Bars of Yore: the original Old Chi

Pronounced, of course: Old Shy (or Chai), the now-chain bar n grill had its beginnings at the corner of 10th and the Pearl Street Mall in Boulder. Now it’s closed (tho its many branches in Colorado’s suburbs are going strong). Makes me wonder: if such an old icon has to close (one that is constantly hopping), what is the exorbitant rent that even it can’t afford? Actually, scratch that: I don’t want to know…

…….

On my 21st birthday, not many people wanted to go out. It wasn’t a weekend night, and by the time I got out of rehearsal, it was 11pm. So me and three other close friends from the same play (hey, they were still up too, and always needing a come-down after acting. That’s another post: about how alcohol was the only way any of us in acting school knew how to temper the sometimes dangerous high from intense emotional work. I’ll draft something) went out to Old Chi and sat in our customary window seat.

The table was a big half-moon, the booth seats long and crescent-moon; the kind you have to do a lot of scooting to get into (and sometimes, if drunk enough, the person at the apex of the moon would crawl under the table to go to the bathroom, so as not to cause the whole gathering to stand).

Sure, I could have gone out with more bombast another day, but it was my 21st birthday, dammit, and it was a matter of principle to have a couple legal shots and a beer before bed.

My first legal beer was a bottle of Sammy Smith’s Nut Brown Ale (my tastes ran much sweeter back then–I had no palate for spicy or bitter then, as I do for only that now). I ordered my friends to order me shots, as the only hard alcohol I ever did at home was Absolut Kurant and tonic, and Meyer’s Dark rum and coke. A sweet tooth–I told you.

My fabulously swishy friend ordered me my first shot: “This is my favorite,” he lisped, and when it came, it was a pale liquid with a little rose colored sediment floating inside.

“What is it?” I asked, all innocence.

“Just drink it,” he replied. “Don’t smell it first: just do it.”

I obeyed him, because he was a good friend and a sweet human being and I trusted him. It was a Prairie Fire. (Google it.)  He honestly didn’t understand my outraged reaction–it really was his favorite.

My other close friend ordered me a Blowjob shot next, which cooled off my mouth and was a nice chocolatey dessert.

And not really much more happened because it was a school night and we were all tired.

………

Many years later, sitting in a different window seat with Sensei (husband) and a couple martial arts students, my brother included. I believe our mutual friend Happy was there too. Or maybe it was just brother and Happy.  I don’t remember what the pitchers were of, but back then we liked brown ales (still the latent end of my sweet tooth I suppose).

We’re tipsy but not drunk, having raucous but not obnoxious or unruly conversation, laughing and enjoying each other’ company, when husband tosses a low blow insult at me, hard, like a stomp kick to the ovary. He laughs. The table of men follow suit, like the goblins in Labyrinth, laughing in fear at Bowie’s goblin king’s laughter. Or that’s what I tell myself.

I wish wholeheartedly, dear readers, that I could remember what my husband said to me. It’d be nice to actually write the words, see if it was just me: maybe I was drunk, maybe hormonal, maybe it really wasn’t a gut punching personal insult that they were all laughing at. But I honestly don’t remember one word of what he said.

I do remember silently getting up and going to the restroom, quietly weeping there in the stall for a couple minutes, then returning, smiling, only a very little bit pink eyed. When he asked me what was going on, I smiled in his face, and replied, “Nothing. All good.”

…….

Another memory of Old Chi from the pre-marriage days:  It’s brief, but I’m quite fond, as this was a serial thing I did and it was at a time when I was in regular creative training. A good time in my life.

My last semester or two of undergrad, I felt the lack of the rigorous singing training I had gotten not too many years before in high school, and so cornered a friend of mine who was in graduate school in the music department, and we set up a deal for regular voice lessons.

She’d give me weekly private voice lessons (she turned me into a “vowel monster,” I swear) and as payment, I’d pay for drinxnsnax.

We went to Old Chi for same, and it was a lovely way to catch up, enjoy their tasty buffalo wings, drink and have girl-and-theatre-gossip time. I’m only as halfway decent a singer as I am today because of this continued education.

I am just starting, now, to attempt some form of self discipline in my many arts, again. It’s slow going: I’m old, and have achieved high levels at a lot of this stuff at this point. But it feels good to cultivate my own self again, for my own scintillation, only my own approval. Even in baby steps.

One door closes, another opens, I suppose…

Sanctum Suntory

The bar was now a big, multistory club. The building was very old, downtown, and in my memories it used to be a sprawling adult shop with peep show booths – the deal where men would go and sit in a darkened booth with a glass partition, and a girl on the other side would do as she was asked, within reason, as long as the men put money in a little slot. I knew one of those girls way back when, and she recalled her time there with a kind of shudder. It was about the lowest rung on the stripper ladder. Before that, or so it was rumored, the building had housed one of Denver’s original houses of ill repute.

Now, it was a music venue, bar and restaurant, and I was there at the behest of my boss, with a crew of his friends. All zillionaires, all prodigious drinkers. None of it was my scene, but I’d been politely declining offers to do something like that forever. I kind of had to relent.

What can I say? It’s easy enough to do a hatchet job on the one percent but the fact is they were all lovely people, and my evening was very quietly, very tactfully paid for. If I had to dredge up some forced jollity from somewhere, so be it. I’m not really a fun guy, but the world needs me to act like one sometimes and I don’t want to put people on edge, especially not my hosts.

Art Neville was on the stage, and they brought him up in a wheelchair. He was barely there. Poor guy would play a few bars on the organ, then fold his hands in his lap until George Porter would walk over and speak to him, then he’d blink around in vague surprise, play six or seven more bars, maybe the same song as the band, maybe not. Crowd didn’t seem to care. I had one drink and sipped water the rest of the night. What are you gonna do?

Maybe he didn’t want to be there either. I get that too. I played a lot of shows like that in my own career. How many thousands of times has he been up there, how many millions of miles behind him? Doing what he’s got to do to entertain another room of white people in another too-cold city. Him and I, last night, we were both performing. I just maybe had a little more left in me, but I could sympathize.

Now I’m back at my bar, having asked Peony’s indulgence for a day of solitary recharging. There’s a row of Japanese whiskey bottles behind the bar and I idly wonder if that would be true without Bill Murray. Maybe it would be and I just wouldn’t have noticed. Charon’s here but I’ve only nodded hello. They’re out of my usual rye and the one I’ve got has a rank, sour-mash note that I don’t care for but I’m not really trying to drink. My diesel, peat-scented smoke wreathes a protective cloud of people-repellent around me. It’s a mellow, mid-sized afternoon crowd and nobody’s talking to me. But I want to be here. And I’m just fine.

Ruthless Ghosts

Driving down to the cigar bar tonight I saw a ghost.

It’s a dark and stormy night, goes without saying. Stormy enough that my plans to drive up to Boulder and see Peony on her turf were disrupted. Nothing snarls Colorado traffic like rain, and I could see a multi-hour drive taking shape. I begged forgiveness and made an alternate plan with her. Most of the evening I’ll be home, but I know a quick back way to get here that traffic doesn’t touch, so I slipped down for a smoke and a whiskey.

And there on a corner, myself stuck in a left-hand turn lane, I spotted a midnight blue BMW hauling the uttermost ass down the perpendicular thoroughfare. Before I saw or recognized my ex-wife’s face, I swear I recognized the Formula 1 driving: hard to the very last second, then standing on the brakes just when you think it’s too late; now the whipping around of the back end and hard Teutonic tire grip as she floors the accelerator at the apex of the turn. I didn’t see her face through the dark tints but there was no mistaking the darkly bundled, angry silhouette inside.

What draws me to the women I’m drawn to? The homicidal heiress that bore my children? The rags-to-riches striver that just blew past me tonight? The one that got away before either of them – a crimson-haired architect who travels the world designing (not making this up) high security military facilities? There were others, but those were the Big Three. Funny thing: they were all mad, terrifying drivers. The kind where you close your eyes in the passenger seat, hang onto the strap and commend your soul to the almighty. I drive like that too.

Here’s what’s funny: Peony doesn’t drive. Never so much as learned. Now how did that come to be? What is it that I’ve finally learned? I should very much like to think that I’ve learned something important. Each of those other three human beings is, in her own way, utterly ruthless. None of them are without soft spots and vulnerability, and none of them are really what you’d properly call tough. But each in her own way would (to borrow a phrase) drink the blood of her children from the skull of her lover, at least under the right circumstances. Now Peony, she’s not ruthless. But she is tough. Hm.

The whole thing left me thoughtful. I’m that guy in the bar with the stare tonight. Denis Johnson writes about old men staring into their beers, like they’d learned a way of looking into lost worlds. But it’s not quite that. I’m looking across one world that I don’t really understand. One of my own curious making.

The rain comes down hard and steady and I’m glad I’m not trying to go far. But where in the world is here? And where is that question asked more often and more searchingly than in a bar on a rainy night?

Raising the Bar

Looking down on two different gussied-up crowds: one inside milling about, one outside that’s more staggering by. The indoor crowd is in various forms of black tie and gownage; the outdoor crowd sways under giant Derby Day hats and carry their high heels in their hands. Seamus and I are inside, upstairs, leaning with elbows on the chrome and glass bannister, watching both streams of people flow by and swirl in eddies below us. We observe and quietly snark, sometimes making the other suppress a guffaw.

This is exactly how Seamus and I first met and flew sparks between us: almost thirty years ago, in high school. The only differences: then, we sat side by side in science classrooms, the teacher being the main recipient of our intelligent (yes, even then) banter. The barely-suppressed guffaws would be tolerated for a while (we both were good students, as Metal and Goth as we looked, respectively), but then we would eventually get admonished. Here, nobody admonishes us, and tonight there are alcoholic drinks in our hands, levitating over the railing as we chortle.

It’s the bar in the lobby of The Opera, and Seamus has just taken me on the poshest dinner date pre-show I’ve ever had the pleasure of. Though we have dress circle seats (!!), we have come up here with our pre-show bevvies to do what we have done together since we were fifteen.

Seamus looks upper class so effortlessly. Well, then, he is, partially, of a sort. Must be some kind of blood memory. When I knew him first he was that skinny metalhead kid with the brain that scintillated and tickled mine, and his voice, as Tybalt, awakened things in my young self I didn’t yet understand. Tonight, he is easy and lovely in his finery. Me, I’m in a little cocktail dress from a vintage store, and nearly all my accessories are from Target. I am an impostor.

Seamus has a root or two in this upper class world, and he certainly is no stranger to it as per his career the past couple decades. As far as I know I’m a composite of Irish and Polish peasants. And I work now as adjunct faculty, which I will just let you do an online search about, instead of explaining here. Grew up in a trailer and I still live paycheck to paycheck, uninsured in my 40s and letting my student loans accrue interest withal. If an historian were to investigate my life and oeuvre, they’d no doubt conclude that my vastly superior intellect and predilection for higher education is a mutation that is out of place, impossible; the same reason why some of them refuse to believe Shakespeare could possibly have written his own work.

At first intermission, we ambled back to the opera lobby bar and I found myself in the middle of old and new high-level professional friends of Seamus’, forcing conversation like pulling a stubborn lawnmower starter. And feeling like an impostor whose cover is about to be blown…

I’m what new science calls an ambivert, slanting on the introverted side of that fence, as I’ve mentioned before. I am also a performer, and no shabby one at that, if I do say so myself. When I have been put on the spot in the middle of a gaggle of aristocratic strangers in the past, it was at a party and I was able to take the time first to prepare my Charisma Switch.

What’s the Charisma Switch? It’s a thing I can do when I switch from nerdy, socially inept awkward wallflower to the radiant center of attention and charming life of the party. It’s a superpower.

This party in my past I mention: by about halfway through the proceedings, I was planted in the center of the room, with all the well-to-do no-longer-strangers-now-fans surrounding me like an audience in the round, rapt at the stories I told. This is something I can do: as you’ve read in a previous post, Seamus has noticed I can hold a room in the palm of my hand. What he doesn’t perhaps understand is what an effort and a preparation it takes for me to be able to do so.

Tonight, At The Opera, we happened by chance to sit next to these Very Important People in the dress circle, and so the social bit was unexpected, and I had trouble flipping that switch as quickly as I needed to. Socializing with Seamus is as natural as our shared heartbeat, but suddenly needing to be the Woman On The Arm Of A Powerful Businessman was a task I was not prepared to handle. At least not immediately (hence the lawnmower starter analogy).

The martini at the lobby bar at first intermission helped, as did finding common ground w/ one of the women, because of her dancer background. But I realized then and there that I’m going to have to figure out how to keep the Charisma Switch flipped on, at least in public, if I’m going to be Seamus’ partner. That night, I was suddenly and unexpectedly *not* His Dirty Little Secret anymore, and I was surprised, intimidated, awkward, and not nearly up to the snuff I needed to be. Especially to live up to such a gesture.

The opera was quite entertaining and I loosened up quite a bit around the Businessmen And Their Women after more conversation. And when one of the women said with a friendly smile they’d see me soon, no doubt, I began to see just a little, in the near distance, what I was getting into. Actually becoming, as Ariel once sang, A Part of [His] World.

And it was time for a post-opera drink, and Seamus and I were damn good looking, so off we went to *the* speakeasy. Like, the original oldest bar in Denver. Well, since prohibition’s repeal, so not technically a speakeasy. But. You get the idea, style-wise. Art Deco and original everything inside, and…

My flower-embossed pantyhose committed operatic suicide on the walk there (thankfully not the bloody one we had seen onstage), so they were left in the bathroom garbage of this place, the original wooden bar of which was crammed with too-drunk after-Derby-partiers with obnoxious seersucker and no concept of personal space. The cocktails were original recipes, old old old school, artisan to end all artisan, and so very delicious.

The touch of the Green Fairy in my drink and my very short cocktail dress (now with no hose) emboldened me, and I mentioned the above misgivings of my social awkwardness to Seamus, admitting to him that I hadn’t been ready to be his arm candy in a high powered situation tonight. He corrected me: “Partner in crime, please, darling.”

Very sweet of him, and I appreciate his faith in and respect for me, but. I do feel like an impostor, still. Like I don’t, and never will, belong. Watching Seamus waltz between the childhood I remember with him (and earlier life I have heard of), to this smooth talking business world that, let’s face it, he’s really really good at, and knows well, and loves, made me freeze. Like I do when I try and perform improv. Which I don’t. Because of the above. Fake it till I make it? Yeah, maybe.

Shit. I don’t understand Seamus’ world at all. I may never. But the learning process begins now. Viking swimming lesson: one push…

Kinky Boots (and kinky booze)

I arrived a little late for setup.

They had the smaller card table draped with a spring green cloth off to the side of the “bar”, for the paltry array of snacks that were halfheartedly part brought from the troupe, and half culled from the snack supplies of the dance studio. There was a bigger (still just as flimsy) table for the booze, as that was the brunt of the offerings of the night. Draped in purple. Donations only.

I deposited my cherry tomatoes to the snack offerings, and handed the young bearded tender my only paring knife, a nice little longish bladed thing, the only kitchen thing I salvaged from the divorce besides the slow cooker. The handle was frog-green, and the blade wrapped in the leather that had, only a few months earlier, encased one of the birthday presents Seamus had gotten for me. His present had also been a blade, a beautiful pocket/boot/bodice knife of a good brand, that had made the ex-husband’s eyes pop and then grow thoughtful, when he had seen it. After all, he too had bought me a knife for my birthday, many years before, which was also a lovely little, pretty piece, but which I haven’t carried in a long time, in favor of the new one. And I’ll let you weave the metaphors, if any, that are there if you must.

But I was in a rush to get into my first costume of the night, before our pre-event circle. The tender thanked me for letting him borrow my knife, and I half-jogged to the performers’ ersatz green room, backstage. There was a space heater running, to help the scantily clad against the unseasonable-even-for-Colorado blizzard that had been pelting Boulder all day. It smelt of powder and feminine things.

A few days before, a bunch of us burlesquers got together and went costume shopping, at the May Bee Shop (where I got a pair of fluffy-butt panties of a springlike hue, as well as various sparkles to stick to my face), and also visited our favorite used clothing place, right next to my fave pub. (Phoenix Beauty is *still* up there on the chalkboard, in case you were curious.)

At the used place, I had selected a skirt (which I later declined to get), and was wandering along the boot wall, waiting for my fellow burlesquees, when I happened across a tall pair of ribbon-woven boots with the stupidest high patent leather heels (and platform soles) I have ever seen, let alone touched. Let alone tried on. I brought them over to my similarly tall pal and she and I tried one on each, deciding then and there we’d split the cost and share the boots. I brought them home that day, as I figured I’d need to practice standing, let alone walking, in them before I made a fool of myself in public. We decided I’d wear them during the first part of the event, then pass them along to her after I changed for my performance.

The event? Called the Spring Fling, it was a kink party hosted by the Boulder Burlesque group. A kink party is somewhere in the gray area between a regular burlesque performance and a full on dungeon. Last time they had one was a holiday theme, during Seamus’ exile, and as I was still considered in training at the time, I did not perform, but was in charge of the consent lecture delivered to each patron as they entered.

This time, I was only performing, both for my energy level and introversion’s sake, and for the sake of Seamus’ mental safety. That’s a personal story for another place and time, and by him. Suffice to say I was ready to leave before I even arrived.

But there was about an hour and a half before my piece, so I got into the ridiculous boots and a little sheer burgundy number, and threw my lace robe on over it as a kind of armor. I later lent the robe to a diminutively beautiful fellow dancer who had forgotten her outer tease layer for her piece, which was apparently about her recent breakup. I missed it; heard it went well.

The boots hurt me immediately and I was immediately irritated by my surroundings (sure signs of introversion making me want to go home), but I doused my skin with more sparkly powder and demanded a drink to help me cope. Their whiskey choices were paltry, but then so was everything else. I ended up sipping on Jim Beam and some kind of piney IPA all night. Well, not all night. Just till about midnight, after the sloppily done Maypole, which I still wasn’t drunk enough to appreciate.

My piece was first in the lineup, and since it did not involve stockings this time, I had another dancer friend (who was manning the body paint booth) paint my thigh instead. He painted a glorious rose, metallic gold sun stripes rising from its background, winding thorny stems resembling a caduceus trailing underneath, and opalescent wings spreading across my haunch.

See, my burlesque name is Valkyrie Rose, and I felt, as he adhered little plastic gems into the intertwined thorny bits, that he’d captured my night’s persona perfectly. I began my piece by handing out little flower bundles to the audience, moved through my choreography with much audience suspense and anticipation and appreciation, and ended up cooling off in another little, briefer lace number till maypole time. I received many compliments both during the piece in the form of cheers and singing along w my song choice, and in direct compliments after, which was nice.

Later, I, fully clothed, was lacing on my (much more comfortable, wearable doc marten) boots, and the troupe’s resident erotic photographer was in the dressing room too, no trace of her shimmering mermaid tail and pasties anymore, but a bulky coat against the snow, and boots too. She declared she was taking an “Irish exit,” and was feeling too introverted to party anymore. She heard I was too and was walking, so she drove me home.

Whenever I perform well, it feels good. But I missed Seamus, and this was never an event he’d enjoy. And I didn’t really enjoy it either, tbh (apart from my own performance, that is). Which made me feel rather out of place amongst my own “tribe.”

And the next morning, late, as I walked the short walk to the Village Coffee Shop diner counter (another bar of sorts), the blizzard of the day before had already more than half melted away. Spring Fling, indeed.