You ain’t seen nothin’
like this—
You just know this place is poppin’,
the tight, little parking lot like
packed, people standin’ round,
no reservation, you sure gotta
wait—
But the place is so much more than just happens to be
popular,
oh, way more, anyone who’s been
here knows what I’m talkin’—
It’s the kind’a place you’ve
always heard these rumors about.
Whether you’ve ever seen a restaurant
—you’ve
certainly figured it’s Italian by the name—
decked out like this,
I kind’a doubt.
This, like, madhappy
taking-it-to-the-limit, this idiosyncratic,
this, oh, so eccentric, juxtaposed
& superimposed Postmodern eclectic—
It’s an overload explosion of visual, like, get prepared.
And so, if you
wanna take a poet’s whirl & get a sense,
here it comes—
Just lookin’ at the place
from the outside, all decorated like
some crazy fairytale fantasy
—was an old funky wood house originally that’s next
the little windy Highway 9 that comes through here—,
you can
see somethin’ bizarre’s goin’ on—
The like urban wall expressionistic faces painted on the
tall wood fence
on the side,
the flags draped, lights strung up
the roof & goin’ just about everywhere,
the gonna-be-late gonna-be-late famous rabbit
runnin’ on the waiting deck rail, old
50s-somethin’ car seats there
& a gold-painted, naked neutered, like Mad comic andro starin’
zombie-like at’cha,
& a lovely mademoiselle painted there on the waiting
deck wood wall
kind’a naked herself but for grape
bunches hung in the appropriate places,
& a couple
other cuties peekin’ from both sides,
& there’s something lookin’
like an
goes to the right,
but we’ll take that stroll later…
What greets you is half a manikin in shorts cut off at
the waist
to serve as a mini-table for the
register book, toothpicks & hard candies
& a wine
glass of flowers—
You step up steps painted purple, yellow, red, green,
blue, white, pink,
this well-worn Open sign in the
middle with a theatre cordon going up,
the wide opened red doors displayed
with old vinyl records,
album covers & tinsel.
Oh, it’s
definitely another realm inside,
like the two red movie theatre seats
just inside the door
suggest—
It’s the
close-packed bar you first walk into,
with tiled counter, cushioned bar
stools, beer bottles displayed
& all your
drinkin’ establishment kind’a
stuff,
but what sure hits you immediately
first walkin’ in, it’s the intense,
imploding impact of every square inch of
wall in such a space this tight
all, like, big-time plastered with images—
All manner of celebrity, entertainment, 20th Century icon
memorabilia
you find here—
photos, posters,
postcards, comics, decals, collages,
album covers galore, newspaper front
pages laminated,
cut out magazine pictures,
you see neon beer signs, drawings,
masks, trinkets, little animals
hangin’ down, mobiles, flying dolls,
the white ceiling all covered
with the big round vinyl of records;
the stars of yesteryear, so many are here—
from Judy Garland, Patsy Cline, Paul Anka, Bobby Rydell,
—there’s Betty
Boop I see—,
Liberace,
Sinatra, Elvis, Marilyn, presidential star JFK,
to Beatles & Cream & don’t miss the Mad
Hatter hat,
or the Tin Man over the bathroom
door like from Wizard of Oz.
And over the door you just walked in, there’s a shelf of
old binders
& photo albums & such, like, strangely, as if out
of someone’s attic.
Where I’m sittin’ now at this
little one-person counter
lookin’ at the menu
—I got this single seat like pretty
quick—
there’re books draped across a bungee
cord in this sort’a window frame
that looks out into the central, main room,
directly in my face a Marilyn Monroe picture book;
on the checkerboard pattern
counter, a hand-crafted wooden Buddha,
& there’re all these floppy animals around like this
frog hangin’
on the doorframe next to me.
Through this sort’a window
view, the main room, as I say, you look into
—it’s nothing
big, mind you—
with a blue-green marine ceiling, a
stylized cityscape wall
painted with wavy buildings,
& at the far end behind three posts
there’s a narrow
silvery-shiny-reflective, with pictured music personalities,
runway stage—
Like, what is it they do here now?
Like I was still in for a surprise, should’a
checked out my placemat first,
which is a photomontage of the
routines I see they have done here—
I see it gets risqué outrageous at times.
As
you walk through, room to room,
it all keeps hitting you, this
small, closed-in, motley world of its own,
every wall covered with paintings,
signs, icons, masks,
everywhere big
hangin’ down everywhere all kinds’a drapery, bead work curtains,
the side room painted black with
colored stars & words shoutin’ down
from the ceilin’;
there’s
a black light there
along the top edge where all these
license plates are displayed
on one of the end walls,
sparkly crystal balls hangin’ down here & there,
& then the
most delightful discovery of all—
The seating outside is arranged right beneath the most
perfect
you could imagine for it of a redwood cathedral,
a dozen or so tall, slender,
straight as could be, redwood trunks
surround the tables,
going
up & up, higher & higher,
this canopy of their branches going high,
high above like a sort’a ceiling,
& a disco ball is hangin’
between two trunks, there’re heat lamps
there,
& also spotlights mounted.
This is where
Rhonda & I, our literally back-to-back birthdays,
we celebrated by a dinner here
‘bout 3 years ago October;
friends Denni
& Ray joined us, to make a cozy four—
We had a good time, I remember, dining leisurely
right under these redwoods.
And I see this place has been changin’
since that time,
I see it’s somewhat the same, but not quite the same,
since that time—
The whole stage thing, I know, was not here before.
As
I’m indulging now
in this most delicious dish of
chicken fettuccini,
dippin’ perfect bread in diced up
garlic-heaped olive oil
—it sure is
strong—,
all of a sudden three of the
waitresses all dressed in black
file up to that narrow—now the
spotlights are on—runway stage
& start dancin’ in sync to
a long play song,
like out of the old disco days—
The song “Do Your
Thing.”
Everyone, every table, is now turned & utterly
riveted on them—
Yeah, like do
it! do it! Do your thing!
And they’re good, they’re really good, they’re dancin’ up a sweat.
And so they do this one, long, tremendously upbeat,
bursting
like all out song
—everyone’s into it—,
& then it’s over & everyone
claps,
& the next thing you know the three dancers
are back doin’ their tables.
Other nights when the young owner is around,
I understand he puts on something of a bizarre routine
himself,
as my placemat makes quite explicit.
(but
there’s another time for more of that—
And now
I take the stroll goin’ round
the
wooden walkway painted with names
inside stars,
like the Hollywood Stars
—the
first name you see is “Tad,”
who
happens to be the owner.
And a bench is painted with Tip Toe Thru The Tulips,
there’s some big, cutout, cartoony character,
a fish pond, with rocks of blue
& pink, & a fountain pourin’ out
the rear end of a big fish
atop a pseudo-Greek statue;
& little red devils are hangin’
about in the surrounding ornamental trees,
& kitschy garden flamingos you also find, as if
stalking about.
There’s a sign in red:
Men Working.
A beer logo umbrella shades a long, raw wood bench,
& as you walk, more impressions of large & little
signs, baskets,
other benches, chairs, big old icon soda
pop caps, varieties
of flowers,
& all these words keep grabbin’
at your attention, like, nonstop—
From
one of the redwood trunks facing Highway 9
their own Ciao Bella sign hangs,
& there’re paintings on plywood, road signs, an Uncle
Sam
I Want You
U.S. Army poster,
there’re bicycle frames, a dog house, one
sign-painted board
that says:
We Were Born This Way.
And there’s another says it quite succinctly:
This Place Is Crazy.
But, you know, I dig such a
place.
9217 Highway 9,
July 2002