Bubba's

Mr. Hendricks and I took a little Labor Day weekend trip to Wisconsin to visit the American Players Theater again. This year we stayed in Mineral Point at Brewery Creek Inn, about thirty minutes south of Spring Green. On our way home from the show on Saturday night, we stopped into a charming little dive called Bubba's on High Street. It was one of three little joints open at the seemingly very late hour of midnight. It was like walking back in time to the eighties when bars were filled with cigarette smoke, loud and drunk patrons and even louder jukebox music. Bare bones, just a bar, an electronic dart board and stools. We took open seats at the end of the bar and a young man with shaggy blond hair and glasses, clearly feeling no pain, told us he wasn't the bartender but that he could get us a drink.

"I mean, it's okay," he shouted, leaning into the bar. "What can I get you guys?"

Foolishly I asked for a gin martini. I have had problems before with gin martinis, in more upscale establishments than this. Apparently there is some debate about what exactly constitutes a martini. According to me, an authority on martinis solely based on sheer number of them consumed, a martini is gin with a bit of vermouth, shaken violently with ice, then strained into a cold martini glass. I prefer a cucumber garnish because of the gin I favor, but an olive will also do. What will not do is gin shaken with ice alone and strained into a glass: that is simply cold gin. Additionally, martinis are not served "on the rocks." Anyway, these were the least of our worries.

The "bartender" looked a little taken aback, but valiantly continued on. "Okay, and for you?" he turned to Mr. Hendricks.

"I'll have a vodka martini with Grey Goose," he said. It was too late to stop Mr. Hendricks from mentioning Grey Goose, but again, this was to be the least of our worries. Our friend put on his best professional demeanor and soldiered on, consulting with the woman two seats down from me to see if the bar had any vermouth.

A moment or two later, the real bartender came before us. He looked much like the impostor bartender in that he was also a bit loaded and friendly. "I'm so sorry," he began, "but we don't even have martini glasses here. We're just a beer and shot joint. I'm really sorry, the first round is on me. What can I get you guys?"

We reassured him that he did not have to buy our drinks. "How about a gin and tonic, then?" I asked.

"Sure," he said with relief. He looked at Mr. Hendricks.

"I'll have a vodka tonic," Mr. Hendricks said.

"Okay, then. I'm real sorry," he continued to apologize. Both Mr. Hendricks and I reassured him that it was fine, don't worry, we just want a drink, it's no big deal, again, don't worry. He seemed mildly reassured and went to pour our drinks.

Mr. Hendricks could not resist the opportunity to smoke in a bar, something he hasn't been able to do in Minnesota for a year or two. So he lit up and we tried to catch the American League scores on the tiny television hanging in the corner above the bar. Our teams were doing battle this weekend, and because we were on vacation we did not see any of the four games. Later we were to discover that they split the series: the A's won two games, each by a run, and the Twins won two games, each by about ten runs. The Twins are going to have to do a lot better than that if they want to get to the playoffs, but I digress.

Our small, strong drinks arrived and we gave our bartender a very large tip. We sat and drank. When we came into the bar, it was loud, but the jukebox (I use the term loosely: an electronic contraption with a screen, etc.) was off. Within a few moments of sitting down, someone had spent a good deal of money solely on Tupac Shakur. The loud, thumping pound of the music vibrated the seats. It was hard not to giggle. I mean, Mr. Hendricks was the only person of color within a hundred mile radius, but the townies in Mineral Point couldn't get enough of Tupac.

As we drank, I noticed a handwritten sign near the old cash register, taped to the mirror of the bar. It was entitled, "Bubba's Shit List" and underneath said, "talk to Bubba or the bartender in order to remove yourself from this list." There were about eighteen names, with number one being Billy Bob. I am not making this up. Two of the names had been crossed off, so it was indeed possible to make restitution. But how? And for what? I was deeply curious, enough to ask the woman next to me.

"Hey," I ventured, "what's up with that list?"

She turned to me and smiled. "I know, I was just looking at that! I know those people," she said.

"Do they owe money?" I asked.

"Nah, that wouldn't get them on a list. I know Billy Bob. I wonder what he did to piss them off," she replied.

I introduced myself and Mr. Hendricks to Dawn. She was in her mid-thirties, a regular nursing her lite beer and smoking her cigarette.

"Are you from around here?" she politely inquired.

You had to give her credit. There was no way in hell Mr. Hendricks and I were from around here.

I laughed and said, "No, we're from out of town. But I'll bet you knew that."

She smiled and said, "Well, I thought so, but you know, I don't know."

Our chitchat died down and she turned to talk to the bartender. Mr. Hendricks and I pondered the possible meanings of being on the shit list, and what you had to do to remove yourself from it. I was dying to get a picture of the list, but thought better of it. Perhaps the other patrons would not find it so amusing to have outsiders documenting their little piece of heaven. The smoke now had become almost unnoticeable, Tupac was still hollering, and a bar stool either fell or was tossed over by one of the young women in the bar. There was a very slight ruckus, warning us like distant thunder, and suddenly it was time to go.

We stepped outside into the not warm but not cool late August night and only then could I smell the smoke in a cloud around me and in my clothes and hair. It was just like the eighties when I went to bars and drank all night (beer, not gin: thank god, I'd have been in rehab about four times by now) and shot pool and played the same songs on the jukebox over and over. But I rarely got drunk: that wasn't fun. I spent a good deal of my twenties with friends in bars almost every night of the week, but we would sit and talk and drink and I still made it to work the next day. I'll bet our friends at Bubba's do, too. Our twenties are very forgiving, aren't they?

The next day I told Mr. Hendricks yet another winning-the-lottery fantasy: I would buy Bubba's and whip it into shape. The bartender would be a huge African-American man and the waitress a beautiful lipstick lesbian. There would be booths and a small grill, so you could eat fries and chicken wings. There would be martini glasses, and a "J.D." (an appletini) would be all the rage. There would be a state of the art ventilation system, so the person next to you could smoke like a chimney and you'd never even know it. The jukebox would have only music from the eighties: Prince, Duran Duran, Cyndi Lauper, Lionel Richie, all that sort of thing. I'd still call it Bubba's, mostly because when we were teenagers, my brother and I would call our mother 'Bubba,' and she hated it. There would be a portrait of her, framed, with her name underneath, implying the bar was her namesake. She would hate that, too.

Then after about a year, I would sell the bar back to Bubba, and he could run it right into the ground. Everyone would come back, smash all the martini glasses, destroy the leather booths and never repair the ventilation system. All would be well again.

This Week in Baseball 5/6/08

Well, it's been more than a week, but really, the last week or so is all I can remember of the multitude of games we watch or see bits and parts of while Mr. Hendricks' keeps his hand firmly on the remote control.  The A's, to every one's surprise and to others' delight, are playing better than .500 baseball.  So are, for that matter, the Twins, but their division has had a very slow start:  the Tigers are still having troubles (thank God they let go of Jacque Jones!) and the Indians' pitching staff still is shaky.  The A's salvaged one game from their series with the Mariners last Sunday, April 27th, and what a win it was.



Felix Hernandez, know as King Felix (one of the few nicknames you'll see here not personally bestowed by me), kept the A's off balance for six innings, striking out ten batters but walking four.  The Mariners announcers were yapping on and on about what a masterful performance it was, and that's why when it all fell apart, it was that much sweeter.  Not to dis King Felix, but really, walking four batters?  And he was already at one hundred pitches when he started the sixth.  He was doing a good job keeping the A's off the bases, but really, "masterful" it was not.  I've seen masterful, and it usually comes with the name of Johan Santana (god rest his Shea Stadium soul).  And the King was guilty of some poor showmanship:  when he finished the previous innings with a strikeout (desperately needed, I might add) he stalked off the mound pumping his fist.  That's like a batter standing outside the box admiring his shot to the seats.  Not nice, and be careful:  the next time up, the ball is going to be thrown at your head.  So when the Felix show began its painful but inexorable decline, it was delightful.  The A's won 4-2, after being shut out for five innings.  It was odd to watch Hernandez give it up, and to watch the manager and pitching coach watch him give it up.  I mean, the man had already thrown one hundred pitches.  Apparently, the pitching coach came to the mound and asked how Hernandez felt.  He said he felt good, and so he was left in to take the loss.



In a side note, I want it on the record that I adore Ichiro Suzuki.  I love everything about him:  his little sleeve pull at the plate, the way he's already running to first base as he swings the bat, the ballet-like fielding in center.  He floats over to the ball as if he were picking flowers or playing croquet.  Torii Hunter was wonderful to watch all those years with the Twins:  he was a movie star slash stunt man in center field, and it was dazzling to see him leap and dive.  Ichiro is a different animal.  He just gracefully appears out of nowhere, not even out of breath, while making a spectacular play look effortless.  Ichiro is quoted as saying something to the effect that sheer power doesn't impress him, but grace and intelligence does.



It has been exhilarating and frankly, a bit disturbing, to see the A's play so well this early in the season, and in this season especially, since they have been clear that they are "rebuilding" this year.  When teams say that they're rebuilding, you can count on frustrating games, disappointing losses, and infrequent wins.  A mere few weeks ago Bobby Crosby was batting .300, and I felt sure that I could hear the hooves of at least two of the four horsemen of the apocalypse not too far in the distance.  Now he's back to a .260 average, and it may be that the end of the world has been called off, at least for now.  The A's have been known in the past several seasons as a "second half team," so to see them racking up the wins so early is exciting, but also creates a little anxiety.  They're winning quite a few one-run games, or scoring late in the ballgame and winning late or in extra innings.  Last night I went to bed in disgust when Huston Street (Huston, I love you but you're killing me) blew a 1-0 lead.  He could not find the strike zone, and if I ever find out who kept calling that outside sinker pitch that none of the Oriole batters swung at, there will be hell to pay.  Anyway, they came back in the tenth and won it, but I was upstairs in bed; those west coast games are hard on the sleep schedule.



Tonight the A's continue their series against Baltimore, who personally I feel have one of the best looking uniforms in either league, and the Twins go to Chicago and play the Sox.  You all know my dislike of the White Sox, so I won't repeat it here.  Till next time.