Bar Tuesdays: Season Two - Week 5

Season Two – Week 5: L.A. Café

The “L.A.” in L.A. Café stands for “Lower Arctic,” which is a charming part of town in the city we traveled to last night. In college, I worked at a card store with a girl from that city and anytime a sketchy character came in, she would inform me that said person was “An A.S. from L.A.,” which translated to “An Arctic Special from Lower Arctic.” The Arctic Specials always looked sketchy and a little Pigpen-ish, so I knew we had to include that area of the state in our tour. And that, my friends, is how we ended up at the L.A. Café last night.

First, let me just say that the place was kind of a disappointment in terms of looking like a dive bar. It appears to have been remodeled recently and was really nice and super-clean inside. Where is the filth? The wood paneling? The dust? Not at the L.A. Café – it was all decorated quite nicely for the holidays:

They had 2 fiber-optic trees, one large on in the main room and one small one in the room we settled in:

We were starting to think that we were going to have a Bar Tuesday bust on our hands until we went up to the bar to get some drinks – then it officially became a Bar Tuesday. The bartender looked at me a little funny when I ordered a Midori Sour, and then Brent ordered a Sam Adams only to be told that they didn’t carry Sam. Then he ordered a Bud and was presented with a can of beer. No glass, just the can. I was then told that they didn’t have Midori, so I opted for the fuzzy navel instead. Luckily, they did have Peach Schnapps so I didn’t have to try to come up with something else to drink. I wanted to get booze because I found out that it was the anniversary of the day that they repealed the amendment regarding prohibition. I had just finished telling Paul and Brent this when a man sitting at the bar who had been giving us the shady eyes the whole time we were waiting for our drinks lit up when he saw Brent’s can of beer. He yelled, “A fellow Bud man! Yes!” Then he held up his can to toast with Brent’s. Paul just had to turn around because he was ready to lose it. Especially when Brent decided to share the prohibition anniversary fact with his new fellow-Bud Man friend, who just sort of gave him a puzzled look in return. While we were walking over to our table, Paul said, “I guarantee you that guy had no idea what most of those words you just said meant.” Seriously, he had no idea.

Here’s Brent with his can of Bud:

The best part is that he ordered 2 more after that. Who serves beer in cans like that??

The folks in the L.A. Café, that’s who. The décor couldn’t mask the fact that the bar was filled with Arctic Specials, which delighted me. Paul said to me at one point, “I’m pretty sure that guy in the hat with the long, stringy hair is homeless.” I couldn’t really disagree.

After we chilled for a little while, Paul and I decided to do a little exploring in the side room we were in. Everyone else was in the main room, so we poked around a little.

During our poking, we ended up outside of the bathrooms. I pushed open the door to the ladies room so we could take a gander, and while it was clean and neat, there was something quite unsettling about it that caused us to start laughing our heads off:

Do you notice anything about the stalls? Look closer:

They have no doors. Two stalls just sitting there with the wall next to them, but no door on either one. Luckily, the main door locked because I had to go in there later. It was still very uncomfortable and strange peeing in a place where I really should have had a door in front of me. The wall divider was throwing me off. (Nothing compares to a restaurant that I went to once that had two toilets in the bathroom but no walls or doors – just two toilets sitting there next to each other. Were they for Siamese twins?)

After my bathroom adventure, we made our way over to the jukebox and were very happy to find one of the newer internet ones. We eagerly fed it our money and got ready to play some of our standard songs. We started scrolling through the selection and then found ourselves still scrolling and scrolling and scrolling….

PAUL: What is this?

PAM: Why don’t they have Journey?

PAUL: Was that Jose Feliciano?

PAM: Oh yes.

PAUL: This is the worst jukebox ever.

It certainly came close. We had enough credits for 6 songs and had trouble finding half of that. I did find some Black Crowes and we let Brent play Avril Lavigne, which made him quite happy. We ended up using our last play on a Christmas song, which led to some shenanigans. There were 3 Christmas discs to choose from, and I was trying to goad Paul into playing the Chipmunks song, but we ultimately settled on Mary’s Boychild by Harry Belafonte. Paul performs it in his Christmas show, so I was gearing up for some dancing on his part. We went back and sat down, enjoying our songs and then we got to our last song and…I should have taken a picture of us, because our faces told it all. Apparently, Harry Belafonte decided that he would record Mary’s Boychild in the fashion of a funeral dirge. It was SO slow and operatic – we were horrified. The other patrons just started laughing. One guy yelled out, “I LOVE THIS SONG!” and cackled, and another woman curtsied her way out the door along with the music. Us? We hid our faces. Brent laughed and laughed and laughed until tears fell. Paul and I just started singing along in our best Bocelli voices, because really – what can you do? But then the song just kept going on and on and on. Remember Shari Lewis’s The Song That Never Ends? Methinks Harry Belafonte was a big fan. The more it went on, the more we laughed until Paul got all angry and said, “Isn’t this the Day-O guy?” When I nodded, he scowled, “You bastard.” Go and listen to a clip of that song and picture it playing in a dive bar – it’s out of control.

After all of that madness, we decompressed and finished our drinks while Paul told us about his habit of crying all the time lately. He wanted input as to what was going on with him (BRENT: Maybe you got your period.”), but I was of no use in giving advice because I was laughing too hard after Paul was listing the things that have made him cry lately and he let loose with this gem: “Watching a young child smile….” Oh, how I love Paul.

We headed out shortly after a guy at the bar started yelling, “Who’s taking pictures???!!” We figured that the combination of the picture-taking AND Mary’s Boychild probably meant it was time to head home. So we bundled up (it’s COLD, y’all!!!) and stopped at the door to give our love to Mr. Snowman Face:

Video Game Report: Just the ever-present Touch Master game.

Next Time: In 2 weeks, we go back to one of our favorites for a special Holiday Edition of Bar Tuesday. See you then!