redd granite

Gordy's Prairie Pub, Kenosha Wisconsin

Years ago the television show Cheers brought us laughter and antics surrounding a cast of characters that frequented a local bar in Boston. For most of us, that was just good Hollywood writing and a world many do not know, especially if you live in the south. But as is the case with most art, it captures the world around it.  The inspiration for Cheers seemingly came from the Boston bar on Charles Street of the same name, or it could have come literally from the thousands of establishments littering the northern states.  I have been to Cheers in Boston. It is small, and it is full of tourists.  But just go to anyone of the largely family owned corner bars across the ex-industrial northern U.S. You will find a cast of characters on any given night. You will find that each bar has it’s own unique personality that drives the clientele. Generally speaking, drinks are cheap, at least from the standards of what we in the south are used to paying where drinking largely comes from restaurant bars and/or meat markets.

These bars, as well, being mostly family owned, are far from the corporate greed and mentality that drives most of the alcohol consumption in the south.  Truly, if you look around at the hundreds of offerings in this city of 100K people that is pictured above, you cannot imagine these bar owners clearing much more than $25-30K a year after expenses. The above pictured bar, Gordy’s Prairie Pub offers nothing spectacular. It is about 500 square feet in retail space, has a single pool table, juke box, and well, that’s it. Now this particular bar staffs the bar  with bartenders that are  vibrant looking women.  Kind of a Hooter’s for the corner bar.

This is never a bad thing for business, and this likely drives the owners bottom line. Like most bars, it is filled with regular patrons.  Most of the older patrons spend their money, drink the entire evening, and await the good bye hug from one of the young bartenders. But on this journey, they have probably dropped $20-30 on the drink of their choice (and at these inexpensive drink prices, that is a lot of drinks) , got lit along the way, and stayed long enough to risk the drive back (Wisconsin blood alcohol level has just been ratcheted down to .08).

The operation is sparse. Even though Gordy’s, like most corner bars up here offer food, the sole bartender must prepare the bar while still tending to slinging the drinks. Much of it is pre-prepped food offerings.  The usually  half in the bag customers rarely know the difference, but if a bar does not offer food, it is less likely to be as popular.  Truly, one way to be able to drink over longer periods of time is to have food available to sop up the alcohol.

In many of these family run bars, the owners themselves are the largest customers. Other bars I have been to locally here have the owners either working the bar, or close by, throwing back a bevy of drinks to last them the entire night. Well, I guess it is a cost of doing business.

Personalities at these establishments vary from the truly funny to the morose. But in the end, everyone has a story to tell, a place they have been, and ex-wife that drives them bat shit crazy (still), a amazing event or fish story, or just overall conversation on how the family is and what kind of trouble junior as gotten himself into.  It is truly refreshing to be in an environment like this.  Now once in a while, the massive alchol takes over and disagreements pop up, but that is just part of the roadmap. Hell, go to any homeboy club and count the fights…..these folks have thier shit together comparatively.

In the end, it is understandable the attraction to these places in a northern city such as this. On this night where the pic was snapped, it was 26 degrees out. You are either inside drinking cognac in front of your fireplace, bowling, or here.  I choose here.

If you ever get a chance to visit a northern city (by this I mean far above the Mason-Dixon line for you southern jerks who do not know the difference), visit a local bar.  Northerners are not that friendly on the street as southerners are. But walk into a place like this with even a semi-friendly face, and you will be greeted, talked with, and find yourself pouring out your life stories as much as the drinks are being poured into your glass. Enjoy.

Peace

Travelogue 009: Montana from Jason Hockney on Vimeo.

We at Reddgranite.com do not follow the typical internet formula. Nope. Instead of focusing in on one subject over and over, we take our bohemian attitude and spread it over a variety of subjects and content. Yes this is a music site, but it is so much more. Even at the expense of traffic…..(woe is the site that dances around subjects, bad for traffic and ad conversions!). WEll, we bring you different things here at redd…. and today it is no different! So we begin a series with yet another one of our expert contributors, Jason Hockney. Seems he has a knack of bringing his video cam along for the ride to a variety of interesting places and meeting some interesting people. This travelogue takes us to Montana….and the wilds and strange folks who live where man is not meant to exist…..

And you cannot resist the opening quote “they used to eat Indians in their canoes…its true”
Tune in. Intestesting stuff. And more will follow.

Nothing can be more obvious on how annoying people can be than on a crowded airplane. People are crammed next to each other so close even your family members will be jealous.  There is more human contact on an airplane than in most family reunions. Just back from travel after a long break from business travel, it reminded me of the many experiences on travel. This is a not so blatant commercial for Bose noise canceling headphones. (nope, no ads for Bose below…just have to go to their website and purchase www.bose.com) .  I can catorogize the offenders:

THE SNORERS. These are the obvious group. You can usually see who they will be in advance of sitting.  They are the usual overweight, many times older business men with hair coming out of their nose and ears…(sorry, this would have been an ad for Sharper Image nose hair removers, if they were still in business).  They sit, spend far too much adjusting their shit in the space before…ad a few snorts along the way, then settle in.  All is good until after take off, and for the marathoners, after beverage service.  soon, you hear it.  The buffalo snorting, long drawn out annoying snore.  You look back, and of course, there they are. Head back, mouth wide open, druel down their cheek, snoring, completely oblivious to those around.  Bet these are great guys to be married to.  No wonder we have a high divorce rate.  CAUTION. For you who bit on the Bose plug, beware, many times the buffalo ass snorers overrun the noise canceling feature of the headphones. These are the most common annoying people on commercial airlines.

THE ARM REST HOG. This one can come in many flavors.  Fat (which we will deal with in a second) skinny, chicks, petite, you name it.  All it takes is a good dose of “its all about me and you don’t exist as a result” to be one of these.  BTW, my wife says I am one of these….OK.  I accept.  Many times these are business guys so engrossed in their little business world, pounding away SO IMPORTANT e-mails that I am sure just cannot wait.  As they type like a Banshee in heat, their elbows get further and further on the arm rest, reducing you to a bean stalk with your arms crossed on your lap.  Advice to counter, just do it yourself.  Sooner or later, they will get it, or confrontation will happen, and thats when it gets fun.

FAT PEOPLE. Sorry folks.  I do not mean to be mean.  I am no small guy, and carry 20 lbs too much.  But in the end, many people just have no business stepping on a airplane.  These large beasts try to fit in seats clearly designed for stick figures.  This one is on the commercial airlines.  Blame them for their corporate greed that tries to cram every penny of revenue into an airplane. But in the end, we suffer.  You sit next to one of these, and well, there is no arm rest. no nothing.  They spill over into your area by up to 40%….space you clearly paid for.  I remember coming back from Europe, sitting next to a lady roundly 150 pounds overweight.  The good news, she was a charming lady and conversation was good.  She was apologetic. The bad news?  I spent the trip wedged under her massive arms and right side. The normal too cold airplane became a  way too warm blanket of body fat. I clearly had to ‘go to another place’ in my sweaty existence for those 10 hours. Whew.

THE ‘I WANT YOU TO LISTEN TO MY MUSIC TOO’ KIDS. No, its not enough they want to go deaf, they somehow feel they need to draw you into their musical word of Hip Hop or whatever, sucking the very IQ down that you have spent a life time building up.  You hear the high end treble coming from their little white ear pods.  Kids, get your own Bose Noise Canceling headphones, then we would not hear your crap.

THE CHOMPERS. Oh, this by far, is my favorite.  you know them.  Whether it is gum or their shitty smelling sandwich they brought on the plane, when they chew, they smack.  They are the pigs in dirt in the barn, chewing their cud so viciously. Even worse are the gum chewers.  There are those out there so unaware of others that they regularly chew their gum, purposely popping it.  You the the type.  They have that type of chew that signals their type A, and “involved” personality….they have their act together, and they chew to celebrate. Go ahead.  Put a bullet in my head.

But, in the end, all of the above except the occasional heavy snorer can be cured with Bose Noise Canceling Headphones.  But, in the end, you have to remember to take them with you on your trip…..and that my friends, (and those I have offended in this post) is where I failed this last trip

Recently I have found myself in the middle of small town America.  Now by small town America, I do not mean like in the few thousands of population, I mean more like 100K in population.  Many of you would say this is not small town America at all, rather a larger city.  OK.  You are right.  But residing in a major sized city all for the last nearly 30 years, I have become very used to what life is in the big city, the positives and the negatives. Flash to my story on he small town America. While I still live in the big city, I now work in a smaller city.  So what to do on weeknights?  Well, last night I was invited by a friend to attend the ‘summer concert series’ of one of the local community colleges, on their stage on the river. Brave Combo, a popular North Texas band from Denton Texas (likely all graduates of University of North Texas music school and the One O’Clock Lab Band) was playing this evening.  I have heard of these guys before, but really did not know what kind of music.  What we were expecting was jazz.  What we got from Bravo Combo in small town America was Polka music, and polka dancing and conga lines….yes a Thursday night Conga line formed.  At a certain moment, all of this was very surreal.  These people are out there dancing with apparently little care in the world.  They certainly did not care what they looked like dancing up there as well. How refreshing. There was the couple who really like the Polkas, and went at it on the stage twisting and turning with professional Polka precision nearly all night.  There was the guy in the suit who bothered not to take off his suit coat while he dance rather oddly all night…to the point he is sweating in the 90 degree heat completely through his suit jacket. There were the obligatory ankle biters, screwing up the stage path for the ‘serious’ polka kings.  (after all, this is small town America, this must be a family event).  There were the few minx’ dancing uncontrolled and unconcerned to the well pleased crowd. After all this, it occurred to me the obvious cliche, things are different and more relaxed in small town America. How trite, but true.

On top of this, this is a really cool venue.  How does a town or community college like this spend what I would estimate was at least $2M on a venue with great stage facing a beautiful river, fixed seating for about 200 in comfortable spacious aisles, and a killer sound system, with great facilities and concessions. Free entry, and you can bring anything in you wish, EVEN THE DREADED GLASS CONTAINERS as a lot of people crack open a bottle of wine on the events that have more cultured performers (sorry Bravo Combo)…docks for boats, for which my friend says at times several ‘party boats’ have roped up there….and in the end, this is one great facility.

Bravo Combo was very entertaining. They immediately got on my good side by opening up with their version of the Doors, “People Are Strange”, polka style!  They held the audience attention all night, playing 1.5 hours in the heat…creating the dance squad and conga line.  And in the end, I think it was no accident they started with ‘People Are Strange”, because this evening proved that thoroughly in a fun sort of , wedding reception sort of, care free sort of, way.

Peace

I must admit, getting old is hell. I am really not that old, and certainly do not act very old, but I see the signs daily of aging. The surest sign closest to home when relating to this blog is the fact that I come up with many subjects, many I wish to really write about, and promptly forget them hours later when I come to sit down and create.  Some could call this writers block.  As a song composer, I certainly know what the feels like, as I expeirence it regularly.  I do not think I am talking of memory loss from old age here. Quite frankly, it is more like a lack of focus.  Granted, I am busy, like anyone else.  Yeah, I have a lot on my mind, like anyone else. No, it really is not memory loss at all. But focusing, I have found, comes more and more at a price as old age approaches. It seems we are more dediecated to whatever is presented on the screen before us. We regularly shut out conversations from loved ones, family, etc.  (maybe that is just the reward of a long marriage, in anyone’s definition!) Whatever it is, it is bothersome. I always prided myself on being a people person, one who has the ability to read people like no other, and react accordingly, mostly to my gain if that was the agenda. But lately, while I still read eople every bit as intently before, I do not react as i did before.  Apathy?  Maybe. Tired of people in general, maybe?  Old age? Hope not.

I thought this was just me, but as I use those remaining skills to read people, I have noticed that it seems to be fairly common among those of a bit more advanced age. Each day it seems I attempt to rededicate my attempts to do better in this catagory, and each day I fall into the same pattern.  Old age?  I really do not think so or hope this is not the case. So I will make my feeble attempts to outrace mother time.  I will still go to my concerts and stand in the pit with all the young people (who give me plenty of space…seems they think I am a nark, but we save this for another story), my attitude will not change from being inherently younger in approach than my age.

That still drives, me, and because I am so focused apparantly as a result of advancing age, I just cannot quite hear your voice of reason to convince me otherwise.  Ah yes, there are advantages……

People Are Strange.  This is the title of a song from my beloved favorite group, The Doors.  Time and time again, I have referred back to the title of this song when observing the truly strange things people do. Yes, people are strange.  This is not how the song was intended to be interpreted from the writing, rather People Are Strange was written to describe a kind of isolation  that comes with being quite different. But I have been using it in a different context, since music is so much a part of my being, I sometimes refer to things in musical terms…and this is the case with People Are Strange.  I continuously am left with the bewilderment of the strange things people do therefore constantly referring to the song.

I feel compelled, as a result, to create a category on this page called People Are Strange. In this, we will post from time to time my observations of the strange things that I have observed people do.  Many should be quite humorous, others elicit other feelings based upon the stupidity and lack of sense that I see on a daily basis.  If any of you would like to join in on this little parade, you can contact me in the contacts form on this page to submit your story, and I will post…

Its not as if you have a lot of other things going on, afterall, you have arrived at this blog, so you must have time on your hands….

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