Saturday, October 9, 2021

Beach Bar

 

Po Boy Views

By

Phil LaMancusa

Bar None

Or

Bottoms Up

        My step father had a bar when I was growing up; it was called The Beach Bar and Grill although there wasn’t a beach within ten miles; in fact, it was on the border of Greenwich Village in New York City, across from a trucking company in a blue collar neighborhood awash with the salt of the earth.

        This is how it was. The bar was open from 8:00 AM until 4:00 AM seven days (Sunday bar openings were 1:00 PM by law allowing for church). It was closed on whims and election days. The space was about 25’x 75’ with a galley kitchen in the back and the bar itself running from about six feet in, on the left side, for approximately 35’ there were minimal barstools (reserved for dames); most men imbibed while standing. There was a juke box that took coins and you could watch records spin; Bing Crosby’s Happy Birthday was on ALL juke boxes in those days, just in case. There were a few tables (deuces) that sat two people, bathrooms center right and booths along the right wall and in the small dining area in the back.

        There was a local drunk that came in overnight to clean and mop. At eight in the morning the day barmaid came in to dispense the morning special ‘medicine’ to a waiting public: six ounces of straight gin for a dollar. No lunch was served; the ‘Grill’ part of Bar and Grill was added to allow patrons to bring their kids in, making it family friendly.

        Workers came over from the docks, meat packing district and day truckers for work breaks and possibly a bracer before heading home; they usually had whiskey with a short beer chaser called ‘a beer and a ball’. My step father, Larry (the Greek) came in about four and worked the bar and kitchen until closing; sometimes he would have a six o’clock barmaid on that shift (that’s how my Mom met him) and the evening cronies were local salts and their dames (wives or other). The oncoming six o’clock bartender would, by tradition, serve everyone a drink on the house and the night would take off from there; it was also tradition to buy each person their third drink, women more often than that, and it was also tradition for patrons to buy the bartender drinks. Everyone smoked cigarettes and bought drinks for each other. It was serious drinking and boozy good times, most often.

        There was always room for a little dancing, people sang along with the juke and sometimes there were fights; conversation rules were cemented in stone: talk was to exclude any references to sex, politics and/or religion. Period. Sometimes I’d get up in the morning and find Larry’s shirts in the bathtub with cold water to loosen bloodstains and knew that I would be sent to the apothecary for a leech for another black eye.

 There was one small television that was only turned on for boxing, horse racing and baseball World Series; there was always too much going on in the bar to keep the ‘boob tube’ on. If you were stuck for entertainment there was shuffleboard (with puck) in the back by the empty beer bottled cases that were picked up by the delivery guys. The ice man delivered ice. Guys drank whiskey and women drank mixed drinks called highballs. There were no cream, multi ingredient or blender drinks. Food was whatever Larry was cooking that night.

Sometimes Larry’s patrons would get him drunk, take his clothes off, lock him out of his own bar and drink his whiskey just for fun. The Beach Bar and Grill’s regulars were like a club and went on picnics and day trips together. There were usually six guys and their gals that ran together, most guys had seen action in ‘the war’ and were tough with each other and gentle with their wives, girlfriends and anyone’s kids; for us that was lucky because there were five kids in our family.

        Larry was always buying stuff that ‘fell off the back of a truck’; he would bring home stuff for us to sell to neighbors; belts, women’s stockings, work pants etc and usually he would score a ‘procured’ Sunday roast from one of the butchers. This was the world that I grew up in; my mother, a hash slinger; my missing father an itinerant cook; and this Greek guy, cook and bar owner. One Sunday morning I was awoken early because the cleaning guy was found passed out on the floor from drinking his way through Larry’s inventory and I was needed to clean and mop the joint that smelled of stale smoke, sweat, cheap perfume and booze; I was twelve and I mark that day as the first in my career in the service industry.

        In those days men walked in and laid a twenty on the bar and drank (and bought for others) until it was gone; drinking was a pastime like theater or shows and there was just as much dramatics to see or be seen. Bartenders knew customers by name, drink preferences, and usually had their drink ready by the time they bellied up; the bottle was left in front of the customer and drinks were poured from it: Cutty Sark, Four Roses, Fleishman’s, Seagram’s, Beefeater, Old Grand Dad, Dewar’s.

        There were bars like this on every other street when I was growing up; there’s few today and when you spot one it’s usually called ‘an old fart bar’. That’s where guys like me go with our dames to sit and talk about everything except politics, sex or religion. Cheers!

       

       

 

 

Jazz Fest October 2021

 

Po Boy Views

By

Phil LaMancusa

Jazz Fest

Or

Bust

        Sure, like many folks, I was going to go to The New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival (Jazz Fest 2021); in fact, we purchased every-day-tickets months and months before and wouldn’t have missed it for all the tea in Humboldt County. But, first I had to take a trip to the real Sin City.

        I was gonna take the beginning of the first week (pre-Fest), board a giant silver bird at an ungodly morning hour, and land in Las Vegas when the sun is blazing over Death Valley and the neon lights were shining just as bright. It’s to be a gathering of myself and my four siblings to celebrate my sister’s birthday in the manner in which she wishes: gambling, drinking and king crab legs from some hotel all-you-can-eat buffet line. Jazz fest is off; the trip is still on.

        Vegas will not be an Ocean’s Eleven hit and split; more like five geezers rolling into town with an eleven o’clock curfew in madras shorts and Birkenstocks with socks affair. The days of partying like it’s 1999 were over, well, in 1999, which we relive only in memories, fantasies and arthritis; oh, the party is still on, it’s just toned down to a dull roar.

        Their mother (we all refer to her as ‘your mother’ and not as our own) had five kids and they all carry a part of her whether they like it or not; all of us together make up one of the woman that we called Mom. The birthday girl is the Gambler; my brother, (the non-Italian) the Musician; the oldest girl, the Actress; the youngest, the Poet and I am the Cook. When we get together (whether we want to or not) we talk about her, the woman that was Big Red. At least four of us have different fathers.

        Once upon a time I worked in Las Vegas. I hitchhiked into town broke, busted and with a woman and young child. I got a job cooking biscuits and gravy for truckers, dug myself out of a hole and eventually, eventually made it back to New Orleans. Another story/time.

        I’ll take a deep psychic breath as I leave here and will only exhale when upon my return. I count New Orleans as my home, physically, mentally and spiritually; Attending Jazz Fest is my equivalent of church.  Jazz Fest would’ve been my reward for completing a calling of the clan; my heaven/haven. I picture myself at Jazz Fest: my head is clear, I’m palpably brighter and my smile cherubic; there’ll be glide in my slide and gut in my strut. I’ll be waving a handkerchief, chewing a praline filled beignet, buck jumpin’ and havin’ fun! Nothing, nothing compares with Jazz Fest. Nothing.

        I’m fortunate in that I only live two blocks from the gate; from the construction to the breaking down, and every minute of show time, the sounds coming from the racetrack form the soundtrack of my life. My senses are tuned to the energy and activity that’s going on within me and without me. My neighborhood becomes a hive with the comings and goings before, during and after the gates open; a veritable county fair affair. Not this year though.

        What can I say about Jazz Fest that hasn’t been said before? How about this (?): it’s crowded, hot, rainy, expensive, restrictive and a tasteless sensory overload. I think that’s true for someone who has never been, doesn’t go or is there for the first time and leaves before the Kool-Aid takes effect. I attend with every fiber of my being and all the love in my heart, you see, Jazz Fest to me is like a drug that I am addicted to and can never get enough of: “hello, my name is Phil and I am a JazzFestaholic “(hello Phil!).

        Many of my friends are JazzFestaholics as well; I run with a dangerous crowd. We’re packing sun screen, performance programs, a little something to sit on and plenty of cash. We know the lay of the land. We peer over peoples shoulders to see what they’ve been eating; we talk to strangers, take snap shots; we stand in long lines; we tip. We’re so addicted that we show up early (every day) to be in the gate as soon as we can and we don’t ever want to go home. Some folks will say that we’ll never grow up and we don’t dispute them. The worst day at Jazz Fest is better than the best day anywhere else.

        Not this year (or last); I’m going through withdrawals and a trip to Las Vegas isn’t going to help. Las Vegas was very good to me, as was Santa Fe, San Francisco, Denver, Saint Louis, New York City, San Diego or a dozen other places that I’ve lived; but they’re not New Orleans. Attending concerts and festivals in those places are good, but they’re not New Orleans.

        New Orleans is where women call me ‘Honey’ and men call me ‘Baby’ and we have the Saints football team, gumbo, humidity, mosquitoes, feral chickens, second lines and folks stooping in the shade asking ‘how y’all doin’?” as you pass by on your way to get a cold one from a shadow street vendor heading for the Jazz Fest gates of your mind. Be patient. Next year we’ll meet again.

Negative Capability

 

Po Boy Views

By

Phil LaMancusa

Objective Reality

Or

Negative Capability

        Sitting outside Old Road Coffee Shop on a not too frequent visit, waiting for Deb, smiling as a woman at the next table snaps a photograph of my car with the mannequin in the back seat. I’ve already avoided a morning drunk that just wants to “ask me a question”, Deb arrives and who should emerge from another car to get a cup but the former mayor; conversation ensues. Wellman the artist arrives, down on his luck as usual (pieces in the Smithsonian and the Ogden); I slip him a fin and he asks for a ride but we’re going the opposite way. Meg the barista comes out to grab a smoke and we ask after her pup and remark how much better her eye looks after that bee sting.

        All morning I’d been contemplating life, the universe and everything, including the camera traffic ticket I received in the mail (that’ll cost a day’s wages); everything recently encourages a WTF conundrum in my psyche and I wonder if, in fact, I AM living in the end of days. Life is orphic, mysterious, entrancing and beyond my understanding. It seemed simpler when I was younger and the older generation was making all the mistakes; we swore we would never make them, and in fact we believed that we could correct them: war; hunger; inequality; prejudice and a disregard for the future of the planet, and then a cup of coffee rings the ‘get a clue’ phone: I still don’t know what’s going on and there is nothing that I can do to change the mindset of the idiots that are continually f**king EVERYTHING up. Meet the enemy: they are us; no longer the warrior, the most I can hope for is Negative Capability.

As I see it (although the poet Keats said it better), Negative Capability is nothing more than admitting that it’s okay with not knowing or understanding what is going on but having the ability to function within those parameters nonetheless – welcome to -- life in New Orleans.

        Anyone living here will rightfully tell you that it takes a level of genius to actually enjoy New Orleans on a deeper than superficial level; to be able to dive deep and not worry about coming up for air, experiencing her like a lover that you want to wake up with and not just a tramp that you picked up in a bar on a weekend pass. More than merely falling in love, being willing to call yourself a New Orleanian is more like having egg on your face and not minding who sees it; wanting a third helping of Thanksgiving dinner; smiling as you take a pie in the kisser and/or taking a warm bubble bath with a martini, a snake and the radio perched on the side of the tub as your new BFF appears and wants to join you.

        Demographics are a gray and mysterious concept here. We call it the ‘Checkerboard System’: white folks living next door to black folks next to brown folk, yellow folk and white folks; we do know that the ‘haves’ live in a different area than the ‘have-nots’ and across the board, everyone pays too much rent. Some of us believe that there’s ‘different strokes for different folks’ and others opine that ‘there’s different ways on different days’ and it’s pretty much all right with all of us; savoir faire is everywhere.

        But New Orleans is not the world and just as I’m getting complacent in my New Orleans state of mind some yahoo decides to remind me of the fires, floods, tornados, hurricanes and earthquakes wrecking the earth; the riots around the globe that are proof of universal indignities that occur regularly; the wars that annihilate populations; the religious persecution, misogyny, intolerance, sickness, pollution and famine that are commonplace in the world we live in. If I hear another: “a gunman opened fire on a crowd in downtown killing…” It’s gonna drive me bats.

        The Four Horseman of the Apocalypse have come down with a case of Seven Deadly Sins and are taking them on a world tour, as a group, calling themselves The Objective Realities, spreading greed and power to the ruthless; the world is the audience and tickets are free. It’s a given that the weather is predicted to rain on your parade.

        Around my neighborhood there’re guys of all stripes that gather in parks, neutral grounds and sidewalks in the afternoon and evenings for libations and commiseration. There may be dominoes to be played; some horseshoes to be pitched; a game of Cornhole and some beverages in brown bags. Old R&B music is their soundtrack and they have a time every day, I’m sure, not listening to the cacophonies of worldwide gloom and doom-- maybe I should be more like them—but, as everyone knows, there’s no such thing as objective reality because all reality is subjective. Theirs is a subjective reality that I admire.

        I love New Orleans mostly because I can handle her dysfunction; I rejoice in her music; I’m sated by her cooking and I take comfort in the celebration of life that is a constant. We may be a lot of things here; and one morning at a coffee shop with my old lady, running into a photographer, a drunk, an ex-mayor and an artist gives me reason to feel a level of optimistic clarity. Back at it biaches; we can still change the world!