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What a Hoot.
On Monday, I saw my friend Veek online. She's in town helping to take care of family and, although she's busy, I wanted to connect with her before the summer went ahead to far. So I asked if I we could go for a meal together. "What a coincidence," she said. "My friend Jon is in town visiting, and I'd love for you to meet him." So, a plan was set to go out Monday night.
I woke up at 8 p.m., mere minutes before the phone rang and I was obliged to work with Veek to decide where we would meet. Jon was apparently in the mood for pool, and Veek felt like going to the West Side, so we decided to meet at Ye Olde King's Head in an hour. I spent some time waking up, then drove over. I arrived a little early, so I grabbed a chai tea with milk at the chain establishment across the street. When I returned, Veek and Jon were there.
For a while we wandered around the Third Street Promenade looking for something I can no longer recall. Eventually, someone(?) directs us to a place with pool tables, Yankee Doodles. This seems like it will be the perfect evening. Jon, you see, is from Great Britain, and so bringing him a very quintessential American tourist experience is a high priority. As we approach, Jon is disappointed that the pool tables have green felt. Apparently, American pool tables are supposed to have red felt. I didn't get it either.
As we're about to enter, though, I suddenly realize something. As I've mentioned earlier, I lost my driver's license somewhere in Indianapolis. My phone harassment of various points of Indianapolinterest has turned up naught, and so I am looking for my old passport to prove to the DMV that I am the same person and deserve a photo id of myself. All of this, of course, means that I currently do not have a photo id in my wallet. This void is not a good thing to possess when one is trying to get into bar-cum-pool-halls in shopping districts frequented by teenagers. Yankee Doodles, alas, was not to be.
Our pool planned scratched, we decided to hit up a bookstore. We walked to the other end of the Promenade looking for the Midnight Special Bookstore. I was shocked to find it gone. I recognized that I hadn't been down to Santa Monica in a while, but I expected that a major independent bookseller wouldn't go down without some publicity. We later discovered that the store had merely moved from Third Street to Second, but by then, we'd already changed plans again. [Dead links. Midnight Special closed for good a few months later. 10/26/10]
Now, we were looking for a place where Jon and Veek could have a drink, where we could get a light bite to eat, and where I could get in with my nonidentifiableness (or just my large, manly machismo). Along the way, we saw the makeshift shrine dedicate to the victims of the recent tragedy [dead link changed, 10/26/10]. (I haven't said much about it, but every time I hear about a Farmer's Market—and, of course, there are many of them—I flinch without thinking.) After weighing the merits of various restaurants we passed, I drew upon my knowledge of the area to make a fateful statement: "You know, there's a Hooters right over there."
Now, none of us, on our own, would wake up and say, "I'd like to go to Hooters today!" And yet, with the type of restaurant we were looking for, and with the young, blonde Jon in tow eagerly sampling Americana, it was an option which, once raised, could not be rejected. Strangely, Hooters was located right next to the car that Veek and Jon had driven in, and yet they had both completely blotted its existence from their minds as they passed.
Hooters was . . . exactly as one would expect. The food was not very good and overly salted. They waitresses were eerily vacant and overly made up. (Our server, thankfully, did not seem to have quite so much paint on.) There was a bit of trouble when Jon pulled out his Proof of Age card [dead link changed 10/26/10], meeting with a blank (well, blanker) look from the waitress. Eventually, the manager had to okay it before Jon could get his beer, the quality of which made him giggle later.
The evening progressed as normally as a dinner at Hooters can progress. My favorite moment was when an off-hand mention of San Dimas caused Jon's jaw to drop. "That's a real place?" he asked, in shock. Immediately, I knew that I had met another fan of the timeless comedy classic Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. What followed was an interplay of quotes and references that invigorated me and bewildered Veek. Jon vowed to show her the movie as soon as possible.
Soon, they were off to find the video store, and I was off to dawdle around until the sun rose and I could go on my morning/evening run. It was, truly, a most excellent evening.
WedNYTX: 7:30. I have absolutely no idea what 34A is supposed to mean. WedLATX: 7.
I woke up at 8 p.m., mere minutes before the phone rang and I was obliged to work with Veek to decide where we would meet. Jon was apparently in the mood for pool, and Veek felt like going to the West Side, so we decided to meet at Ye Olde King's Head in an hour. I spent some time waking up, then drove over. I arrived a little early, so I grabbed a chai tea with milk at the chain establishment across the street. When I returned, Veek and Jon were there.
For a while we wandered around the Third Street Promenade looking for something I can no longer recall. Eventually, someone(?) directs us to a place with pool tables, Yankee Doodles. This seems like it will be the perfect evening. Jon, you see, is from Great Britain, and so bringing him a very quintessential American tourist experience is a high priority. As we approach, Jon is disappointed that the pool tables have green felt. Apparently, American pool tables are supposed to have red felt. I didn't get it either.
As we're about to enter, though, I suddenly realize something. As I've mentioned earlier, I lost my driver's license somewhere in Indianapolis. My phone harassment of various points of Indianapolinterest has turned up naught, and so I am looking for my old passport to prove to the DMV that I am the same person and deserve a photo id of myself. All of this, of course, means that I currently do not have a photo id in my wallet. This void is not a good thing to possess when one is trying to get into bar-cum-pool-halls in shopping districts frequented by teenagers. Yankee Doodles, alas, was not to be.
Our pool planned scratched, we decided to hit up a bookstore. We walked to the other end of the Promenade looking for the Midnight Special Bookstore. I was shocked to find it gone. I recognized that I hadn't been down to Santa Monica in a while, but I expected that a major independent bookseller wouldn't go down without some publicity. We later discovered that the store had merely moved from Third Street to Second, but by then, we'd already changed plans again. [Dead links. Midnight Special closed for good a few months later. 10/26/10]
Now, we were looking for a place where Jon and Veek could have a drink, where we could get a light bite to eat, and where I could get in with my nonidentifiableness (or just my large, manly machismo). Along the way, we saw the makeshift shrine dedicate to the victims of the recent tragedy [dead link changed, 10/26/10]. (I haven't said much about it, but every time I hear about a Farmer's Market—and, of course, there are many of them—I flinch without thinking.) After weighing the merits of various restaurants we passed, I drew upon my knowledge of the area to make a fateful statement: "You know, there's a Hooters right over there."
Now, none of us, on our own, would wake up and say, "I'd like to go to Hooters today!" And yet, with the type of restaurant we were looking for, and with the young, blonde Jon in tow eagerly sampling Americana, it was an option which, once raised, could not be rejected. Strangely, Hooters was located right next to the car that Veek and Jon had driven in, and yet they had both completely blotted its existence from their minds as they passed.
Hooters was . . . exactly as one would expect. The food was not very good and overly salted. They waitresses were eerily vacant and overly made up. (Our server, thankfully, did not seem to have quite so much paint on.) There was a bit of trouble when Jon pulled out his Proof of Age card [dead link changed 10/26/10], meeting with a blank (well, blanker) look from the waitress. Eventually, the manager had to okay it before Jon could get his beer, the quality of which made him giggle later.
The evening progressed as normally as a dinner at Hooters can progress. My favorite moment was when an off-hand mention of San Dimas caused Jon's jaw to drop. "That's a real place?" he asked, in shock. Immediately, I knew that I had met another fan of the timeless comedy classic Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. What followed was an interplay of quotes and references that invigorated me and bewildered Veek. Jon vowed to show her the movie as soon as possible.
Soon, they were off to find the video store, and I was off to dawdle around until the sun rose and I could go on my morning/evening run. It was, truly, a most excellent evening.
WedNYTX: 7:30. I have absolutely no idea what 34A is supposed to mean. WedLATX: 7.
huh
And wow. I was just wondering whether Jon had come for his visit yet.
Re: huh
no subject
was there any schtick at hooters? like do the waitresses shake their boobs or anything? :-) i've always wondered but i can't allow myself to go there.
no subject
There really wasn't anything at all to recommend going there. It was only ironically interesting because of the non-American in our group. It may be possible to induce the waitresses into strange gyrations, but we didn't try.