« Too many chinese is too much for a chinese girl. | Main | MJ: Do it, just do it! »

lizard

i have a bar, too

by lizard at 06:31 AM on July 22, 2001

imagine that? me having a bar. can't exactly say it's a ‘thumbs west’ though because it's not a dive (based on space's description). it's located on the promenade in ventura, an expensively faux-funky place with $3.50 16oz newcastle brown ales & walls painted with tropics-inspired images of vined windows with iguanas & the like peeking out of them. there is a restaruant with menu items including artichoke pizza (incredible!) & every sunday the jonathan raffetto band plays from 2-5, & people dance. they rarely dance in the traditional sense, as in, with one another, they (male/female) dance with the music. we get up, & we dance. & it is...transcendent. it is the salt air & the beauty of the place & the perfect perfect music. there are only three more sundays in the universe that will contain this transcendence. august 11, it will end. they are *that good* & going on tour & someday maybe greatness? & since i am at this point doing their website as a fan(atic) type of thing, maybe i will be able to be part of this? in some internetty sort of way. i can only hope.

my daugher introduced me to the band. one sunday several months ago she called me & said, ‘there is this guy playing guitar at the beach, come down & see him’. well at the time we were fussing at one another & initially i said ‘never mind’. then i was laying there in my resentful bed & realized what had just happened - my semi-estranged teenage daugher had just invited me to a beach. my mind changed, & i called her on our cellphones to say, ok. & i went down there to the banana belt cantina, & i heard this music. not necessarily my preferred sort of music but excellent & ... perfect. blues, bluegrass, folk, rock, etc. two guitars: one acoustic, one not; two drummers, one with drums, one with bongos & the windows & whatever else he could find to beat on; a locally semi-famous hippie playing harmonicas & singing ‘please mr. customs man’ (he's the go-to guy whenever the local conservative rag of a newspaper wants input on the lives of homeless/deadhead lifestylers) & a bass player named orest & a mandolin guy named danny. the band spans about three generations, the audience, at least five. babies dance. people in their seventies dance. everybody dances.

we dance in the perfect air & the ocean roars in our midst. we drink expensive beers & the bar is happy to have us, spending peacefully & tipping generously.

but it all ends on august 11, the scene that is, the bar will still be there, but it will not be the same.

i have a bar.

but not for long.

comments (2)

excellent use of "go to guy". maybe i will fly in for that last date. sounds like a relaxing afternoon.

by mic at July 23, 2001 6:29 PM


you really ought to. i could pick you up at the airport :)

by kd at July 23, 2001 11:12 PM