Alcoholics talk about a "click" they hear after the 3rd or 5th drink that's like an ignition switch in their brains. Thankfully, I'm not the addictive sort but there's something about the right admixture of alcohol and thought processes that feels as if a series of gates are unlocking in my mind allowing me to explore areas that had been off limits. Waiting fora flat tire to be fixed I settled in at the end of a midweek bar with a comfortable noise level and partway through the first old fashioned I began to float across an amber sea. The customer's conversation with the bartender about working in the restaurant industry led me down a path into the French Quarter and the courtyard of Coop's Place, where I washed dishes and cleaned buckets of squid this time of year a few decades ago. I began composing a poem in my head that made coherent the disparate threads of the day...then a Van Halen song came on and I wanted to blurt out to no one in particular. "This song's underrated," the taut string between my brain and my voice now going slack. Van Halen. The first concert I ever saw. My friend and I were guests of two girls from another school I didn't know who somehow had connections and tickets in a boxed seat with waiter service. We never saw them before or after. I also remember wearing too much gel in my hair and the girl asking, "why does your hair look wet?" Then the train passed by the window outside. The sound of its whistle blended perfectly with David Lee Roth's screams and I wondered if I was the only one who noticed. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvtVpNB1IKs