"Tell me."
"Write a blog post!"
"Yeah. It's been too long. But I don't have much in the way of material lately. I haven't been in the shop much."
"So write about life! C'monnnnnn. Write anything! Tell a story!"
Welp. What the Head Cheese wants, he gets. That's what we let him think anyway.
So, there we were. In the hotel bar in Korea Town in LA waiting for our Josh Ritter concert to start. Now, let me preface this by saying that Grady and I don't necessarily love hotel bars. Now, show me a dive where there are no doors on the bathroom and the bartender looks like she started smoking at twelve and then had four kids by the time she was seventeen. That's the spot for us.
In fact, that reminds me of another story. Don't worry, we'll go back to Korea Town soon but for now, come up to Fairbanks with me.
So, there we were. In a no water, no power cabin in the middle of the woods in Fairbanks, Alaska in January. The only reason to go to Fairbanks, Alaska in January is to see a family member who has dropped severely ill or to see Josh Ritter. We were there for the latter. Anyway, we hitched a ride out of the no water no power cabin to the UAF (University Alaska Fairbanks) campus to go mingle with some co-eds and go a few miles on the XC ski course. En route we get the tour of bustling downtown Fairbanks. When I say bustling what I mean is it's pretty dingy and the most activity I saw at 9am were some natives sitting on the sidewalk outside of a tiny windowed bar called The Mecca. Ski course was cool, we saw not one but two moose and Grady fell over about four times. We definitely earned our beers at the campus bar. At the UAF pub we find, I'm not even kidding you, a dude with a pinky ring and a beret drinking a glass of wine with some textbook open on his table. No one else. We get a pitcher and walk into the vicinity of beret boy. Now, in mine and Grady's travels I am the face and he is the bank. We need information, I am sent to negotiate with locals and then he buys whatever it is we need to get where we're going. So, I head over to BB to see what he knows about this town.
"This place always this happenin?!" I start with a bit of a laugh.
Completely unimpressed he replies by rolling his eyes from his text book up to me and then back down.
"I mean, this place is pretty sweet but I guess I was just wondering if there are any other bars around? Maybe even one with a liquor license?"
"I dunno. This is where my friends and I usually hang."
Yeah. Friends. Right. I decide to attack from a different angle, "well, when we were driving up here I saw some action at a place called The Mecca. Is that --"
He cuts me off, "The Mecca? The Mecca? No one goes to The Mecca. Especially if you're not native or not looking for trouble. I have lived here 24 years and never have gone and never will go to The Mecca. You shouldn't either."
"Great, thanks for the help!"
Grady and I chug our beers and call a cab. To The Mecca it is.
The cab driver also didn't seem like he thought we should go to The Mecca. I think they have to take you where you ask them to though so he steered us downtown. As we were getting out he asked us one last time if we were sure we didn't want to go back up to the University. Thanks, buddy. We got this.
To be perfectly honest with you I have no idea what those people were so worried about! It was exactly what we had been looking for ever since we arrived. Granted, it was only noon and it was super busy which you don't see everyday but I got the distinct feeling that you do see that every day at this place. At first I wondered why the patrons weren't at work and as the day wore on I realized that not only were they not really the "working" type, some of them were in fact at work. I could have bought an animal skin vest with fringe and glow in the dark beads, a puffy fox fur hat, a dream catcher, a lighter that looked like a rifle or a t-shirt with two wolves staring into the sky and a big moon behind them and Alaska written in silvery sparkly graffiti looking cursive at the bottom. I almost went for the fox fur hat but then the woman selling it told me it was $275. Girl, you have three teeth and you're at The Mecca.
At the far end of the bar sat a huge man who also did not have very many teeth. Due to his lack of teeth and his level of inebriation he whistled and spat a lot while he spoke which was kinda funny and kinda terrifying. The teeny bartender kept yelling at him to go home and quite spitting in her cherries. He would gesture wildly, knock over his bar stool and come down to the other end of the bar. I'm not sure if he thought he was tricking her? Because she definitely knew it was the same giant toothless spitting drunk dude. I think I missed some debauchery because all of a sudden the FPD were there in uniform to haul him off to the drunk tank. Grady and I mentioned to the bartender that we were pretty impressed with how she handles all the drunks and especially our friend Steven. Steven being the giant toothless one. She just kinda shrugged it off. "Happens everyday," she said. "They can only keep him downtown 5 hours. He'll be back."
After Steve left we needed some more entertainment so Grady handed me a $20 and motioned toward the jukebox. Normally I would have put on some Bob Dylan, some Josh Ritter, some Crosby Stills Nash and Young, some Steve Miller Band, Tom Petty and maybe a pinch of Lady Gaga for good measure. This day, however, something got into me and I played Avril Lavigne's, "Girlfriend." I don't mean that I played Avril Lavigne's, "Girlfriend" once. I mean I played $20 worth of Avril Lavinge's, "Girlfriend." Oh yeah. That happened. The natives loved it! By the 13th or 14th time around they knew the words and we were doing shots every time she said, "think you need a new one!" I even got to wear the fox fur hat and dance on the bar. And either they let him out early or $20 goes really really far in a jukebox in Alaska because eventually even Steve was back and dancing with us. The big lumbering idiot picked me up and spun me around at some point and plopped me down on the pool table. I was in dirty dive bar heaven.
Somehow Grady's brother, Sean, found us. I blame BB at the campus bar. Sean drug us out of there and tried to feed us pizza promising that we would go back to The Mecca.
I'm still waiting.
This was going to be a story about Josh Ritter and Korea Town. I only have a couple stories about Korea Town but I have lots and lots about Josh Ritter. I'll have even more after tomorrow! Josh Ritter at the Wilma here I come!
By the way, here's the fox fur hat! It's pretty sweet but do you think it's $275 sweet?
And of course, your joke.
A drum and a cymbal fall off a cliff...
.
.
Badoom CHA!
"I mean, this place is pretty sweet but I guess I was just wondering if there are any other bars around? Maybe even one with a liquor license?"
"I dunno. This is where my friends and I usually hang."
Yeah. Friends. Right. I decide to attack from a different angle, "well, when we were driving up here I saw some action at a place called The Mecca. Is that --"
He cuts me off, "The Mecca? The Mecca? No one goes to The Mecca. Especially if you're not native or not looking for trouble. I have lived here 24 years and never have gone and never will go to The Mecca. You shouldn't either."
"Great, thanks for the help!"
Grady and I chug our beers and call a cab. To The Mecca it is.
The cab driver also didn't seem like he thought we should go to The Mecca. I think they have to take you where you ask them to though so he steered us downtown. As we were getting out he asked us one last time if we were sure we didn't want to go back up to the University. Thanks, buddy. We got this.
To be perfectly honest with you I have no idea what those people were so worried about! It was exactly what we had been looking for ever since we arrived. Granted, it was only noon and it was super busy which you don't see everyday but I got the distinct feeling that you do see that every day at this place. At first I wondered why the patrons weren't at work and as the day wore on I realized that not only were they not really the "working" type, some of them were in fact at work. I could have bought an animal skin vest with fringe and glow in the dark beads, a puffy fox fur hat, a dream catcher, a lighter that looked like a rifle or a t-shirt with two wolves staring into the sky and a big moon behind them and Alaska written in silvery sparkly graffiti looking cursive at the bottom. I almost went for the fox fur hat but then the woman selling it told me it was $275. Girl, you have three teeth and you're at The Mecca.
At the far end of the bar sat a huge man who also did not have very many teeth. Due to his lack of teeth and his level of inebriation he whistled and spat a lot while he spoke which was kinda funny and kinda terrifying. The teeny bartender kept yelling at him to go home and quite spitting in her cherries. He would gesture wildly, knock over his bar stool and come down to the other end of the bar. I'm not sure if he thought he was tricking her? Because she definitely knew it was the same giant toothless spitting drunk dude. I think I missed some debauchery because all of a sudden the FPD were there in uniform to haul him off to the drunk tank. Grady and I mentioned to the bartender that we were pretty impressed with how she handles all the drunks and especially our friend Steven. Steven being the giant toothless one. She just kinda shrugged it off. "Happens everyday," she said. "They can only keep him downtown 5 hours. He'll be back."
After Steve left we needed some more entertainment so Grady handed me a $20 and motioned toward the jukebox. Normally I would have put on some Bob Dylan, some Josh Ritter, some Crosby Stills Nash and Young, some Steve Miller Band, Tom Petty and maybe a pinch of Lady Gaga for good measure. This day, however, something got into me and I played Avril Lavigne's, "Girlfriend." I don't mean that I played Avril Lavigne's, "Girlfriend" once. I mean I played $20 worth of Avril Lavinge's, "Girlfriend." Oh yeah. That happened. The natives loved it! By the 13th or 14th time around they knew the words and we were doing shots every time she said, "think you need a new one!" I even got to wear the fox fur hat and dance on the bar. And either they let him out early or $20 goes really really far in a jukebox in Alaska because eventually even Steve was back and dancing with us. The big lumbering idiot picked me up and spun me around at some point and plopped me down on the pool table. I was in dirty dive bar heaven.
Somehow Grady's brother, Sean, found us. I blame BB at the campus bar. Sean drug us out of there and tried to feed us pizza promising that we would go back to The Mecca.
I'm still waiting.
This was going to be a story about Josh Ritter and Korea Town. I only have a couple stories about Korea Town but I have lots and lots about Josh Ritter. I'll have even more after tomorrow! Josh Ritter at the Wilma here I come!
By the way, here's the fox fur hat! It's pretty sweet but do you think it's $275 sweet?
And of course, your joke.
A drum and a cymbal fall off a cliff...
.
.
Badoom CHA!
