He had a devilish look in his eyes, like a local telling an unsuspecting tourist about things he has to do while he’s in town.  Except the town was drunken mischief and I had somehow been left the unsuspecting one. 

The man, Mr Macaroon laughed, patting his hand on my right shoulder as we leant against the illuminated bar at Cru.  The golden light from the bar top cast shadows at wrong angles on his face as he spoke, fuelling the fire in his eyes. 

I gulped down the last swig of my Japanese beer and turned to him.

“Well what do you have in mind?”,

Placing my glass on the bar top and turning to face my friend of a drunken haze of several years.

“Oh nothing yet, my good sir,” The bold lie of that statement written on his face.

I laughed, “Of course not.  Nothing yet.”

That particular night ended in the twilight of Saturday morning as we emerged from a local bar that specialized in gentlemanly pursuits, a place where Mr Macaroon and I happened to chance upon the general manager in the street.  A man we knew from a past bar job.  He gestured us inside and at that point it would be rude not to wouldn’t it?

And so the memories of barely clad women under neon lights and rubbish chat with barmaids were mingled and swirled into the already hodge-podge weave of images we were fast on the track to forgetting.  Inappropriateness at Cru (which the staff call Screw or Spew….both equally valid alternatives), tasteful chardonnay in the still damp, humid streets. Marking our territory, loud banter and old fashioneds in the mess of colour upstairs on the mezzanine.  It’s always pleasantly surprising the amount of trouble two well-dressed gents with the worst of intentions can get away with in this town.  But my friend was right, we still talk about that night.

Stories are a vital part to humanity and our social development.  Tyler Cowen, economist and experienced TED speaker suggests trying to explain the irrational mess of human behavior is unable to be simply stated in terms of a simple narrative.  But humans as a species understand everything through stories.  It’s an almost tribal compulsion. They define us and let others attempt to understand who we are.  I have lately held the viewpoint that a boy doesn’t just simply become a man by aging.  He became the gentlemen he is today through past experiences that changed who he was and into who he is now.  Stories. 

Thinking like this has lead me to almost become a story enthusiast.  A collector of experience.  Some noble, some deplorable, most out of the ordinary and all character building.  So here’s to the men like Mr Macaroon, the ones who push us out of our comfort zones, the ones always hunting adventure.  However they simply plant the seed. How the story plays out, that gentlemen, is all up to us. So don’t just sit there.  Embrace it! After all if a philosopher had an epiphany and no one heard it,  what would be the point?

It was two weeks after my last encounter with Macaroon that it was my youngest brother’s 18^th birthday.  I decided to start him at Laneway, a little bar in the city and see where the night took us.  An hour in my brother and I feel a familiar hand on our shoulders and a voice proclaims,

“Tonight.  Is ALL about stories…”