J.R. is a fatherless boy growing up in the glow of a bar where the bartender, his Uncle Charlie, is the sharpest and also most colorful of an array of unusual and demonstrative father figures. As the young boy's established mother has a hard time to offer her child with possibilities rejected to her-- as well as leave the dilapidated residence of her horrendous if begrudgingly supportive father-- J.R. begins to gamely, otherwise always with dignity, pursue his charming and also expert dreams, with one foot persistently placed in Uncle Charlie's bar.