It’s been a while since I had a new bar quote for you, so here is one that happened yesterday.

Cheers was an incredible look at the bar scene. One of the more interesting characters for me was Cliff Claven, the know-it-all barfly. Interesting for me for no other reason than the sheer audacity of the character. I think that when they build bars they automatically install a Claven in each.

Now me being a fairly knowledgeable person I tend to have a problem with the Clavens of this world. It is not the fact that they do not have their facts straight, it the bravado in which they pontificate upon their misguided information. They are so wrong, it is so obvious (at least to me) that it takes all I have to zip my lip and let them hang themselves with their cocksureness.

But even worse than that is they do have some charisma and other people believe them. The Claven spouts his misinformation and heads nod in agreement. And what gets me is I do not know if they believe him or are mocking him by placating his ego with positive reinforcement. Is everyone getting an internal giggle at listening to the blowhard spew is spiel? And if that is the case, being we are all getting a nice internal chuckle over the idiocy, wouldn’t it become annoying after a while?

Now I ask these questions fully aware of the fact that this is a bar and alcoholic lubrication can make just about anything palatable, given enough juice. But really, is there an upper limit to the amount of bullshit one can swallow? The other alternative is that they really do believe what he is saying and now he has become their Prophet. To me that is an even scarier thought.

Today I was in the unfortunate position of being amazed and caught in the middle and having to do something I could scarcely believe. I had to agree with The Claven.

Claven: “Er ah, yep, it’s true, we all had tails at one point, but, er ha, we outgrew them early on.”

Barfly: “You me like our great, great a million times back whosy whats its?’’

Claven: “No, ah, er, I mean you and me. We all had tails.”

Now the thing is, for one of few times I can remember, he is actually correct even though this is one of the most absurd statements you could make. In early embryonic development, a human fetus (or is it zygote or embryo, I can’t remember) actually does have a tail. We do indeed “out grow them” as they grow into our spinal columns. He is absolutely right, I was floored.

Barfly: “I ain’t never seen a person with a tail… never, not even little kiddies..”

Claven: “I have, it’s ah, er all true.”

This is where I come in. Sir “Barfly” comes over to me, because I am a “fart smeller” (god I hate spoonerisms), and asks if I heard that last piece of crap. I told him I did so he pressed me for an opinion, was the Claven correct?

By this time there were bar bets happening, Claven or Barfly, and I was the one to tell them who was the winner. The bets were heavy on the Barfly, so I tried to back off but made the mistake of saying I knew the answer. Barfly would not back off, so, I told him I agreed with the Claven.

Barfly: “But Claven is never right, so you’re full of shit too…”

Now I had to not only agree with Claven, I ended up getting on the Internet and downloading pictures and URLs with information about prenatal human tails defending him. Why? Because now I was being called a loon. It didn’t take long to settle the matter and with the bet now settled, money passed around and Claven was a good $80 dollars richer.

About 45 minutes later Claven came over to me, sat down in the booth, and put $40 in front of me.

“What’s that for?”

Claven: “Agreeing with me. Thanks, you ah, er worked out well…”

“Huh?”

Claven: “Don’t get huh? I ah, set them up about once a month. Thanks for the help.”

He got up and walk backed to the bar.

For me there is a new saying… “Crazy as a Claven”