Sunday, 8am. The Bazaar Cafe, SF, CA.
A long entry, sorry.
Les, the owner of the Bazaar Cafe is tireless and timeless. Is it the red wine? Is it Makiko, woman who quietly, gracefully curates the chaotic gallery of Les' life? Is it the swarm of musicians who are constantly buzzing around his rare, priceless gem buried here in the outer Richmond District of SF?
He just had the floors redone at the cafe. Floors I've stomped on countless times, drink in hand, cheering my heroes: Mario DeSio, Ira Marlowe, Ed Haynes, my friends and musical comrades too numerous to list. Floors at which I've stared in moments of doubt & daunt, or just trying to choose the next song.
I drove past three of my old SF apartments this morning, and I'm caked with stinky, mushy mud of melancholic memories. Three places, little stucco boxes, that I loved in and wrote songs in, and then for one reason or another, decided to move on and leave behind. One because the thing with the girl didn't work out the way I planned (oh, the stupid things I've done). One because a thing with another girl was working out so well that we both decided that a better little box awaited us just a few avenues to the south (again, so stupid - but one learns). And then the last one, where I lived until I left town for Portland in 1999.
There's no room in this city. When they redid the floors at the Bazaar, they had to rent a truck to hold all the furniture during the work, drive the truck away, and back again. You SF's lack of space most regularly when you're looking for a parking spot (average time before someone leaves and opens up a space is about 20 minutes, I've found). If you didn't have drums and guitars in your trunk, it would make no sense to have a car here (a good thing to not have, they say). On a musician's budget, there's especially little room. The places you can afford to live, eat, play, and walk your dogs has dwindled steadily since I first moved here in 1987.
One of those places is the Bazaar Cafe. The Bazaar is the antithesis of typical music venue in SF. The norm: best summed up by one old soldier who literally bellowed at my band, before soundcheck: "you gotta pull in 200 people tonight or you're not coming back to play here again!" Here, incredible music happens every night, for 20-40 people. I've never seen it anything but packed (one folk quartet easily accomplishes this if they each bring a fan and a girlfriend or two). It's ALL about the music. There are a few nice house guitars, in case of broken strings, or if an open mic night struggler has a faulty intrument. A nameless, generous benefactor. And there's a piano.
Not that the music is ALWAYS good. But it almost always is. Not cheesy shit that turns out the yuppies to sit with their heads on each others' shoulders like they're at a summertime Sting concert (Dan Fogelberg opening). No, real, unique takes on stuff. Or Les won't have you back. Amidst all the post-9/11 pomposity and sensitivity, I played a night here with a few other writers. Ed Haynes sang the best response to 9/11 I've heard yet: "I've got Anthrax, baby - sleep with me tonight. I'm a'courtin' at a heightened pace..." and so on.
In Portland, there's more space. It takes a long time to find or build a community like the one I left, but now I feel we've done it. Julie, and all the musicians and friends at Mississippi Studios have filled the huge hole I feel when I think about all my favorite singing/drinking pals from the old haunts. Ed Haynes moved to Portland, too. Last night Ed & I did a sort of reunion show at the Bazaar. Ed shone. Ira Marlow got up and broke my heart with an old favorite, a tearjerker about youth & hope & etc. This morning is the afterglow. My morning drive through the old haunts assures me that I did the right thing.
Les just walked in and is going on about some local writer I just have to hear, so this blog is over. He just rifled through five boxes of CDs that nobody but Les cares about. He has put the CD on the stereo blaringly loud, and half his morning customers just walked out, shaking their heads. I'm about to get an earful.
The floors at the Bazaar: they're Redone, not replaced. I recognize familiar gouges, favorite black, rusty nail holes, places where chairs, or the piano, have been dragged without lifting. You can't keep redoing the floors forever. And you shouldn't expect to enjoy a floor without scars as much as one with.