Bourbonhours

Well, the origin of the phrase is innocuous enough. We were sitting around one evening many years ago at my friend Don’s house, having cocktails and shooting a Friday night breeze. Someone made a reference to some obscure and horrendous sexual act, and Don piped up “that sounds like Friday night in East Van.” The conversation moved on after a few guffaws but I’ve never forgotten that line. I use it all the time in a variety of situations — it’s very handy i find.

I’ve been reading Jack Kerouac’s Big Sur of late, and came across  a section  where Jack describes Neil Cassady in his own endearing way which pretty much sums up the whole Friday Night in East Van thing for me:

Because he was always tremendously generated towards complete relationship with his women to the point where they ended up in one convoluted octopus mess of souls and tears and fellatio and hotel room schemes and rushing in and out of cars and doors and great crises in the middle of the night, wow that madman you can at least write on his grave someday “He Lived, He Sweated” — No halfway house is Cody’s house —

Jack Kerouac, Big Sur

Taking the salient –er– seminal part out for the actual definition of Friday Night In East Van:

Friday Night In East Van, phrase: a convoluted octopus mess of souls and tears and fellatio and hotel room schemes and rushing in and out of cars and doors and great crises in the middle of the night.

Bourbonhours.com Dictionary

Heard this word while watching English tv last night: publican. The reference was to the owner of a bar, and sure enough, that’s one of the meanings of this word.

I went into a public-’ouse to get a pint o’ beer,
The publican ‘e up an ‘sez, “We serve no red-coats here.”

Rudyard Kipling, Tommy

The English are a bit wordy, but they do have some good ones.