Tag Archives: Uncategorized

Cleanup

I finally managed to fix up the blogroll since it went all argy bargy after the move to the new Blogger template. Behold the organization!

You’ll also notice some ego-rocking over there as well, with links to my old writing at Chicagoist, Metromix and Centerstage, and to my guest spots on Filmspotting. Plus, links to the posts and video that tell the story of the time I went mano e mano with Richard Marx. I’m still waiting for him to invite me over to dinner.

A new Oblivious Living post on the highs and lows of “19” by Paul Hardcastle is on the way tonight.

From the archives

When I was doing some freelance work, I wrote a couple pieces for Centerstage Chicago as part of its “Out From Behind the Bar” series, which were interviews with local bartenders. Without getting to into Chicago’s history, this is a tavern town. Not so much now, but certainly before. There are some amazing stories out there, and it’s a shame there aren’t enough venues for them. Moreover, there wasn’t room for everything in the published pieces, and some great stories got dropped for space.

Tonight I was at the Village Tap, and ran into John Talley, who I interviewed for a BTB piece a while back. As I was sitting there tonight, I thought it was a crime that some of his stories would never see the light of day. The full interview is a lot of fun, though some of it was off the record. So here’s a combination of my original edit, combined with the piece as it originally ran.

Truth be told, the whole reason I’m posting this is for the “worst night working here” story.

Life in the Village with John Talley
Storytelling with the Village Tap’s longtime bartender

Over the past few years, strollers and dogs have replaced the gangs that used to hang out on the street corners of Roscoe Village. Yet the Village Tap – and bartender John Talley – remain.

Often cited for its award-winning, year-round beer garden, the bar resides in a space with a long, alcoholic history, dating back to the 1930s. The atmosphere changes depending on the night, or who’s behind the bar, but the warm wood and exposed brick give patrons a feeling of coming home.

Like the bar, Talley’s own history is closely tied to the neighborhood. With the exception of a yearlong motorcycle trek down to South America, he’s worked at the Village Tap for the last 13 years, not too far from where his father and grandfather grew up.

“It afforded me to go to school, to buy my own place, to take off for a year, all that kind of stuff,” he says. “In any job, that’s all you’re looking for.”

Best drink in the house: “Probably the Bloody Marys. I make my own mix. People come in and ask for that on Saturdays and Sundays, for sure. Nothing fancy. Some people like to put meats and cheeses into it, but I don’t do any of that. It’s more in the ratios. I think Bloody Marys should be spicy, but I don’t make it super spicy right away. It should have a sweet spice. Horseradish, Tabasco, steak sauce, pepper, that’s about it. I have it down to how many shakes of each I put in the mix.

The patron most likely to score a free drink is:
“Somebody that doesn’t ask for one. Or says it’s their birthday right off the bat. Anybody that’s very nice and polite and tips well the first couple of times, that’ll get you a free drink.”

Little known fact about this joint: “It’s all in what it used to be, not what it is anymore. The whole neighborhood was rough, even when I came here. I used to see kids on their bikes doing ‘bike-bys,’ getting shot. It wasn’t that long ago. When I first started here, we used to have little Pac-Man/Asteroid tabletops. Every tabletop was a video game. There used to be a bowling machine against the wall, we used to have pinball. We used to have an old English phone booth that never worked.”

For good grub before or after a shift, you hit up: “I’m so cheap, I usually just get my shift meal here before I start. I’m a sucker for the burger or I’ll usually get the special. Most of the recipes come up from Jak’s Tap. Wednesdays, I always get the pork chop. Today [Sunday] I didn’t eat the brisket. I had a BLT because someone had one back there and it looked good. I’m friends with a lot of people in the neighborhood so I’ll go over to Volo sometimes.”

When you’re not boozing here, you prefer to patronize: “I’ll go to Four Moon. Lately, because I moved to Uptown, I’ll go up to Holiday Club because I know all the people there. I don’t go to the 4 o’clock bars anymore. People say ‘What are you doing after work?’ I’m sitting right here at the end of the bar, I’m having my two shift drinks, and then I’m calling a cab and going home. I’ve been doing the microbrew thing for so long, I got burnt out on it. I’ll taste everything, but I can’t drink all the hoppy ales or it’ll stick in my mouth the whole night. So I’ll drink Guinness or a stout or a porter or Sprecher Black.”

Another bartender/owner we should know is: “Aaron Watkins, who worked here. Everybody still misses him; he was the best bartender. He passed away a couple years ago last summer. He was just open, honest, and didn’t give a fuck. Died of a really rare form of cancer; it was at stage three or four when they found it. Within a month and a half, he was dead. But he was one of the people in this bar that people would come to see all the time.”

“[And] Sparky at Four Moons Tavern. He’s been in the neighborhood forever. He got grandfathered in at Four Moon. When they sold that place – it used to be Kokopelli – one of the stipulations was that the old owner told the new owner, “You gotta keep this bartender.” He can make anything, he’s a good listener and talker. He gives sage advice. He has the persona of a professional bartender, but he’s also surly and drinks a lot while he works. So he’s what you would expect from a bartender.”

The worst night working here was:
“Two years ago, I was working when we had the TV put in. Somebody forgot to screw the top adjustment thing on. I’m bartending in here on a Saturday and we’re full. Two girls I know who are regulars are sitting at the end of the bar, watching TV when BOOM! It fell straight down on the bar in front of them and cracked. You can still see the indentation of a shot glass there. They fell off their barstools, the TV is now lying on the ground, I almost have a heart attack because it’s so loud, everybody is freaking out. I take the TV, put it in the back. About 10-15 minutes later some guy comes running from the back yelling ‘Call 911, call 911!’ And I’m like ‘No, it’s OK, everybody’s OK.’ He says ‘No, somebody just had a heart attack.’ There was a 50-year class reunion in the back and some old guy had a heart attack. So right after that happened, I had the ambulance come in and they’re wheeling a guy out in a mask. That was bad.”

The surest way to get banned from the bar is to: “Starting fights with everybody. Not literal fights, but talking shit every time you walk in the bar. Just being an ass. When you walk in and everybody moans? That can get you banned. You’re bad for business.”

If I wasn’t doing this, I’d be: “Teaching, that’s an easy one. Or travel around the world on my motorcycle. That’s what I’d be doing, dreamwise. Practicalwise, teaching. When I’m ready to retire into a career, that’s what I’ll be doing.”

God bless this poor bastard

There’s is nothing in this story that isn’t purely factual. It’s all there, pure and simple. There’s no tone of condescension, no lingering hint of pomposity.

And yet…

And yet…

Something in the story doesn’t quite jibe. There’s something there that says “I can’t believe I had to cover this. I’d rather be a library board meeting.” I couldn’t figure it out for a while, and then I realized it:

He never tells us the winner’s last name. All the other contestants get last names. The winner? Not so much. Well played, Chris Hack. Well played.

Also, I’m resisting the urge to go for the easy joke on this cat’s name, because, frankly, that story is a silk purse from a sow’s ear if I ever read one. But if I was him, I’d see if I could convince the Web Editor (hint hint) to put a line break after my name so my byline didn’t read “hack staff writer.”

The ugly truth


I have a confession to make. I really enjoy The Ultimate Coyote Ugly Search. Not ironically, mind you (that’s a whole other post). I really enjoy it.

My accidental enjoyment of this show began when I was flipping channels at my lady’s house, and curiosity got the better of me. “How would one go about a search for a singing, dancing, hot-pantsed, bartender?” After a few minutes, my lady sat right down next to me and proceeded to engage in a spirited discussion of the cultural impact of gender roles in television, which means we pretty much made fun of the whole thing.

In any case, it was one night out of my life, and I didn’t think it was something I’d ever revisit, much like the night I got loaded on Tequila Sunrises. But last week, I was sitting in one of my favorite bars, and the show was on the television, which is kind of funny because it’s not like doctors sit around watching ER. The sound was off but the jukebox was playing Aerosmith and Motorhead, so I barely noticed.

I realized my involvement with the show passed from ironic detachment to actual enjoyment when Sandra was chosen for the show during the Memphis audition and I suddenly yelled out “Oh come the fuck on, she was the worst one!” (Incidentally, I’m pretty sure this was some sort of affirmative action hire meant to heighten the “drama”, since Sandra is Latina and her partner on the show is Bri, an African-American, thereby setting up a “women of color” team to compete against all the other white girls, who dominate this show the way white guys dominate professional hockey).

Two things are immediately apparent: First, The Ultimate Coyote Ugly Search is probably the most honest reality show on the air. First, the show’s website calls each girl a “character,” as if to openly acknowledge that what is going on here is so far from the real world that it might as well be on Venus.

Also, it’s refreshing that the show doesn’t bother with any lame catchphrase when it dismisses its “characters.” When someone’s asked to leave, they’re merely told “I’m letting you go” or “I’m cutting you.” I don’t even know what catchphrase would work in this situation. “Your shift is over?” “You’ve poured your last shot?” Or perhaps in keeping with the show’s titular conceit: “You’ve slept on my arm long enough. It’s time for me to gnaw it off.”

And I know this might make me sound naive, but there are no archetypes here. I think this is because the show only features women (with an occasional bar cameo by Drunk Dude Saying “Woo” While Pumping His Fist In The Air, who – again, just like in real life – is played by a different person each time). I went to a co-ed Catholic school, but the women I knew who went to all-girls schools would tell me that the girls there wouldn’t get (as your grandfather might say) “dolled up” and seemed less likely to fall into the prescribed societal roles. In the same way, there’s no “Bitch” or “Virgin” or “Femme Fatale” on the show. And again, this is a pretty homogeneous group so there’s only The Dark-Haired, Tall Bartender With Small Boobs, The Dark-Haired Short Bartender With Big Boobs, The Blond Bartender, The Bartender Who Wears the Hat, and so on.

Second, everyone takes what’s happening very seriously. No kidding, less effort went into picking our last Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

The women making the decisions over who stays and who goes are Coyote Ugly franchise owner Lil Lovell and a choreographer (whose name escapes me at the moment). As my lady pointed out, it’s amazing to watch these two act and speak with such authority, as if they have introduced an entirely new paradigm into their chosen fields when their success is actually attributed to Jerry Bruckheimer picking his face up out of a mountain of coke and bellowing “Say, let’s make a movie about those broads from the bar last night who got me shit-faced on Wild Turkey.” *

Also, the approach Lil has vis a vis the show seems to suggest a highly-developed skillset. At least three times a show, she’ll say “What I’m really looking for is…” and you’re expecting some kind of nuanced explanation as to why only .001 percent of people are good enough for this gig, when inevitably she finishes the sentence with “…a good dancer, great bartending skills and a decent singer.” (Although apparently even all this isn’t crucial since Lil describes Sally from Nashville – someone who already works for a Coyote Ugly Saloon – as a bad dancer, and a bad bartender, but notes that she succeeds because she’s really nice).

With so little expected of these women, it’s a little off-putting at first to hear phrases from the prospective bartenders like “this has been my dream” or “I’ve looked forward to this my whole life.” Those words must sound particularly chilling to those with, say, ambition. But keep in mind these are mostly 22 year-old women, and what were your goals at 22? Not feeling so judgmental now, huh? These women are the children of a twisted sort of New Feminism, where shaking your ass on the top of a bar is considered empowerment (damn you, Spice Girls) even if it’s at a bar named after a description of women so ugly that their temporary romantic partner regrets sleeping with them.

But the most telling example of the papal-conclave-level of consideration given to this whole process comes during the auditions. Inevitably, the auditioner (current employees who, in the show’s parlance, are referred to by Lil as her “best Coyotes”) will say to an auditionee that she just don’t reach the “ultimate” level. So apparently there’s some Coyote Ugly triple-A league where one trains before getting the call-up. I am pretty sure I was at a bar like this in Kiel, Wisconsin once.

And the women nod, smile politely and then leave. But honestly, how soul-killing does that have to be?

“Sorry, you’re not good enough to dance on a bar, sing off-key renditions of jukebox classics and pour watered-down drinks in tourist traps. Guess you’re going to have to settle for that career in pharmaceutical sales.”

The thing of it is, being a good bartender is actually really hard. While I still think the show is “real,” the irony is that the audition process strips away the ones who would actually bartend at bars you’d want to patronize. From there, the women (though Lil is steadfast in calling them “girls”) are further sculpted until they fit a particular mold. I’ve been to a few chain bars in my life, and Fado is the only one that seems to get it right. Whereas Coyote Ugly Saloons are scripted movies, Fado bars are more like a Christopher Guest film, where the basic structure is there, then filled in with improv.

In any case, I’m hooked on this show and pulling for Bri’s team, despite my reservations above. Further bulletins as events warrant.

* OK, this probably didn’t happen. But it feels like it could have, right?

Video vulgarity hilarity

This first clip is via the gents at Filmspotting, an excellent movie review podcast I’ve been lucky enough to co-host with Adam Kempenaar on the rare occasions when his excellent partner-in-film Sam VanHallgren has been out of town. It’s got local boy Adam McKay and Will Ferrell facing down Ferrell’s hellacious landlord.

And then there’s this not-safe-for-work-unless-you’ve-got-
headphones clip, which had me laughing so hard today that it felt like my face was melting like that Nazi at the end of Raiders. Oddly enough, it’s rather instructive.

Hitting the walls and working the middle, indeed.

Why I haven't been blogging

Truth be told, it’s been longer than I realized. I figured it’d been two weeks, turns out it’s been three.

I was on a bit of a roll, and started some other posts but nothing was really catching fire. I was afraid of falling into one of two blogging traps:

1. Being repetitive
2. Being boring

So I waited for a bit, until I felt like there was something I really wanted to say. Unfortunately, my waiting period led to the third trap: not updating your damn blog.

Therefore, I’ll be getting up a bit early, and blogging in the mornings. Writing’s a discipline, so it’s probably time to start showing some.

More tomorrow. Promise.

In the meantime, some thoughts from me off the TOC blog on the closing of Filter in Wicker Park and the Crossroads festival as well as proving that I am more powerful than the vernal equinox.

Oh and speaking of which: shhh…keep it quiet for now.