if I wanted to drop-in on an orgy. Apparently, in NYC, in 1998, a Jack-in-the-box served as an underground invitation to a feast of the worldly flesh.
For some reason, it never occurred to me to crank the wheel to watch the clown spring forth. In hindsight, I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t have been a clown.
The following month, the same thing happened at the Rainbow Grill in West Hollywood. Only, this time, the guy with the Jack-in-the-box was Lemmy Kilmister from Motörhead. With the toy in my hand, he thanked me for baking him a chocolate cake and asked how my mother was doing.
At the time, I didn’t know Lemmy. Guess I fit a bicoastal bulge profile. Maybe they were Illuminati. Wanna know what was inside the Jack-in-the-box?
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