Photos taken with Nikon D40, infrared filter. Exposure times 5-10 seconds.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Unusual Gin Joints, pt.2
STINGERS
East 52nd Street (?)
New York City
I debated with myself long and hard over Stingers’ inclusion in this list. Stingers is the Gin Joint equivalent of a booty call. By that, I mean it was wholly unremarkable establishment with an asinine name but it was always cheap, easy, lively and close to home. You never wanted to be seen there though you frequented the place more often than you’d care to admit to your buddies. And deep down inside, you actually liked it.
I reckon most of the crowd in Stingers consisted mostly of mediocre middle management between bad marriages who frequently turned after-work drinks into yet another hung-over day at the office. There were cougars and buffoons, cheap suits and extraordinary nails. Stingers could probably lay claim to the unnecessary laurel of the best B-52 in the city, as the quantity ordered therein must have provided ample opportunity for refinement.
The key assets of Stingers, from my seat at the bar, were the two young Irish brothers that ran the place. Joe was the alpha brother with the requisite brogue and moustache that you would want in your local publican. We were regular enough with the booty calls that Joe was always quick with the buyback and would occasionally allow us to take over the music. He was disgruntled in a jocular and admirable fashion and dealt with discord in a ‘I’ll show you, motherfucker’ manner. We once watched a waitress return a drink to Joe from a customer who claimed it wasn’t strong enough. ‘Not strong enough!?’ he shouted down the bar and proceeded to pour a four count of 151 proof rum back into the glass. ‘Ask her if it’s strong enough now.’
As you would probably guess, Stingers is long gone and frankly is not missed.
East 52nd Street (?)
New York City
I debated with myself long and hard over Stingers’ inclusion in this list. Stingers is the Gin Joint equivalent of a booty call. By that, I mean it was wholly unremarkable establishment with an asinine name but it was always cheap, easy, lively and close to home. You never wanted to be seen there though you frequented the place more often than you’d care to admit to your buddies. And deep down inside, you actually liked it.
I reckon most of the crowd in Stingers consisted mostly of mediocre middle management between bad marriages who frequently turned after-work drinks into yet another hung-over day at the office. There were cougars and buffoons, cheap suits and extraordinary nails. Stingers could probably lay claim to the unnecessary laurel of the best B-52 in the city, as the quantity ordered therein must have provided ample opportunity for refinement.
The key assets of Stingers, from my seat at the bar, were the two young Irish brothers that ran the place. Joe was the alpha brother with the requisite brogue and moustache that you would want in your local publican. We were regular enough with the booty calls that Joe was always quick with the buyback and would occasionally allow us to take over the music. He was disgruntled in a jocular and admirable fashion and dealt with discord in a ‘I’ll show you, motherfucker’ manner. We once watched a waitress return a drink to Joe from a customer who claimed it wasn’t strong enough. ‘Not strong enough!?’ he shouted down the bar and proceeded to pour a four count of 151 proof rum back into the glass. ‘Ask her if it’s strong enough now.’
As you would probably guess, Stingers is long gone and frankly is not missed.
Friday, March 6, 2009
That Was a Good Day
The doldrums.
I was just about to embark on a short piece about emotional doldrums, that ho-hum feeling of routine ennui that makes us feel listless and worse, inconsequential. I think it is worth a brief aside, however, to note that I just learned something new - assuming that we can trust the Wiki-Monkey responsible for the doldrums entry.
Until six minutes ago, I had zero clue that the Doldrums are an actual place. I always assumed it was simply the state of relentless calm at sea, not a proper noun. Here is what is written on Wikipedia regarding the Doldrums:
“The Doldrums (often capitalized when referring to the geographic region) is an area of the Atlantic Ocean, the Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean affected by the Intertropical Convergence Zone, a low-pressure area around the equator where the prevailing winds are calm. The low pressure is caused by the heat at the equator, which makes the air rise and travel north and south high in the atmosphere, until it subsides again in the horse latitudes. Some of that air returns to the Doldrums through the trade winds. This process can lead to light or variable winds and more severe weather, in the form of heavy squalls, thunderstorms and hurricanes.
This region is also noted for calm periods when the winds disappear altogether, or are light and shifting. Hurricanes originate in this region. Because of the unpredictable weather patterns, the Doldrums became notorious with sailors because this region's periods of deadly calm could trap ships for days or weeks on end as they waited for enough wind to power their sails.”
So there you have it. I’m not sure if this improves my disposition towards the concept of the ‘doldrums’ or not. My instinct is that this new knowledge of the Doldrums being a physical location, albeit generally, gives them a tangibility that can be reckoned with. If they can be found on a map and given a proximity, then it is possible to plot a course of action to avoid or at least anticipate the Doldrums. Perhaps this can be applied to the doldrums we carry with us on our modern journey.
When I find myself drifting aimlessly in my personal doldrums I often amuse myself with the following quote from Bill Murray’s character in Groundhog Day, Phil Connors, “I was in the Virgin Islands once. I met a girl. We ate lobster and drank pina coladas. At sunset we made love like sea otters. That was a good day. Why couldn't I get that day over and over and over?”
Naturally this leads one to crack open the door to the storage closest of good memories and dust a few days off. I have a number of ones I keep there to liven up the off days, but one of my favorites is not so much a powerful one, like the day I got married, or a day filled with wonder and beauty, but rather a whimsical one.
I’m going to guess the year was either 1998 or 1999 and it was the middle of the week in spring. Three gentlemen in their late 20s – myself, Pat and Ian – alighted from a slip in Jersey City on a modest sailboat belonging to Ian and heroically crossed the Hudson back to Manhattan. The three of us were all freelancers at the time and with nothing else on the docket that particular day we thought we would wile (pun intended) away the afternoon, taking in the sun and the spring river breeze. Armed with three bottles of cheap Chilean red wine, no food and a boombox, we anchored the Ian’s vessel just off the World Financial Center making sure that we were in full view of the working stiffs trapped inside. Cruel bastards, I know, but as Janis once sang, ‘freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose.’
We uncorked our plonk, turned up the tunes and lay about on the deck bullshitting one another in the way young men do. Some time passed, we worked our way through our liquid availables and our reverie was only interrupted by the fact that we realized we were being watched. We weren’t anchored right at the shore, but we were close enough that we could see people in the offices on the first couple of floors of the building. On the second floor, there were a couple of young ladies passing a pair of binoculars back and forth spying on our enviable position.
We waved. They waved back. It was a scene out of a bad 80’s romantic comedy.
As you would presume, there was a quick discussion amongst the lads as to our next move and how we might capitalize on this unexpected development. Cell phones were less prevalent in those days, but I happened to have one on me and it even got reception at our anchorage. I joked to the fellows that what we needed was a giant sign with the cell number on it. Ian went below deck and returned moments later with two pieces of white card and a giant magic marker. Understand that Ian’s boat, while equipped with all the basics, was not an elaborate conveyance. It was if we were stranded on a desert island, a crate of pasta washed ashore and I wistfully said aloud, “If only we had a strainer” to find moments later Ian producing a strainer from his go-bag.
Anyway, I proceeded to write my digits on the cards. We then waved back to the ladies and held the cards aloft for them to read. It was rather difficult because we were doubled over laughing at the insanity of it all. Sure enough, after the final four digits had been displayed, my phone rang.
I wish I could tell you that we made some amazing connection was made between us over the air between their cave of cubicles and our tiny cloud purposeful idleness. Unfortunately, I found not damsels in distress looking to be saved, but financial foot soldiers who couldn’t comprehend why we would waste a perfectly good working day drinking cheap wine and listening to music. The conversation mostly consisted of small talk along the lines of, “What are you guys doing?”
“Not much. Sailing. Drinking.”
“Don’t you guys work?”
“No. Not really.”
And so on. The conversation was cut short by the return of their boss, but I was less disappointed by this outcome than relieved. Not to mention I was friggin’ hungry. Moments after hanging up with the ladies, I turned to Pat and Ian and said something to the effect of “Well, that happened. If only we could get delivery out here. I could use a pizza.” Ian once again ducked below deck and returned with a menu book for Jersey City. One phone call and fifteen minutes later, we pulled back into his slip to find the pizza delivery guy holding our hot pepperoni pie.
That was a good day.
I was just about to embark on a short piece about emotional doldrums, that ho-hum feeling of routine ennui that makes us feel listless and worse, inconsequential. I think it is worth a brief aside, however, to note that I just learned something new - assuming that we can trust the Wiki-Monkey responsible for the doldrums entry.
Until six minutes ago, I had zero clue that the Doldrums are an actual place. I always assumed it was simply the state of relentless calm at sea, not a proper noun. Here is what is written on Wikipedia regarding the Doldrums:
“The Doldrums (often capitalized when referring to the geographic region) is an area of the Atlantic Ocean, the Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean affected by the Intertropical Convergence Zone, a low-pressure area around the equator where the prevailing winds are calm. The low pressure is caused by the heat at the equator, which makes the air rise and travel north and south high in the atmosphere, until it subsides again in the horse latitudes. Some of that air returns to the Doldrums through the trade winds. This process can lead to light or variable winds and more severe weather, in the form of heavy squalls, thunderstorms and hurricanes.
This region is also noted for calm periods when the winds disappear altogether, or are light and shifting. Hurricanes originate in this region. Because of the unpredictable weather patterns, the Doldrums became notorious with sailors because this region's periods of deadly calm could trap ships for days or weeks on end as they waited for enough wind to power their sails.”
So there you have it. I’m not sure if this improves my disposition towards the concept of the ‘doldrums’ or not. My instinct is that this new knowledge of the Doldrums being a physical location, albeit generally, gives them a tangibility that can be reckoned with. If they can be found on a map and given a proximity, then it is possible to plot a course of action to avoid or at least anticipate the Doldrums. Perhaps this can be applied to the doldrums we carry with us on our modern journey.
When I find myself drifting aimlessly in my personal doldrums I often amuse myself with the following quote from Bill Murray’s character in Groundhog Day, Phil Connors, “I was in the Virgin Islands once. I met a girl. We ate lobster and drank pina coladas. At sunset we made love like sea otters. That was a good day. Why couldn't I get that day over and over and over?”
Naturally this leads one to crack open the door to the storage closest of good memories and dust a few days off. I have a number of ones I keep there to liven up the off days, but one of my favorites is not so much a powerful one, like the day I got married, or a day filled with wonder and beauty, but rather a whimsical one.
I’m going to guess the year was either 1998 or 1999 and it was the middle of the week in spring. Three gentlemen in their late 20s – myself, Pat and Ian – alighted from a slip in Jersey City on a modest sailboat belonging to Ian and heroically crossed the Hudson back to Manhattan. The three of us were all freelancers at the time and with nothing else on the docket that particular day we thought we would wile (pun intended) away the afternoon, taking in the sun and the spring river breeze. Armed with three bottles of cheap Chilean red wine, no food and a boombox, we anchored the Ian’s vessel just off the World Financial Center making sure that we were in full view of the working stiffs trapped inside. Cruel bastards, I know, but as Janis once sang, ‘freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose.’
We uncorked our plonk, turned up the tunes and lay about on the deck bullshitting one another in the way young men do. Some time passed, we worked our way through our liquid availables and our reverie was only interrupted by the fact that we realized we were being watched. We weren’t anchored right at the shore, but we were close enough that we could see people in the offices on the first couple of floors of the building. On the second floor, there were a couple of young ladies passing a pair of binoculars back and forth spying on our enviable position.
We waved. They waved back. It was a scene out of a bad 80’s romantic comedy.
As you would presume, there was a quick discussion amongst the lads as to our next move and how we might capitalize on this unexpected development. Cell phones were less prevalent in those days, but I happened to have one on me and it even got reception at our anchorage. I joked to the fellows that what we needed was a giant sign with the cell number on it. Ian went below deck and returned moments later with two pieces of white card and a giant magic marker. Understand that Ian’s boat, while equipped with all the basics, was not an elaborate conveyance. It was if we were stranded on a desert island, a crate of pasta washed ashore and I wistfully said aloud, “If only we had a strainer” to find moments later Ian producing a strainer from his go-bag.
Anyway, I proceeded to write my digits on the cards. We then waved back to the ladies and held the cards aloft for them to read. It was rather difficult because we were doubled over laughing at the insanity of it all. Sure enough, after the final four digits had been displayed, my phone rang.
I wish I could tell you that we made some amazing connection was made between us over the air between their cave of cubicles and our tiny cloud purposeful idleness. Unfortunately, I found not damsels in distress looking to be saved, but financial foot soldiers who couldn’t comprehend why we would waste a perfectly good working day drinking cheap wine and listening to music. The conversation mostly consisted of small talk along the lines of, “What are you guys doing?”
“Not much. Sailing. Drinking.”
“Don’t you guys work?”
“No. Not really.”
And so on. The conversation was cut short by the return of their boss, but I was less disappointed by this outcome than relieved. Not to mention I was friggin’ hungry. Moments after hanging up with the ladies, I turned to Pat and Ian and said something to the effect of “Well, that happened. If only we could get delivery out here. I could use a pizza.” Ian once again ducked below deck and returned with a menu book for Jersey City. One phone call and fifteen minutes later, we pulled back into his slip to find the pizza delivery guy holding our hot pepperoni pie.
That was a good day.
Monday, February 16, 2009
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Unusual Gin Joints, pt.1
I live for unusual juxtapositions. The elements being juxtaposed could be as simple as words or as complex as humans. The collision and interaction of diverse entities creates. ‘Creates what?’ you might ask. It creates the unexpected and often the unclear. Sometimes it creates conflict, at its best it creates love and new ideas, it almost always creates talk and most importantly it creates the essence of life… learning.
I offer this obtuse explanation as a starting point for why I have a fascination and passion for Unusual Gin Joints from around the planet. The best of these establishments I am going to detail for you over a series of posts. They all have a particular ‘Mos Eisley Cantina’ vibe: far-flung or hidden locations, bizarre characters, a sense of décor charitably characterized as ‘eclectic’, wicked drink and perhaps a hint of menace. Yet most importantly all serve as hub for the juxtaposition of diverse (and perverse?) individuals from a cross-section of planets to interact while whetting their whistle.
Many of these Unusual Gin Joints no longer exist, especially the ones from deep in my past. I have included them nonetheless, lest their memory be lost to time. (I recently read of a fascinating religion that believes that the spirit doesn’t depart until the last person that remembers it dies, but that is a posting for another time.) I have tried to include links where I can.
The common denominator, of course, is me. After all, the most unusual and delicious juxtapositions involve placing your self directly in the Maw of the Weird.
(* Note: Originally I was going to start from favorites on down. But I have elected instead to attempt to go chronologically so as to witness the evolution of my passion.)
ST. JAMES INFIRMARY
390 Moffett Boulevard, Mountain View, CA
St. James Infirmary holds the distinction of being the only place I’ve ever seen someone die. That was on March 18, 1993. I’d love to tell you that the date is etched in my mind out of sorrow for the loss of life, but unfortunately I can recall the exact date because it happened during my senior year in college and, being parsimonious college students, we were drinking pitchers of heavily discounted, day-old St. Patrick’s Day green beer while watching a wet T-shirt contest. The deceased was a contestant with, as we would later find out, a heart condition for which she refused to take medication. Her expiration took place in front of her fiancé after a bucket of cold water was tossed on her. This was definitely not a dignified departure for her but for me a memorable one.
SJI is sadly long gone now, razed by arson in 1998, but it and nearby Antonio’s Nut House formed the early foundations of my love affair with Unusual Gin Joint. To begin with almost it seemed that nearly everything in St. James Infirmary was stolen or to use our college parlance of the time, “liberated”. Many of the items are what you might expect: street signs of well-known locations or with unintentionally amusing names, highway signs, kitschy nostalgic advertising. But SJI went further and larger. There were whole vehicles (sleigh? Wagon?) slung about from the ceiling. The surfaces of all the tables and the bar were covered with vintage pornographic postcards sealed in dingy, uneven resin. And if the little, nude Prohibition-era lasses peaking out from under your burger didn’t get your motor started there was the piece de resistance of SJI: a thirty-foot tall Wonder Woman, of murky provenance. It’s very existence and its habitation in SJI still beg many a question that I fear will remain unanswered.
In addition to being a feast for the eyes, SJI did not disappoint on the gustatory front either. Fifteen-plus years later I have yet to meet a chicken wing its equal. They didn’t just insult you with a wee banzai leg with a thimble full of actual meat; they served it up with the thigh as well. The sauces were tight and prices within reach for the fiscally-challenged. The bar itself was enormous, wrapping around in a U-shape that could probably seat several score to worship at their sixty taps. This should probably be put into some perspective. When I was frequenting SJI in the early 90s, it pre-dated the explosion of US microbrews, the extensive beer distribution and overall beer connoisseurship that exist today. So a joint with 60 beers on tap was something of a Big Deal.
Lastly, SJI offered entrée into the most critical ingredient in the evolution of the Unusual Gin Joint, a potpurri of humanity. Being in Mountain View, it was too far from Stanford to be a college bar. We only made the trek occasionally and we would usually form a majority of the Cardinal Crowd in-residence when we went. SJI drew its clientele partly from Moffett Field located just down the road from SJI and from the phalanx of Silicon Valley geeks and bandits.
ANTONIO’S NUT HOUSE
321 South California Ave.
Palo Alto, CA
A defining element of the Unusual Gin Joint is the deployment of cheesy double entendre and cutesy wordplay with a crass edge that adds up to what I’ll call ‘guffaw humor’ in their décor. It’s the sort of prominently displayed ‘Liquor Up Front, Poker in the Rear’ sign that elicits a chuckle as your reaching for your first handful of peanuts. (I must admit that at this point I fear I have seen them all and that the impact is certainly waning.) The ‘Nut House’ did live up to its double entendre providing both free peanuts and patrons of questionable sanity and both by the barrel.
ANH is definitely something of an anomaly in tony Palo Alto. Let me step back a moment and say one or two things about Palo Alto itself. Despite the looming presence of Stanford five minutes away, Paly could give a shit about the students, especially those of an undergraduate nature with featherweight wallets. There was very little then, and believe even less now, of relevance to everyday student life in Palo Alto. Things got slightly more interesting when you became of legal drinking age, but then you still had to have drink money to make it work. The most popular place in town was a sushi joint with a line that you had to cut through to get to the only place with cheap eats, Pudley’s. (Gold Mine Special – burger and 22oz beer for about $6). Pudley’s has since gone out of business and become a sushi joint.
Anyway, my general point is that Palo Alto is more of a free-range chicken and overpriced chardonnay type of town that definitely sneers at the Unusual Gin Joint, if it even bothers to notice at all.
Which may explain the entrance to the Antonio’s Nut House. The front of the building was some lunch counter kind of place that I never recall seeing open, let alone venturing in. The door to the bar was in the back parking lot. It was unmarked except for a sign that read: ‘Please knock. If nobody answers slide money under the door.’
When you entered there was a modest bar on the left, a half dozen pool tables in the back and to your right, a mechanical gorilla in cage guarding a barrel of peanuts. The gorilla buzzed and turned with a range of motions that suggested C-3PO on Quaaludes. The floor was littered with the dusty corpses of shelled peanuts.
ANH was my first experience with a bartender who transcended beyond anonymous drink slinger to the ranks of the Iconic Bartender and thereby is granted institutional status. Monica stepped of the celluloid of John Water’s film and my memory paints a portrait of her being the Biker Mama version of Charlotte Rea in the Facts of Life. She drove a fair dinkum jalopy – a Pink Studebaker the kind driven by Fozzie Bear in The Muppet Movie – and she made a drink with name so reprehensible I won’t speak of it here and I would only whisper of it to my closet friends. (It was a diabolical mixture of 100 proof Stoli, 100 proof Yukon Jack and Kaluhua, served in cocktail glass garnished with a plastic hanging monkey found in the child’s divertissement Barrel of Monkeys)
In many ways, Monica embodied the stereotype of her craft and her station as would be portrayed in pulp fiction of screen or print. She had been there, done that and had heard every line, excuse and tale of horseshit imaginable. She took no shit and made that clear. Yet like the stereotype she was charismatic, funny and personable. Up to this point, I didn’t know such a character could exist in the flesh and yet here she was.
At this point in my life, the Unusual Gin Joints like the Nut House and SJI served me like an air lock to the Dreaded Real World. It was a spot where I could safely observe people unwinding from ‘Real’ Lives and ‘Real’ Jobs and then return back to the insulation of college a little wiser about what was potentially waiting when graduation broke open the seal. It also helped me understand why people seek out the Unusual Gin Joint. The best of these provide a temporary portal where the normal rules are suspended. ANH was a place in snotty Alto where you sneak behind the curtain, order a profanely named drink, litter the floor with impunity not in secret from your fellow man, but in full view with their encouragement. It is an Air Lock for all of us and it is best shared.
I have two stories from my visits to ANH to share and then I need to wrap this up.
The first involves our gal, Monica. We were in there one night and apparently it happened to be her birthday. One of Monica’s friends dropped in and handed her a present over the counter. Monica unwrapped the present and announced with remarkable sincerity ‘Ooooh, you didn’t’ She held up the present for the whole bar to behold. It was a magnificent giant black vibrator. We all laughed. ‘I’m going to use this right now!’ announced Monica. We all laughed even more. She walked out from behind the bar and headed in the direction of the ladies room. We were all doubled over in laughter, tears practically streaming down our face. ‘Good one,’ we must have shouted waiting for her to spin on her heel and return to the untended bar. Five minutes later the laughter had subsided and was replaced by looks of disbelief. ‘Nawww..’ At ten minutes, those of us at the bar now turned our heads at the empty bar and wondered if we should help ourselves to either more booze or even for the more desperate, the cash register. Fifteen minutes later, she returned a bit flushed to a subdued bar and announced ‘Who needs a drink?’
The final story occurred not long after I had turned legal age. Towards the end of a prolonged drinking session with a friend who had literally just turned of age himself, Palo Alto’s finest sidled into the bar. The officers were an older man and woman that it made it feel like the Paly Po Po was a Mom and Pop operation. I felt a shiver of guilt for a second, brought about years of residual underage drinking guilt, but it passed when I reminded myself that I was finally ‘of age’. Anyway, it wasn’t us they were after. They were looking for the pair of older folks who had also been wiling away the afternoon at the bar with us. Apparently, they were both blind (none of us noticed) and had been brought to the bar by their caretaker, who had gotten sloshed and staggered away leaving behind her forgotten charges at the bar. Oops.
I offer this obtuse explanation as a starting point for why I have a fascination and passion for Unusual Gin Joints from around the planet. The best of these establishments I am going to detail for you over a series of posts. They all have a particular ‘Mos Eisley Cantina’ vibe: far-flung or hidden locations, bizarre characters, a sense of décor charitably characterized as ‘eclectic’, wicked drink and perhaps a hint of menace. Yet most importantly all serve as hub for the juxtaposition of diverse (and perverse?) individuals from a cross-section of planets to interact while whetting their whistle.
Many of these Unusual Gin Joints no longer exist, especially the ones from deep in my past. I have included them nonetheless, lest their memory be lost to time. (I recently read of a fascinating religion that believes that the spirit doesn’t depart until the last person that remembers it dies, but that is a posting for another time.) I have tried to include links where I can.
The common denominator, of course, is me. After all, the most unusual and delicious juxtapositions involve placing your self directly in the Maw of the Weird.
(* Note: Originally I was going to start from favorites on down. But I have elected instead to attempt to go chronologically so as to witness the evolution of my passion.)
ST. JAMES INFIRMARY
390 Moffett Boulevard, Mountain View, CA
St. James Infirmary holds the distinction of being the only place I’ve ever seen someone die. That was on March 18, 1993. I’d love to tell you that the date is etched in my mind out of sorrow for the loss of life, but unfortunately I can recall the exact date because it happened during my senior year in college and, being parsimonious college students, we were drinking pitchers of heavily discounted, day-old St. Patrick’s Day green beer while watching a wet T-shirt contest. The deceased was a contestant with, as we would later find out, a heart condition for which she refused to take medication. Her expiration took place in front of her fiancé after a bucket of cold water was tossed on her. This was definitely not a dignified departure for her but for me a memorable one.
SJI is sadly long gone now, razed by arson in 1998, but it and nearby Antonio’s Nut House formed the early foundations of my love affair with Unusual Gin Joint. To begin with almost it seemed that nearly everything in St. James Infirmary was stolen or to use our college parlance of the time, “liberated”. Many of the items are what you might expect: street signs of well-known locations or with unintentionally amusing names, highway signs, kitschy nostalgic advertising. But SJI went further and larger. There were whole vehicles (sleigh? Wagon?) slung about from the ceiling. The surfaces of all the tables and the bar were covered with vintage pornographic postcards sealed in dingy, uneven resin. And if the little, nude Prohibition-era lasses peaking out from under your burger didn’t get your motor started there was the piece de resistance of SJI: a thirty-foot tall Wonder Woman, of murky provenance. It’s very existence and its habitation in SJI still beg many a question that I fear will remain unanswered.
In addition to being a feast for the eyes, SJI did not disappoint on the gustatory front either. Fifteen-plus years later I have yet to meet a chicken wing its equal. They didn’t just insult you with a wee banzai leg with a thimble full of actual meat; they served it up with the thigh as well. The sauces were tight and prices within reach for the fiscally-challenged. The bar itself was enormous, wrapping around in a U-shape that could probably seat several score to worship at their sixty taps. This should probably be put into some perspective. When I was frequenting SJI in the early 90s, it pre-dated the explosion of US microbrews, the extensive beer distribution and overall beer connoisseurship that exist today. So a joint with 60 beers on tap was something of a Big Deal.
Lastly, SJI offered entrée into the most critical ingredient in the evolution of the Unusual Gin Joint, a potpurri of humanity. Being in Mountain View, it was too far from Stanford to be a college bar. We only made the trek occasionally and we would usually form a majority of the Cardinal Crowd in-residence when we went. SJI drew its clientele partly from Moffett Field located just down the road from SJI and from the phalanx of Silicon Valley geeks and bandits.
ANTONIO’S NUT HOUSE
321 South California Ave.
Palo Alto, CA
A defining element of the Unusual Gin Joint is the deployment of cheesy double entendre and cutesy wordplay with a crass edge that adds up to what I’ll call ‘guffaw humor’ in their décor. It’s the sort of prominently displayed ‘Liquor Up Front, Poker in the Rear’ sign that elicits a chuckle as your reaching for your first handful of peanuts. (I must admit that at this point I fear I have seen them all and that the impact is certainly waning.) The ‘Nut House’ did live up to its double entendre providing both free peanuts and patrons of questionable sanity and both by the barrel.
ANH is definitely something of an anomaly in tony Palo Alto. Let me step back a moment and say one or two things about Palo Alto itself. Despite the looming presence of Stanford five minutes away, Paly could give a shit about the students, especially those of an undergraduate nature with featherweight wallets. There was very little then, and believe even less now, of relevance to everyday student life in Palo Alto. Things got slightly more interesting when you became of legal drinking age, but then you still had to have drink money to make it work. The most popular place in town was a sushi joint with a line that you had to cut through to get to the only place with cheap eats, Pudley’s. (Gold Mine Special – burger and 22oz beer for about $6). Pudley’s has since gone out of business and become a sushi joint.
Anyway, my general point is that Palo Alto is more of a free-range chicken and overpriced chardonnay type of town that definitely sneers at the Unusual Gin Joint, if it even bothers to notice at all.
Which may explain the entrance to the Antonio’s Nut House. The front of the building was some lunch counter kind of place that I never recall seeing open, let alone venturing in. The door to the bar was in the back parking lot. It was unmarked except for a sign that read: ‘Please knock. If nobody answers slide money under the door.’
When you entered there was a modest bar on the left, a half dozen pool tables in the back and to your right, a mechanical gorilla in cage guarding a barrel of peanuts. The gorilla buzzed and turned with a range of motions that suggested C-3PO on Quaaludes. The floor was littered with the dusty corpses of shelled peanuts.
ANH was my first experience with a bartender who transcended beyond anonymous drink slinger to the ranks of the Iconic Bartender and thereby is granted institutional status. Monica stepped of the celluloid of John Water’s film and my memory paints a portrait of her being the Biker Mama version of Charlotte Rea in the Facts of Life. She drove a fair dinkum jalopy – a Pink Studebaker the kind driven by Fozzie Bear in The Muppet Movie – and she made a drink with name so reprehensible I won’t speak of it here and I would only whisper of it to my closet friends. (It was a diabolical mixture of 100 proof Stoli, 100 proof Yukon Jack and Kaluhua, served in cocktail glass garnished with a plastic hanging monkey found in the child’s divertissement Barrel of Monkeys)
In many ways, Monica embodied the stereotype of her craft and her station as would be portrayed in pulp fiction of screen or print. She had been there, done that and had heard every line, excuse and tale of horseshit imaginable. She took no shit and made that clear. Yet like the stereotype she was charismatic, funny and personable. Up to this point, I didn’t know such a character could exist in the flesh and yet here she was.
At this point in my life, the Unusual Gin Joints like the Nut House and SJI served me like an air lock to the Dreaded Real World. It was a spot where I could safely observe people unwinding from ‘Real’ Lives and ‘Real’ Jobs and then return back to the insulation of college a little wiser about what was potentially waiting when graduation broke open the seal. It also helped me understand why people seek out the Unusual Gin Joint. The best of these provide a temporary portal where the normal rules are suspended. ANH was a place in snotty Alto where you sneak behind the curtain, order a profanely named drink, litter the floor with impunity not in secret from your fellow man, but in full view with their encouragement. It is an Air Lock for all of us and it is best shared.
I have two stories from my visits to ANH to share and then I need to wrap this up.
The first involves our gal, Monica. We were in there one night and apparently it happened to be her birthday. One of Monica’s friends dropped in and handed her a present over the counter. Monica unwrapped the present and announced with remarkable sincerity ‘Ooooh, you didn’t’ She held up the present for the whole bar to behold. It was a magnificent giant black vibrator. We all laughed. ‘I’m going to use this right now!’ announced Monica. We all laughed even more. She walked out from behind the bar and headed in the direction of the ladies room. We were all doubled over in laughter, tears practically streaming down our face. ‘Good one,’ we must have shouted waiting for her to spin on her heel and return to the untended bar. Five minutes later the laughter had subsided and was replaced by looks of disbelief. ‘Nawww..’ At ten minutes, those of us at the bar now turned our heads at the empty bar and wondered if we should help ourselves to either more booze or even for the more desperate, the cash register. Fifteen minutes later, she returned a bit flushed to a subdued bar and announced ‘Who needs a drink?’
The final story occurred not long after I had turned legal age. Towards the end of a prolonged drinking session with a friend who had literally just turned of age himself, Palo Alto’s finest sidled into the bar. The officers were an older man and woman that it made it feel like the Paly Po Po was a Mom and Pop operation. I felt a shiver of guilt for a second, brought about years of residual underage drinking guilt, but it passed when I reminded myself that I was finally ‘of age’. Anyway, it wasn’t us they were after. They were looking for the pair of older folks who had also been wiling away the afternoon at the bar with us. Apparently, they were both blind (none of us noticed) and had been brought to the bar by their caretaker, who had gotten sloshed and staggered away leaving behind her forgotten charges at the bar. Oops.
Saturday, January 3, 2009
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