Ob-la-di, ob-la-da, life goes on...
Beth was buried yesterday. I did not attend, for a variety of reasons including the main one: there'll be a local service later this week that I'm going to instead. I did wake up at 7am, after four hours of sleep, and noted that the funeral was starting, on the east coast.
Ugh.
One of the ways I've been coping for the past week (and by "coping," I may just mean "shoving this aside until later, when I'll have a right and proper crying/wailing freakout") has been vigorously exploring LA in the carpe-diem vein. (As Michelle points out, though busting out the high school Latin may be a questionable tactic, at least I'm not saying "tempus fugit.") Yesterday, I finally got around to visiting LA's oldest blues bar, in my quest to find a club as good as Wally's (about halfway down the page). The quest is over.
When you get to Babe's and Ricky's Inn), 80-something Mama Laura takes your money. If you're early like we were, a charming waitress comes and chats with you when taking your drink orders. ("First time here?" "I had a Heineken once, it knocked me down...") The bar itself is decked out in an authentic retro fashion, not the calculated retro of a new place trying hard to be hip. Red walls, blue lame curtains on stage, framed black and white prints of musicians, vinyl booths, and a Central Ave street sign memorializing the old Central Avenue Jazz heyday of Los Angeles. (If you're finding this intriguing, take a break and read about the club's history.)
Monday is the weekly open-mic jam, and the musicians (the house jam band filled in when necessary to create a full combo) ranged from serviceable to amazing. You couldn't help but notice that at times there'd be a jam session that included white, black, Asian, and Hispanic musicians. Since the surrounding neighborhood is overwhelmingly African-American, you know what that means: we weren't the only ones who traveled to get to this place. It seemed like a lot of the patrons were regulars, including an old woman in a camisole, skirt, and cowboy hat who stood and yelled, "Are we having a good time?" until she got a loud enough response to satisfy her.
By 9:30, it was packed and loud. On a Monday.
Around 11pm, during the last song led by an excellent rock-blues guitarist, men started emerging from the kitchen with food and setting it on a table. This was the fried chicken buffet that led us to this place on a Monday. We'd imagined it would be earlier, but I can also understand why it's not -- to prevent poor students from coming, eating, and leaving. It did give us the Stomach Growlin', Where's-My-Dinner Blues to wait that long, but that's okay. Everybody got a drumstick of yummy, non-greasy fried chicken, greens, potato salad, and one slice of sausage. Mmm. I almost paid the cover charge again to get seconds.
Right after dinner, as though to reward the people who stayed when the food was gone, another set of musicians took the stage. Then, a loud, old-skool bluesy singing voice sounded from the other side of the club, near the door. It was the type of voice that belongs on scratchy LPs -- or in this bar, but in the 40s. And it was coming from the eccentric old woman in the cowboy hat. She worked the room with a fistful of dollar bills, picking up new ones as she sang and shook her senior-citizen booty for the appreciative crowd. No microphone. I thought, "Who is this?" It's LA. No small chance that this was a retired big name slumming it for the night.
It took some doing, but I always was the queen of the Net search, and I found out who she was. It's Mickey Champion (MP3 available on that page), who was on the blues scene for decades but never became a household name like many of the people she performed with (Billie Holiday, Ike and Tina Turner...) In fact, her first CD came out just a few years ago, recorded in my new favorite blues bar.
Truly, this sprawling third-world suburb I live in can be a great city, if you choose wisely.
Beth was buried yesterday. I did not attend, for a variety of reasons including the main one: there'll be a local service later this week that I'm going to instead. I did wake up at 7am, after four hours of sleep, and noted that the funeral was starting, on the east coast.
Ugh.
One of the ways I've been coping for the past week (and by "coping," I may just mean "shoving this aside until later, when I'll have a right and proper crying/wailing freakout") has been vigorously exploring LA in the carpe-diem vein. (As Michelle points out, though busting out the high school Latin may be a questionable tactic, at least I'm not saying "tempus fugit.") Yesterday, I finally got around to visiting LA's oldest blues bar, in my quest to find a club as good as Wally's (about halfway down the page). The quest is over.
When you get to Babe's and Ricky's Inn), 80-something Mama Laura takes your money. If you're early like we were, a charming waitress comes and chats with you when taking your drink orders. ("First time here?" "I had a Heineken once, it knocked me down...") The bar itself is decked out in an authentic retro fashion, not the calculated retro of a new place trying hard to be hip. Red walls, blue lame curtains on stage, framed black and white prints of musicians, vinyl booths, and a Central Ave street sign memorializing the old Central Avenue Jazz heyday of Los Angeles. (If you're finding this intriguing, take a break and read about the club's history.)
Monday is the weekly open-mic jam, and the musicians (the house jam band filled in when necessary to create a full combo) ranged from serviceable to amazing. You couldn't help but notice that at times there'd be a jam session that included white, black, Asian, and Hispanic musicians. Since the surrounding neighborhood is overwhelmingly African-American, you know what that means: we weren't the only ones who traveled to get to this place. It seemed like a lot of the patrons were regulars, including an old woman in a camisole, skirt, and cowboy hat who stood and yelled, "Are we having a good time?" until she got a loud enough response to satisfy her.
By 9:30, it was packed and loud. On a Monday.
Around 11pm, during the last song led by an excellent rock-blues guitarist, men started emerging from the kitchen with food and setting it on a table. This was the fried chicken buffet that led us to this place on a Monday. We'd imagined it would be earlier, but I can also understand why it's not -- to prevent poor students from coming, eating, and leaving. It did give us the Stomach Growlin', Where's-My-Dinner Blues to wait that long, but that's okay. Everybody got a drumstick of yummy, non-greasy fried chicken, greens, potato salad, and one slice of sausage. Mmm. I almost paid the cover charge again to get seconds.
Right after dinner, as though to reward the people who stayed when the food was gone, another set of musicians took the stage. Then, a loud, old-skool bluesy singing voice sounded from the other side of the club, near the door. It was the type of voice that belongs on scratchy LPs -- or in this bar, but in the 40s. And it was coming from the eccentric old woman in the cowboy hat. She worked the room with a fistful of dollar bills, picking up new ones as she sang and shook her senior-citizen booty for the appreciative crowd. No microphone. I thought, "Who is this?" It's LA. No small chance that this was a retired big name slumming it for the night.
It took some doing, but I always was the queen of the Net search, and I found out who she was. It's Mickey Champion (MP3 available on that page), who was on the blues scene for decades but never became a household name like many of the people she performed with (Billie Holiday, Ike and Tina Turner...) In fact, her first CD came out just a few years ago, recorded in my new favorite blues bar.
Truly, this sprawling third-world suburb I live in can be a great city, if you choose wisely.
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