There's a sadness in the heart of things, said the second Z-man. The first Z-man added, It's life, a

There's a sadness in the heart of things, said the second Z-man. town and country travel magazine The first Z-man added, It's life, and life only. The Wizard warned, Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain! But then I dreamed the answer and I told it to them: We have fallen asleep in God's embrace, having a nightmare that we are elsewhere. So, now you understand what this Blog s "stuffs" is all about...
. The blog bit you are about to read has been in the planning stages for over a year. That doesn t mean you ought to expect much from it. It only means that I m an A-List procrastinator. . The three things I m most knowledgeable about, in reverse order, are: The Holy Bible, Politics, and Booze. And while I m not as big a Booze Hound as I often make myself out to be (it s just the Academy Award-winning role I play in Blogland) in my day, I could have drunk both W.C. Fields and Dean Martin under the table. Not Ted Kennedy. But W.C. and Deano yes! . Nowadays my drinking is strictly limited to beer, wine, and distilled spirits, and I drink only when I am on vacation or wishing I were on vacation. ( Vacation?! Are we there yet?) . What follows is a list of my all-time favorite bars, saloons, lounges and watering holes. I did some traveling in my time road trips galore; flights to and fro and I have been known to say that, Wherever you are in the United States of America, you are not more than six blocks from some place where I once had a drink. Yeah, I m a legend in my own wine. . And now, without further a-brew, let s get to the whiskey! Listed below are what were my favorite drinking establishments. I will begin with the Honorable Mention category and work my way down to the top. A brief description or story will follow each entry on this list. R U Ready 2 Go? Bottoms up! . HONORABLE MENTIONS [In Alphabetical Order] : . ACOMA LOUNGE BUTTE, MONTANA town and country travel magazine [No longer exists.] . In the Summer town and country travel magazine of 1988, my Brother Napoleon (you know him as Nappy ) and my dear friend Pooh (you know him as Pooh ) took a road trip to Montana. Well, actually, Pooh and Nappy went to Canada -- I loved Butte, Montana so much that I told them to leave me there and pick me up on the way back. They did. . . [Brother Nappy looking cool in front of the cool-looking Acoma Lounge.] . Unfortunately, the Acoma Lounge was out of business while we were in Butte, so I never had the opportunity to step inside the place, but I can tell you just from the exterior style that I would have loved it. I got to Butte too late and a dollar short. But the Acoma Lounge makes my list based solely on its ultra-cool exterior. . BOB HENRY S ROUND TABLE 2460 WILSHIRE BOULEVARD SANTA MONICA, CALIFORNIA [No longer exists.] . . [Owner Bob Henry relaxing in the lounge he owned.] . . [One of the Round Table bartenders, Mr. Toti - the Father of a high school town and country travel magazine buddy of mine.] . . [Bob Henry's Round Table matchbook cover.] . A very, very special thanks to Rebecca Buckley for the Round Table photos! . Bob Henry s Round Table was a fabulous, old school atmospheric piano bar. I took my former girlfriend the Countess there one night and she totally fell in love with the place. Sadly, like most of my favorite bars, it s now gone. But in its day, it was a cool place for people with class. (Not exactly sure how I ever made it past the door.) Customers could come up to the piano and sing while Dick Leslie played the standards and show tunes. So, it was sort of like Karaoke, except there were no lyric monitors and the music was not prerecorded, but played live. You had to know what you wuz doin or you d really make a Fool O Yourself. I just listened and drank martinis. I was good at those things. . EDDIE S BUFFET BUTTE, MONTANA . . [Stephen T. McCarthy pretending town and country travel magazine to eject Brother Nappy from Eddie s Buffet Summer of 1988.] . In 1988, the place was owned and operated by an elderly lady. I can t recall town and country travel magazine her name, but she was great. Pinned to the walls within this dinky bar were countless baseball caps. To my disgust town and country travel magazine and amazement, she didn t have a Los Angeles Dodgers cap on display, so I gave her mine, which she promised to display on the wall. I couldn t help remembering that woman some months later, in October, when the Los Angeles UnderDOdGers beat The Mighty Mets to advance to the World Series, and then upset the heavily favored Oakland Athletics to win the Championship. And I couldn t help wondering if the woman at Eddie s Buffet remembered me, and thanked me again, silently, for leaving her with a baseball cap representing the World Champions in 1988. . In retrospect, I have come to realize that generally speaking, I seemed to appreciate and feel most at home in rather small bars as opposed to the big dance clubs or bars with a lot of floor space. I never really realized this until recently, while reflecting back on my favorite gin joints, but evidently - with only a few exceptions - I was drawn to the small drinking establishments. And it almost seems the smaller the better . I guess there was something about the intimacy of a small bar that appealed to me at a subconscious level. Now the truth can be told: Bigger is not necessarily better. ...Well, I guess it depends upon what is under discussion, eh? ;o) . THE LUCKY CUSS SALOON TOMBSTONE, ARIZONA [No longer exists.] . . . [The old Lucky Cuss Saloon as the building looks today.] . . [It's now some sort of "Ghost" tourist attraction.] . . Half a block from The OK Corral there used to be a small drinking establishment, a gin joint, a hooch parlor, a silly shack called 'The Lucky Cuss Saloon'. (I believe it later changed its name to 'Legends Of The West'.) I mean, this place was a real dive. I really liked it. It was my favorite bar in Tombstone. And it was also right next door to where Morgan Earp was shot and killed through the back alley window of a billiard room. Some say the ghost of Morgan Earp haunted the saloon's back room. . I remember being in The Lucky Cuss Saloon one night when this couple of tourists, a man and woman from jolly old England, came in, sat down and ordered drinks. Me being the troublemaker that I am, it wasn t long before town and country travel magazine I just happened town and country travel magazine to mention that The Monkees were better than The Beatles. Of course that s total balderdash. I knew it perfectly well. But what the heck, I had to defend us Americans on our own Western turf, didn t I? It wasn t long before there was a pretty uhm spirited discussion going on about which band was better. I defended The Monkees with everything I had, and really enjoyed the uhm discussion. It was touch and go there for awhile about whether or not this was going to turn into The OK Corral Shootout, Part 2 . To steal a line from Bugs Bunny: Ain t I a stinker? . The M M CAFÉ BUTTE, MONTANA . . I recall Nappy, Pooh and I being in this place late one night. I m not even sure if it served alcohol, but I seem to recall having a beer in there. town and country travel magazine The place was really hopping and it was like stepping town and country travel magazine into the Waybac Machine and suddenly finding oneself inside the movie American Graffiti . Way cool! Butte, Montana definitely has style. . NORTH WOODS INN 7247 N. ROSEMEAD AT HUNTINGTON DRIVE SAN GABRIEL, CALIFORNIA . . . The North Woods Inn is actually a restaurant/bar chain in Southern California. I m not sure how many there are total maybe 5 but I have only visited 3 of them. My favorite was the one listed above, although they re all pretty much the same. This is one of only a few large bars that I have ever really liked. The waitress tosses peanuts on your table when she first arrives, and the floor is covered with shells. The place is well known for (as my friend Kevin named it) The NFL Baked Potato . So named because the baked potatoes town and country travel magazine are about NFL regulation football sized. Or at least they were; I haven t been to a North Woods Inn for about a decade. A great old place with an Alaskan cabin atmosphere. Fabulous cheese bread (for us vegetarians) and dark beer served in big mugs. It s exactly the sort of place that Frasier and Niles Crane most hated. What s not to love? . XENON S LOUNGE AT THE RAMADA INN RENO, NEVADA [No longer exists.] town and country travel magazine . . Oh, sheesh! Xenon s Lounge! Just typing those words makes my head hurt and my stomach turn back-flips. . I only drank there a couple of times, most infamously in 1986 with Pooh. It s kind of a long tale, and it actually leads into one of my most humorous stories, which I have hinted at once or twice on this blog but have yet to tell and probably never will. Not only does Xenon s Lounge no longer exist but neither does the Ramada Inn. The old hotel is now a kind of upscale apartment building or condominium site. . Pooh and I drove in to town while on vacation in 86. We were intending to go straight to Virginia City, but the road had been long and dusty and I was thirsty and I suggested we stop in Reno for the night. Pooh had serious misgivings about the idea. He said, I don t know, but I have a bad feeling about this town. I think we should keep moving. I don't remember for sure but I probably called him some slang term for a certain female body part, and so we stopped for the night. But Pooh had spoken the words of wisdom the path not taken. Unfortunately. . The drinking commenced. It was a looooooong night. It got blurry and (in hindsight) it got funny. Stop me if you ve heard this one: Two drunks stagger town and country travel magazine into a bar and . . . . To make a long, illogical, and meandering story short, Pooh and I eventually found ourselves at Xenon s Lounge. We were already laminated. The reason we were at Xenon s Lounge is because we had given up on finding our motel. Someone had hidden it from us after night fell. . I found In My Room by the Beach Boys on the jukebox at Xenon s Lounge and I played it so many times, over and over again, that I drove everyone but the bartender and me out of the bar. Later a Bluesy tenor sax player took to the stage, which was just a small circular platform in the center of an in-the-round bar, and I settled in for some "serious drinking." Seriously. . The story gets fu