This part of the diary takes place at the Brazen Head – which is one of what would appear to be seven billion bars named the Brazen Head worldwide. The name comes from Joyce's weapons-grade modernist tome Ulysses: "You get a decent enough do at the Brazen Head." I assume that most of the folks naming their bars thusly are cribbing the name, and reference, from other bars. Otherwise, given the number of bars named Brazen Head, one must assume that every reader who has tackled and conquered what I'm regularly informed the very height of 20th century literature did, upon closing the book, decide to open a bar.

I'm not against the idea that everybody who finishes Ulysses then needs must open a bar. In fact, I'd ever support a law that made it so. I'd even allows so it should be mandatory. I think we'd weed out a look of vacuous fashionista star-fuckers – the sort that make bars entirely made of mirrored surfaces and serve cosmos out of the hollowed skulls of illegal maids because that's the trend of the microsecond (oops, already un-cool – Tristan! – ditch these gauche skulls in the alley and bring me fetal kittens and the blender – I've got a hot tip from the trench soldiers at Vice) – if we told them they'd have to read a book. And I mean read in the old fashioned "look at words" sense. Not so much because I think reading something made of dead trees is so much greater, but because I think many of these folks will try to squeeze under the restriction by absorbing the book while sweating though the down dog at their bikram session. Tell them that they need to pay serious attention to white dude with an eye patch who wasn't in Pirates with "Oreo" and "the Dep Charge" and they'll turn their attention other endeavors. Most likely a dog spa.

This particular Brazen Head is run by a genially alcoholic dude who, I'm told by a reliable source, used to make his living traveling around Second World countries rebuilding from civil and ethnic strife, diffusing potentially embarrassing post-war ordinance.

Which makes me think of another thing we could require potential bar owners to do: Read Joyce or go dig through the rubble of a former day-care center lookin' for to defuse an un-detonated barracks bustin' "flying carbomb."

Where was I? Oh. This particular Brazen Head is found near the corner of Atlantic and Court, nearly the seat of the borough's government and around the corner from Court Street theaters, home of that wonderful class of film-enthusiast: the Courtesans. The Head's claim to fame is its excellent beer selection. On any given night, the bartenders, all nice folks so far as I've found, have a bracket (to borrow an organist's term) of some 15 or 20 beers – efficiently covering the spectrum of beer art. Plus, on any given night, they've got one or two cask brews. Two or three times a year (maybe four, my memory gets blurry) they hold a "Cask-fest" which is like a little Woodstock for drunkards with upmarket palates. Perhaps the most beautiful product of Brooklyn since we sent Walt Whitman into the world.

The Head ain't very large. Single floor.  A couch area on either side of the front door, then a bar stretching down the entire length of the joint, terminating in a small darts area in back. There's a small and pleasant irregular quadrilateral of a garden out back.

This week, I found myself waiting at the Head for Dean. He was running late, so I was reading at the bar, the dim lighting just sufficient for the task. I was at the foot of the bar's "L" shape and behind me was a clutch of maybe four or five folks. Let's say four. Three dudes and one chick. All professionally dressed: suits and ties for the men, jacket and conservative skirt for the woman. They were already well in their cups. Their conversation revealed they were lawyers.

When I entered the bar, they were already in deep conversation regarding a case the woman was taking to trial.

From what I could gather, the defendant is being charged with cruelty towards animals. He allegedly starved his dog to death. The defendant, from what I could make out, went away on trip. Now he was having some trouble with the landlord and he claims the landlord told him not to come back home because he (the landlord) was going to change the locks. The defendant finished his trip and, instead of going home, he went to a friend's apartment.

A couple weeks later, some cops showed up to bust him. His dog, which was still in the apartment, had starved to death. It rotting corpse had altered the neighbors to that fact that something was amiss. The landlord found the ex-canine and called the five-oh.

Lawyer guy #1: "He never went back to his place?"

Lawyer girl: "No. Well. No. He though, you know, that the, um, landlord was just going to throw his stuff out and change the locks. And. He. I guess. He says he thought you wouldn't take all his stuff without taking the dog."

Lawyer guy #2 was on a cell phone, despite the fact that several "No Cell Phones" signs are displayed in the bar. "What. But they're our fleas. Yeah. Are you serious?"

Lawyer #3: "She's going to crucify him. She's got a dog at home. She's going to crucify him."

Lawyer girl: "I don't think a jury would convict. If you explain what he thought was going on, I don't see how a jury can convict."

Lawyer #3: "She's going to crucify him. She's got a dog at home. She's going to crucify him."

Lawyer girl: "But. There's some stuff. I was checking out his story. There's some stuff that doesn't, um, check out. Like he says he called all the time. Called the landlord all the time. Again and again, but, like. Called the landlord, but there wasn't any record of that on his phone."

Lawyer guy #2: "But we're already here. What? No. Are you serious."

Lawyer guy #1: "Just 'cause there's no record didn't mean he didn't call."

Lawyer #3: "She's going to crucify him. She's got a dog at home. She's going to crucify him."

Lawyer girl: "Right."

Lawyer guy #1: "He could have used a pay phone."

Lawyer girl: "Right. Or his wife's phone."

Lawyer guy #2 takes the cell and handed it to #3: "This guy had a wife?"

Lawyer #3: "Hey. Where are you? What? But they're our fleas. We've all got fleas."

Lawyer girl: "Yeah. I don't really know much about her. I guess I should find out."

Lawyer guy #2: "Did she live at the house?"

Lawyer girl: "I guess so. I guess I should find out."

Lawyer guy #2: "'Cause if she lived there, then his excuse is utter shit. You know that. Right?"

Lawyer girl: "I guess I should find out."

Later the conversation turned to what all agreed was the inordinate amount of alcohol-related blackouts Lawyer #3 was having lately.

Song Title: Junk Science, Third-Person Stealth