I was drunk before two, not my fault, I assure you. It was an unfortunate confluence of the fact that Marlow was off the leash, and I had a commitment to see Dora- sister of a pal of a pal- play at some bar in town, since she has the afternoon shift Wednesdays.
Marlow came by at one- a propitious time- and we struck out in his islandmobile. I don’t have to tell you it was a glorious day, just a shade south of perfect.I mean, there is no such thing as perfect, right?
Anyway, I had been told she was appearing at “Bill,” which it started at Cowboy Bill’s on Duval Street because I had been told Dora was playing at a place called “Bill,” and Marlow and I stopped at Coyote Ugly to inquire if that the the right cowboy bar- parking was a bitch, of course, and we should have walked or ridden bicycles, except that I can’t very well and don’t have one, respectively. The door guy said they didn’t have live music, which must make it the only place in town that doesn’t.
Further up Duval, in the 600 Block, we tried Cowboy Bill’s, which has a mechanical bronco and a cute bartender named Terrancita. She told us it was “Buy One, Get One Free” Wednesday, which of course is too hard to say, so we said, “BOGO.” There was no one named Dora there, nor any live music until Happy Hour, which we declared had already arrived.
The two BOGOS were enough to get us calibrated and message Michigan to refine the search, which as it turned out was actually The Bull, and typos are important.
We walked back up the street, past the Oldest House that Marlow remembered being rehabilitated, and the bulldog with the sunglasses and the rest of the street circus of Duval in the Season.
We could hear music drifting out of the open shutters of The Bull when we got across the street from the three-story liquor dispensary.
Dora was a dark-haired woman with the voice of an angel, when she started her set. After the first song- Blackbird, I think- I advanced to the stage to introduce us and convey the best wishes of the people trapped in Michigan, and the warmest of greetings from suburban DC. She laughed, and things took a distinctive upward bounce.
Debbie was behind the bar, but she refused to serve us. “It is BOGO at the Whistle upstairs. Why would I pour you singles when you could walk one flight up and get doubles?”
An excellent point, and Marlow bounded off to collect some drinks. We he returned he said the bartender was bored up upstairs, no one there, and BOGO actually meant “BOGT,” or triples.
That is when things began to come off the rails, and it was delightful.
Things get a little foggy aft that, though I recall the best song in Dora’s repertoire was a plaintive ballad entitled “Fuck You.”
Dora was a blast. As part of her patter between songs, she announced that The Bull’s Soup of the Day (SOTD) was tequila, and naturally the tourists (and us) wound up doing shots with her as the set went on.
During a break, I was attempting to take some pictures of the sailor mural behind the bar- it is an epic depiction, ten or twelve feet tall and at least that far wide. Debbie
Saw what I was doing and invited me back in her sanctum for a better shot. Behind the fucking bar! You know what that meant in The PI- you bought a round for the house, but she did not charge me.
Instead, she said the artist was working on the masterpiece during his current visit, and that he would be around before ten the next morning if I had questions about the scene being depicted.
I made a note to do that- and Marlow and I had a marvelous afternoon with Dora and the music and the BOGOs.
Dora dropped off a CD of her music, too, an album entitled “Larry Baeder and the MUSEGURUS,” on which she is the lead vocalist. I just finished listening to it- a rollicking collection, and there is a song with the refrain, “Talk me back to Michigan in September.”
I think I would like that, but we have all summer before that. Have I mentioned that I like this place?
Copyright 2014 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
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