Tuesdays in my Town - Poor Red's

Well, my friends, the time has finally come.

I will finally expose the crazy infamous gem in our little nook of the Sierra foothills that is Poor Red's.

It is a hole-in-the-wall in a very very old building on the side of the road, the truest version of "dive" bar and also the best. 

you enter...

through these doors and suddenly you're in a narrow, dim, surreal, rowdy, rollicking otherworldly cowboy biker bar.

Where people like this oldtimer have been coming (from all over the world) since the 1950s...and others came before him back when it was a real live speakeasy.

Even though I never eat there and never have, save the random midnight snack of bare baked potato, I think the dining room is topnotch.

I've always been partial to the saloon area myself, with murals and old western maps on the walls, a jukebox, a big round bar that takes up most of the room and an insanely narrow space to bump into people while you dance around.

Below is the drink they are famous for: the Golden Cadillac.

It's made with Galliano Liqueur, thus making Poor Red's the largest consumer of this liqueur in the whole world. For reals.

Here is my friend Scott, the illustrious bartender, making me up the even-girlier version...

the Pink Squirrel.

which leaves me giddy.

I have been coming to Poor Red's since I was 21 which is longer than I'd care to admit.

It has been the setting for many a madcap, bacchanus night.

They used to serve only two types of beer, Bud and Bud Light.

I'd get it with a lime and then it was called a Corona.

Back then the bathroom had the kind of real live cotton towel that comes on a roller and hangs down and you find a clean spot to dry your hands.

Kim and I would play "Tainted Love" on the jukebox and all the cowboys would glare. But later they'd teach us to two-step.

Nowadays I go to watch fine live music from time to time.

Last night we had the good fortune to see this amazing gent:

"The Last of the Vaudeville Cowboys" - Sourdough Slim.

Oh. My. Goodness.

He was so good I could have cried with pure joy.

brother mikie (freshly back from burning man) and i at the bar.

Stan and Les along the red booth that lines the wall, with old frontier mural behind them.

and my boys looking rather ghostly.

thanks, Poor Red's.  for providing good old-fashioned fun and for never really changing (besides offering Sierra Nevada now) and for being real and classic and true and from-the-heart.

The world needs more places with real character.