The other night, we were hanging out doing the usual banter--telling stories from the previous night's work, complaining about stiffs, and bragging about beat downs we'd put on deserving characters. But one guy had just got back from a weeks vacation and he pointed out an interesting thought. He went back to hang out with his buddies and when they went to a bar, he was all bummed to find out that they didn't offer video poker like every bar in Nevada does. He was like Holy shit...What did I ever do before I moved to Vegas? It got a laugh out of everyone, especially since most of the people I work with are total degenerates when it comes to video poker, but it got me thinking.
I never had a favorite bar back in Nashville. I did most of my drinking either in my backyard sitting next to the firepit and watching the lightning bugs, or over at my sister's houses watching football games, or at restaurants whenever I'd go out with Cyndi and David. I was a member of the Nashville City Club for a year, and although it had a very nice bar, it was completely overpriced and I couldn't stand the bartender.
Back in Phoenix, we had a few favorites we liked to hang out with. For a long time we'd spend our Friday evenings at Gallaghers, Rock Bottom, or Dos Gringos in Scottsdale. But my favorite spot for happy hour was Aunt Chilada's at Squaw Peak. It was a fair Mexican restaurant (although I only ate there once), but every Friday night they'd put out a nice free appetizer buffet and it would be packed wall-to-wall with all of the local office drones, of which I was one. They had a great outdoor patio that was fairly conducive to meeting members of the opposite sex, and with the monster-sized margaritas and plenty of good Mexican beer on tap providing the social lubricant, my buddies and I had a pretty good record of success there.
But as much as I liked Aunt Chilada's, it wasn't my favorite bar.
My favorite spot was a total dive called Jakes-O-Mine, or just Jake's for short. And the funny thing is that it was about 20 miles away from anywhere convenient. It was actually way the hell out in the east valley, all the way out in Apache Junction. It was a total biker joint, and usually the Harley's outnumbered the pickup trucks in the parking lot.
I would've never heard of the place, except that back in my 'band' days I was friends with several working musicians, and if you were in a cover band, playing at Jake's was a favorite venue. So one night about ten years ago I made the drive out there to see some friends play a weekend gig. I'd heard that it was a rough place, so I was a bit apprehensive, imagining a stage enclosed with chicken wire and lots of Hell's Angels types lurking about.
But it wasn't that bad. Yeah, it was an official dive, right down to the jukebox, pool tables, and wall art consisting mostly of mirrored beer signs. But it had a decent stage and a pretty big dance floor. It was crowded with mostly salt-of-the earth type of folks, and when a waitress wearing spider-web fishnets and sporting about a dozen visible tattoos brought me a pitcher of beer for less than four bucks and dropped off two glasses instead of one because one person isn't allowed to have a pitcher all to themself wink-wink, I figured I was onto someplace special.
But once the band started playing, the joint turned from a smokey pool-hall into a white-trash ultralounge with everybody dancing and having a great time (but crime-scene tape instead of a velvet rope). All it took was a few chords of Jesus Just Left Chicago or Can't Get Enough of Your Love and the house was rockin'--don't bother knockin'. The reason that bands liked to play there, besides the free beer, was that the audience truly appreciated the live classic rock--it was probably the funnest room in the entire county to work. As a musician, it didn't matter how many times you might've played Mustang Sally in the past, because when you played it at Jake's, they just went nuts.
And the bar was populated with it's fair share of surreal characters. The prison was in the next town over, Florence, so more than a few newly-minted Free Birds stopped by on weekends to enjoy their first beer in 3-to-5 years. And just a couple of blocks away was Apache Junction's only strip club, the Desert Flame, so several of the 'entertainers' would come down during their breaks and dance for free while trying to drum up some additional business.
But the owners were truly one of a kind. Their names were Margo and Beaver. Margo must've been on the far side of 50, and Beaver ten years beyond that. But they were an old biker couple that everyone loved. Beaver was a little thin on top, but had a grey ZZ-Top beard that covered his belt buckle. And Margo was a trip too. She'd always wear leather shorts and a black leather vest every weekend, along with her biker boots, but what made her stand out was the fact that she was all of 5-ft tall, but her hair was a good four feet long--big curly blonde poofed-up Lady Godiva locks that must've added 30 lbs to her body weight. I always wanted to get a picture of them together to frame and put on my mantle, just so I could tell people that they were my parents. For some reason, I didn't bring any consumer electronics, like a camera, with me whenever I was out there. (Luckily, due to the miracle of Google Image Search, a picture exists for your viewing pleasure).So I used to go out there a couple times a month to watch the bands play, drink some cheap beer, and watch the human drama unfold before me. And on several occasions I ended up on stage playing guitar with the band, riffing my way through old favorites like Low, Brown Eyed Girl or Cumbersome, which usually qualified me for a few free beers and an occasional proposition from one of the local chicks whose "old man was still locked up"...
But those days are long gone. I've forgotten how to play any Van Morrison, I sold the guitars and my house when the tech bubble burst, and I haven't had a beer at Jake's in over four years.
One of these days I'm gonna get back to Phoenix and spend another evening nursing a pitcher, watching the band, and enjoying the hustlers, fighters, early birds, and all-nighters at Jake's.
Vegas needs a good biker bar like Jake's, because just walking through the front door would put a big smile on my face...
Mikey
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