Tag Bars

Making a Connection

Michael Leave a comment

Have you seen that commercial where everybody does everything with their phones? Check bank balance, pick airline seat, buy donut, trade stock, start car. Do anything as long as you never ever don’t have your phone in your hand. That commercial. Or was that real life I saw that?

Yesterday I did something I hadn’t done for ages. I stopped at the bar yesterday. Not too long ago it would have been a rare day when I couldn’t say I stop at the bar yesterday. Nowadays it’s an event. I think it came from being in the hospital for 7 months. They don’t let you drink there and if there should ever be a place where drinking is mandatory it’s the hospital. Instead they turned me into someone who can say that now when I go to a bar it’s to pick up a sandwich that I ordered. And this place has killer sandwiches! But that’s a different story.

Anyway, I got there before my sandwich was ready so I sat and had a drink, joining the dozen or so people similarly spending their mid-afternoon. I noted that there were 14 other people there and 11 of them had phones in their hands. Eight were actively typing, tapping, or swiping. The other three were, I suppose, on standby.

You know how ubiquitous cell phones are but when you see it clustered in one spot it really hits you. Just a couple of years ago if there were 14 people sitting in a bar some afternoon there would have been a couple conversations, a few people checking out the TVs hanging from the corners, somebody at the jukebox, and perhaps a card game. Today I saw 8 people more connected with somebodies not there than there. And three on standby.

I’m not sure how I feel about that. Whether they were talking among themselves or conversing electronically I still would have been there just waiting for my sandwich. Still killer. Thank God some things don’t change.

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

In Like a Lyin’

Michael Leave a comment

March may traditionally come in like a lion but the first week of this month had me thinking of all the official lies we have had forced upon us. Damn those government bureaucrats. They’ve taken four shots per bottle away from us in the name of world-wide conformity and nobody has said a thing about it. Clearly I am talking about the metric system. Either that or else clearly, I’ve completely lost it this time.

Once upon a time, in fact once upon the 1890s as the temperance movement was gaining ground, laws were being passed to permit sales of alcohol by bottles “to go” rather than by the drink “for here” to discourage people from drinking outside the home and thus appearing drunk in public. Better to be drunk in front of family I suppose. Anyway, the lowest legal amount one could sale for removal from the premises was four-fifths of a quart, aka 25 2/3 ounces or one fifth of a gallon. Thus a fifth was born.

Then, once upon another time, this one in fact once upon the mid 1970s, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms further reduced that commercial package to a standard volume of 750ml, a loss of an additional 7ml. Why, after three-quarters of a century of people losing almost 6 ounces of good whiskey per bottle did the aforementioned bureaucrats see fit to lop off enough to make for a full four shot loss (based on a 1-1/2 ounce shot)? Because President Gerald Ford signed the Metric Conversion Act and ATF wasn’t going to be remembered as slackers when people looked back during the next century to see how terrific life became because of the metrication of America. (And now when somebody brings up Gerald Ford’s accomplishments as President, you’ll have something to contribute.) (You’re welcome.)

That’s why every year when I hear somebody trot out that old saw “March, in like a lion, out like a lamb” (guffaw, guffaw), my brain translates that to “in like a lyin’” you-know-what and mourns the loss of all that good bourbon.

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

If Only the ER Served Magaritas

Michael 1 Comment

We almost expected to hear Anthony Edwards, aka E. R. Dr. Mark Greene, shout “Clear!” and apply the defibrillator paddles to the piece of meat in front of him, grilling it to the perfect fajita filling.  The hustle and the bustle far exceeded that of most inner city emergency rooms on a Saturday night after the local team won its first (pick your favorite season) championship in over 50 years.

Ok, let’s catch you up so you can enjoy this tale also.  Last weekend we paid a visit to one of our favorite local eateries.  A very small authentic Mexican restaurant with no designs of growing larger.  On a lucky Saturday night we’ll be led to a quiet table for two tucked into a corner as far from the hostess stand as one can get in a room the size of a generous living room.  Here we’re treated to the basic three courses where we relish in the opportunity to be served by trained, professional waitpersons in our favorite quietly comfortable restaurant.  Good food.  Good service.  Good company.  Good time.

Last Saturday we headed to our dining quarry figuring to have a drink in the bar before dinner.  We’ve ventured into the bar, considerably smaller in scale to the rest of the operation just as another couple was called to their table.  We settled into their vacated seats at the far side of the square cornered horseshoe and decided that we were so comfortable, and since we never had there before, we would have dinner right there at the bar.

Eating at the bar is nothing unusual for us.  We do so quite often.  We’re low enough maintenance that the bartenders aren’t unduly burdened by having to play waitperson while already performing in the role of barperson.  Many of the places we’ve come to call home for dinner out have the bar in the middle of the room and thus in the middle of the action.  The ideal seat for people watching.  So with our history of bar dining and a new opportunity in front of us, we embarked on our first such supper at our favorite comfortably quiet restaurant.  Boy were we in for a shock!

“Clear!”  Well, how about “Smith!  Party of 4!  Jones!  Party of 2!”  Every 15 minutes or so the hostess, a little bitty thing, stood in the doorway of the smallish space and bellowed out a prospective diner like a conductor crying the stops of the local commuter train with a voice that would fill all outdoors.  “Behind you! Cold ice!” the bar back routinely called out with as much frequency as the people search.  And the people kept on coming.

They packed themselves in like they were filing into the afternoon rush hour subway.  Parties of 2, 4, 8.  Eyes slightly glazed after a long day of shopping? housework? painting?  We don’t know what the Saturday afternoon activities but whatever they were those activities led to a need for an adult beverage.  And soon.  Drinks were called for from the second row behind the stools. 

“Ford! Party of 6!”  “Margarita! No Salt!”  “Lincoln! Party of 4!”  “Dos Equis! Draft! Make it two!”  At one time we counted 38 people in the little room.  The fire marshal generously rated the space for occupancy by 50 people.  The designer squeezed 14 stools around the counter.  There wasn’t a time that the other 36 hadn’t conveyed their desperate need to soothe the fever that responded only to the medicine served in a chilled glass.   Ice when it wasn’t being poured into the holder 20 pounds at a time was transferred into quart sized mason jars then filled with tequila and the other makings for their specialty margarita and attached to the industrial blender that sounded like a second cousin to a turboprop airplane.  When at last their names were call, parties would leave for the dining room, clutching their chilled glasses like the secret remedy from the healer of the high desert. 

Standees took their vacated seats, new patients crowded in from the outer room.  “Nachos with queso!”  “Frozen or on the rocks!” “Heinz! Party of 6!” “More chips please!” “Rocks! No Salt!”  “More Ice!” “French! Party of 2!”

All around the conversations bubbled to the top, mixed with the televisions (two, about 20 feet apart, on different channels) and stirred into the bustling chatter of the staff, creating a confused sound track.  “Temperatures will be higher than…the upstairs really need to be…ordered last week and now they say…it’s the third meeting between them…when I said…do you want another…chilly night before…rebounding and that has to get better than… dark blue with gray trim.” 

One of our regular waiters spotted us from the service area waiting for his orders.  “Trying something new?” he shouted across the room.  “You know us, we have to try it all!” we answered.  Our attention divided between the bartenders going through tequila, ice, and chilled mason jars and the patrons going through tequila, ice, and chilled mason jars.  The bar persons whirling into high gear, resembling the blades spinning in the drink mixer.  The bar crowd shifting into lower gears as the cactus juice mellowed them in preparation for dinner.  Eventually.

And so they came, dazed, confused, smarting from spring cleaning, comatose from too much Saturday television, sore and achy, looking for healing in the emergency rooms of bars.  And a margarita.  Rocks.  No salt.  No glass.  Just a mason jar and one really big straw.

Now, that’s what we think.  Really.  How ‘bout you?