Bar Fly Meets the Locals

Saturday 28^th June

I’m in the very hipster bar, ‘Polite Provisions’ on my own. I have my trusty notebook with me and now I’ve secured myself one of the premium marble topped tables, I feel no longer ‘Billy no mates’, stood hanging around the bar like a spare part. It is exactly as I thought it would be on my own when I contemplated coming in here again last night. I have just watched a pretty brunette barmaid or should I say, Cocktail waitress with immense skill and panache mix cocktails and serve them in front of me at the bar. Two cocktails of the same pink concoction in tall tapered glasses and something green in a shorter glass. Three shakers, two at first, one in each hand, shaking simultaneously! These people have to be ambidextrous! It is sheer joy to witness the efficiency and style of her actions. Having mixed and poured out into two glasses over ice, she places the steel shakers upside down while they are automatically rinsed. Taking black straws she withdraws them from the drink and sucks to taste for subtle quality control in a seamless act. She cuts and ducks slices of lime into her works of art and hands them over.

A man in a great polyester 70’s vintage shirt of burnt terracotta and yellow triangles sits at the bar awaiting a friend who joins him. Small groups stand around raised circular marble tables in the centre beside huge cast metal street lights of standing females in togas holding aloft glass globe lights with winged sphinks below. All the bar staff are dressed in 1920’s prohibition style costumes. The men in white shirts, waistcoats and flat caps with manicured moustaches the ladies in fitted black shirts and waistcoats, no moustaches. The atmosphere is buzzing. This is simply one of the coolest places I have ever hung out in. It is the type of place I dreamed of being in when I was a teenager, obsessed with the Edwardian era and the 1920’s.

Three beautiful girls who were stood at one of the circular tables have just joined me on the next table that became vacant. One, a stunning black girl with her mid-rift showing gossips in a squeaky American voice without ever once drawing breath!

“And I’m like, I’m standing right in front of you, how can you like, be saying that to me, you know? That was like, you know, I’m working on, blah, blah, blah, but now…”

She is so involved in blabbering with the other two that it seems fairly clear she is not interested in being hit on.

I seem to be causing more interest amongst the bar staff.

“Is everything okay here”? One bearded chap approaches me in his 20’s.

“What are you writing about”?

“It’s just a journal” I tell him.

“You prefer to write longhand”? he questions.

“When I don’t want to bring my laptop out with me” I answer.

“I know what you mean. I’ve started writing letters by hand” he says.

“Wow”! I find myself saying, “Good for you! It’s died out. You could be responsible for single handedly bringing it back!”

“I’ll do that” he promises. Someone needs to.

I’m considering leaving here after this drink. I’ve not managed to talk to anyone other than the barman and am feeling rather isolated. It’s Saturday night 11pm and I certainly don’t wish to return to my room until I’ve tried at least another drinking hole or two in the area whilst I’m here.

I cross over the road to ‘The Air Conditioned Lounge’ a bar with a large open window in the wall by day to hear thumping music inside and all boarded up so you can’t see in. Two attractive women just arriving get out of their car and walk towards it. I should have asked them what it was like inside but I had already decided to move on. I wander further up Adam’s Avenue to find other bars in the area. I pass a large pool place bar and some other dives and cafes before stumbling upon an open door pitch-dark room with a black curtain stage at the end. A melancholic young brunette in her twenties is singing folk, blue-grass country style songs of great beauty in an extraordinary voice. Three bearded guys playing guitars and a cello accompany the great vocal sound. I am compelled inside.

A fat guy in black shorts and T- shirt is sat on a folding stool outside facing the door, hunched over his Apple laptop. I loiter in case I was charged entry but no one spoke-up so I wander in to this dark room with an audience of perhaps twenty at most. You could hear a pin drop, they are respectable and receptive. The band starts harmonising with great skill. After two songs it’s all over and I hang around to find out what I’d just witnessed. It’s a small live music venue called Le Stats. I chat to the band at the front desk where there are CD’S for sale and mailing lists. I ask the young singer, Heather if she is playing the Fringe Festival? No, she hasn’t heard about it. I said it would be great for her to play there and to check it out for next year. I tell her about my play and she wishes me luck with it.

It turns out this was a special collaboration between the band, ‘Darlingside’ and Heather Maloney. She has started touring with them but recorded her own solo album and has been touring America since March. Heather is from Massachusetts and wants to tour Europe and Britain. I refrain from purchasing their many CD’s but I sign up for both emailing lists and as she said she’ll keep me in touch if she tours Europe.

I am suddenly reminded of the two blonde singer songwriter girls I met in Edinburgh at the Fringe Festival at a talent show upstairs in the Pear Tree pub who were touring in a camper van and who’s CD I bought. I wander further.

There is a brightly lit café next door with people on laptops at separate tables.

I carry on further and cross the road to take a look at the Irish pub; Rosie O’Grady’s, which I’d heard, was rough. I couldn’t see clearly inside, as it was dark, crowded and loud. It didn’t immediately grab me, so I went next door to find a large windowed open wooden floor bar with bare tables, a good range of ales on tap and a more civilised clientele sat at tables. I made to go in but was met by a bartender who informed me they had already called last orders. I was genuinely disappointed, as this looked the best bet of the bunch.

Crossing back over the road I peer into a crowded small bar with a guy sat on the door who asks if I have any ID? I said “No. What sort of ID? I don’t carry any”.

“Passport?” he said.

“Passport!” I guffawed. “What makes you think I’d carry my passport round with me?”

“You’ll need ID if you try to go into any of the downtown bars to prove you’re over twenty one.”

“You’re very kind, “ I said, somewhat bewildered.

“I’ll let you in this one time” he said.

As I walked inside I saw he was not exactly doing me a huge favour. It was full of drunken idiots, people turning to stare at the over dressed outsider, music blaring and bar tenders ignoring me. Not exactly my kind of place. I surveyed the awful scene and decided I wasn’t interested in spending any money or time in here. “See you next time” I lied to the bouncer on the way out. Merely confirming my conviction that the only venues with a bouncer are never worthy of one’s patronage.

I walked back and found the pool place. The minute I walk in I’m approached by the straight talking barman who points at me and asks me what I’m drinking? “A beer!” I say, taken aback. “What kind of beer? ‘ he asks. “What do you have on tap?” I enquired. He lists quite a few. I ask for something ale like. I chose one and it’s excellent. I like the way he runs the place. A glass breaks and he’s there sweeping it up. A Mexican chant breaks out at the back and the place is in uproar. “Before me, above me, below me” is the rough translation. It’s the World Cup live and Mexico is playing. There are six TV’s in one wall behind the bar and one at either end in case you missed any sport. But still it doesn’t really feel like your typical ‘Sports bar’ somehow.

I take up position central stage at the bar, take out my notebook and continue writing in my journal. This time it causes more attention.

I meet a voluptuous Hispanic girl who works for the Navy full time and is at College studying PR in her spare time. She asks me what I’m writing about. I tell her it’s my journal I’m keeping as I’m bringing a play to the San Diego Fringe Festival. Has she heard about it? No. She doesn’t go out, always busy working then studying. But she likes theatre and takes a flier and says she might make it.

An older couple slightly the worse for wear, arguing, sit down to my right and before long he takes one look at my notebook and says “I think that’s incredible”

“What is”? I ask.

“That you can write like that”

“Oh, thank you very much,” I say.

I talk to a stunning brown-eyed blonde with great legs and lips, sat to my left. I ask if she’s heard of the Fringe? No she hasn’t but she’s grown up round here. She’s twenty-five and has been smoking marijuana for ten years since she was fifteen! “You know, the stereotype Californian culture?” She tells me she’s unemployed, between jobs right now and not proud of that fact. She’s unhappy right now and wants to get to the stage where she’s happy again. She is with a short Hispanic guy who is sat on her other side. She tells me who he is to her but I didn’t hear. She takes my flier with interest, reads it and puts it in her bag. I ask her if she’s artistic?

“You should have been here at the beginning of the month. All the street for two miles, every shop and café was given over to displaying art and music from artists”. She tells me.

She turns to inform her Hispanic friend about our conversation and he asks to see the flier, which she takes out of her bag to show him. He glances at it and puts it down. It is left on the bar.

I ask if she takes marijuana for relaxation, sexual or creative intentions. She thinks for a moment before replying “All of the above at different times”. She suddenly turns to me “Can I ask you something of a personal nature?” I thought she was about to ask my orientation or relationship status, “Have you smoked marijuana before?” She asks. “Why”? I ask, “Are you inviting me”? She smiles and confesses without actually closing the deal. I ask what her line is? She says promotion.

“I thought you might be a dancer” I find myself saying.

“I am a dancer of sorts,”… she confesses, “But a girl has to pay the bills, right?

I didn’t quite follow where this might be leading.

“I wasn’t sure what type of dancer you were asking?” she says. Suddenly a whole seedier side opens up as I think her bleached peroxide hair may be a clue to another type of dancing that involves a pole perhaps? What is the subtext in our exchange? Is this just some male fantasy conjecture?

She disappears for a long while.

A tall guy comes and orders a drink at the bar and asks me what I’m writing. He introduces himself as Simon from San Diego who is a teacher. What do you teach I ask?

“Maths and Spanish”.

“Quite a combo” I say.

“Yes” he said. “I know”.

“My brain is differently wired,” I tell him. “Programmed not to compute things like mathematics”

“Oh, I don’t believe that. I think everyone is capable of learning about anything given the right amount of application”. “I wish I was able to write like you,” he says.

“Well you can.” I say. “You just start and see where it takes you”.

A short girl comes up to me, introduces herself and asks most politely. “Hello. I was sat on the other side of you earlier at the bar and I could see you were busy writing so I daren’t interrupt you. But would it be all right if I asked you what you are writing about”?

“Of course” I say, touched by her sweet courtesy. “I’m writing my journal about my time here. I’ve brought a play over from London to the San Diego Fringe Festival.

“Really”? She says. “That’s amazing. What’s it about?”

It’s about Marilyn Monroe meeting with an eccentric English poet, Dr Edith Sitwell in Hollywood in 1953” I tell her.” Do you like theatre?”

“Oh yes”, she says “I love going to theatre and dance”.

I give her a flier and she appears delighted. I start to fear she may be hitting on me but she mentions something about her husband.

“Can I ask you for a hug?” She says out of the blue.

“Of course” I say, somewhat flabbergasted. We hug, she says goodbye and she is gone.

The brown-eyed blonde re enters with the short Hispanic sidekick and stands next to me. We exchange eye contact for a little too long and I fantasise there may be something between us. But before long she disappears again.

Another local, Steve, wanders up to the bar, swaying slightly in his drunken bliss. He asks me what I’m writing. Turns out he sells things. “What kind of things?” I ask, not prepared to let it rest there.

“Gardening equipment and such like” he says before drifting off.

The wily barman finally asks me if I’ve managed to write down everything that’s happened tonight and I say “Just about”. I tell him what I’m doing in San Diego. He picks up the postcard flier to read I gave to the blonde earlier, now stuck to the bar with beer. Without warning he starts quoting Shakespeare speeches from Julius Caesar to me. He is word perfect and flows as naturally as everyday conversation. He is captivatingly good and I strain to savour every word of this impromptu performance.

“I majored in Performing Arts about thirty five years ago. But you know, very few of the greatest actors are making a living from their art. I have responsibilities. I’m married with a family. I own and run this place.” He then quotes Macbeth speeches. “Is this a dagger which I see before me? The handle turned toward mine hand?” He has clearly missed his vocation.

Who would have imagined when I walked through that door this no nonsense bar tender would end the evening by giving one of the best performances I’d see all Fringe in America. “I’m Ken by the way,” he says shaking me warmly by the hand as closing time comes at 2am and all the stragglers leave. I thank him for a great night and tell him I like the way he runs the place. I am the last one out.

Outside I meet the brown-eyed blonde waiting, still with her Hispanic sidekick in tow. I really should have asked if they were together. We exchange more small talk and I wait to see if anything is going to happen between us. But after a while we bid each other a fair goodnight, I kiss her on both cheeks, give her my card and tell her to drop me an email. I never hear from her again.