My kids only know Mike Myers as an Elon Musk impersonator which is unfortunate when he’s Austin Powers/Dr. Evil, and before that the titular half of “Wayne’s World” with Garth (Dana Carvey) in the basement of my high school SNL addiction when I would emerge to recite his skits during tennis team practice.
But more personally, Mike Myers is the regular Canadian dude who came to my bar for his birthday to play drums for his friends only to get water dumped on his head by my disgruntled upstairs neighbors.
Like Karen (Meryl Streep) in Out of Africa, who begins the movie wistfully and with wisdom “I had a farm in Africa,” I often repeat to myself, to remind myself of how it even happened, “I had a bar in Brooklyn” with the same ancient if laden magic.
In reality, as I’ve mentioned here before in an essay correctly called The Madness, bar ownership could rock between excruciating and exquisite on a minute-to-minute basis, and as I look back in shock and awe at the photos, feeling so very pooped now at age 51, I can’t even fathom how in the world did I pull that off 20 years ago when I was also tired? A dork who doesn’t want to drink too much or stay up past midnight (slide that forward to 10 pm). An introvert no less—a word that has only more recently bonded to my identity with a certain sort of pride and homecoming.
A nerd says, ‘What?’
I remember on opening night when people expected me to take the stage (a minor wooden platform erected in the back corner from the leftovers of the construction of the actual bar) to say something welcoming. All I could muster to the crowd (amazingly there was a crowd!) was something like a two-second “welcome, and thank you all so much,” since I was terrified and didn’t want this to be about me taking a mic, not ever and not even tonight. But there I was somewhat accidentally building myself a stage in this endeavor, serving as bartender on most nights, which felt like a performative act, a good side gig for an actor, which I decidedly was not. As sole proprietor, I would often wear all the hats of every capacity all day every day for years until I had a baby and my head popped off. I was always too eager for customers to go home, to crank down that exterior metal gate at the end of a slow night, which I sometimes, sheepishly, declared the “end” not at midnight or 2 or 4 am when Brooklyn people might expect that, but sometimes around 10:45 when I couldn’t take it another second. I’d be lowering the squeaky gate and see a batch of black-clad hipsters with asymmetrical haircuts walking my way from the subway station at the end of the block and have to hurry to crank it back up and re-illuminate and play bar like that never happened. Oh sure, of course I’m still open, sure. Gulp.
I'm verklempt
A question that comes up sometimes when I may mention that I owned a bar in Brooklyn is I must have hobnobbed with a famous person or two. Well, it wasn’t that kind of place, or rather, I wasn’t that kind of person. I called this an “arts lounge” after all so people wouldn’t get the idea that you were supposed to come here and get drunk on my New York State-derived wine and beer. Yes, a well-known person sat on my scruffy found furniture on occasion, or posed with my tacky lamp for a photo shoot, when I discovered the glory of earning far more than I normally could in a day by being closed to the public. Getting on the radar of some location scouts and photographers was the best thing that happened for business and my worn out ass (as was learning how to hire bartenders). I only have some minor regret that very often I just unlocked the door early and let the crew have at it, rolling away on my black and red beach cruiser bike long before the star even arrived. My pervading mantra in life and future death—don’t look at me. Star who? Maybe the star is just a person who might also like to be invisible and not have nobody-me among those trying to act “normal” around them. I’d just go home and write/read/cook the books until it was time to return and lower that gate again.
Don’t look at my bum
There was iconic Parker Posey gamely posing on my frayed furniture and dirty little homemade stage for an Out magazine spread, which my kids think is super-cool because she is to them the odd Dr. Smith in the “Lost in Space” series. To me she is a god so I only slightly slunk through the sidelines of her shoot when she thought it was a fine idea to hang off the edge of my gnarly chewed chair with her art-directed hair and giant necklace. Even my lamp with the undersized resin shade I attached with green wire made it to its own page.
There was singer-songwriter Ryan Adams not at all interested in touching my grimy couch because he was a germaphobe. I remember his handlers put a cloth down to separate him from it. There was some band who I can’t even place now (or then), immortalized for their CD cover by my photog neighbor from nearby in “the lofts.” (I asked AI to identify them now, to no avail. It said they look like a “band having a photo shoot” which is precisely what they were going for I guess when one of them was told to hold that damn lamp.)
There was my loft friend Jake Tomsky who was not an author nor a musician when I knew him asking me for writing advice, but suddenly after he graduated from Stain Bar (or I closed and hightailed outta town with a one-year-old and a husband), he had a bestselling exposé of the hospitality industry Heads in Beds from his hotel attendee experience and then later became the drummer for the band Cigarettes After Sex, touring the world to this day, because everything he bumps into (after me) turns to gold.
There were some great poets reading with just the right amount of breath and pregnant pause, some playwrights, countless ego-large musicians with loud horns and so many things no one wanted to hear at every weekly open mic in between. (Many contacts of contacts came of course from word-of-mouth from those lofts in an age only at the dawn of MySpace). Never once do I remember making a point of saying hi to any of them of brand name status. I figured they wouldn’t care about little ol’ me, and/or I was too scared. Like when I crossed paths on an empty subway platform with indie author Shelley Jackson who had given to me the very word I would tattoo on my forearm as part of her art project, and I didn’t even utter a hello. Cat got your tongue?
I did actually interact with Mike at his birthday party. I was playing the role of bartender that night, not the owner, so he simply asked me for whatever beer and I gave it him and collected his five dollars (or his friend’s?) with a smile as if everything was totally kosher, OMG I’m secretly freaking inside, shut up, keep smiling, be cool.
Does that make you horny, baby?
The only bartender, on a night when the bar was insanely packed with all of Mike Myers’ crew of endless besties and yet here I am, alone, hustling, too stubborn to get help. Luckily it was one of those rare nights when I was in the flow, pumped up surely on star-adrenaline and ripping out drinks like a pro. (Which, again, is just wine and beer here, so it’s not so very hard to do this, but still, a pro with an ancient cash-only cash register).
How did this come to be? Well a group of Mike Myers’ pals wanted to celebrate his birthday in a unique way. Maybe it was around the time he was transitioning from one wife to the next with a budding new girlfriend. Maybe he was turning something significant like 40, but that would be 22 years ago so it doesn’t quite match up. Maybe it was just a regular odd year birthday but since he’s such a big deal, he still gets friends wanting to do something special with him. But I shouldn’t be so flattered that of all places they chose my bar. The friends were wanting to fulfill his wish of playing the drums somewhere and I suspect they needed for this something obscure, a little off the beaten path where they could take over and have some privacy for their guy (among his own crowd that is). So the night progresses, I’m in the flow of tepid tap beer and popping Long Island red nonstop, the bar is full likely with all his people and one else since I’m so obscure you don’t even need to book a private party to make it private, and in time Mike is going to take the stage and play the drums at I don’t know what time but pretty please make it soon.
It’s probably not that late by Brooklyn bar standards but late enough on nervous human time when you have angry tenants who live upstairs in the brick tenement whose ticking time bomb you are very aware of. Of course when renovating I ripped out all the sound proofing, i.e the many layers of former storefronts that used to buffer between this space and the neighbors, which I thought was superfluous at the time because I needed to get to the original woodwork and tin.
So my upstairs neighbors, beautiful artist types who actually worked at bars themselves, and wanted to enjoy some rare quiet when they were at home to watch TV (Saturday Night Live?), rest, and not feel like they live at their work, were already at the end of their Stain Bar (no it’s an Arts Lounge!) ropes by the time poor rich Mike came along to bang on his boy drums.
The friends had set up the drum kit on which he finally starts pounding for what feels like hours because—and I think I was the only one tuned in to hear it—I was painfully aware of the banging that was also coming from the upstairs apartment. The neighbors (through previous iterations of men with horns) had admitted me to they would take the end of a broom and beat on their floor. So that was happening now on this big night. And it’s not like I’m going to go tell Mike Myers to quiet down and I can’t leave to go calm the tenants and explain what (and who!) is happening when I’m so busy flowing with Ithaca Apricot Wheat. The bar is too body-blocked for me to leave. I’ve built myself a cage.
Oh behave!
It continues. I’m definitely going to die young. The police are going to come and shut down this shitshow. I’m going to have a heart attack right here clutching a few soft dollars. Or, more creatively than calling the cops, since I’ve exposed the walls and ceiling so much, the angry neighbors could just pour boiling water down a hole in their floor that happens to line up center stage, and the water (was it water?) could happen to flow in a glimmering shimmer (lit up by my glowing stage lights) right onto Mike Myers’ head, his very own thickly coiffed brunette head. And he, drunk, and in some state of birthday drumming ecstasy, might think it’s just the beads of sweat flying around and circling back like the gross boomeranging of a rock star and he could just play on and on in this warm wet bliss.
Now’s the time on Sprockets when we dance
And so it went. Everyone had a spectacular night, except for me and the neighbors, who might have expired somewhere along the way as well. I believe Mike may have thanked me on the way out. Or I was cowering on the floor in my kitchen nook near the back sink. I have no idea. I probably blacked out. Do I have a photo to prove any of this actually happened? Of course not. Mike Myers probably does not remember any of this, and he definitely doesn’t remember me. But if there’s a story from that night, how he once got to play the drums for his friends somewhere in the outskirts of East Williamsburg, maybe that story stuck in his head and became a thing that lives there however vaguely. What I wouldn’t give for a pic of the glistening liquid trickling toward his head as he pounds the kit like Wayne in the basement of my youth.
Have you had a hobnobbing encounter that you flubbed when you said something dumb, awkward, or not at all? Famous namedrop down below please.
Tawk amongst yourselves.
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I think my greatest regret in life is selling that lamp on FB marketplace for $10
I think the reason that Isak Dinesen line is so affecting is because probably all of us have "had a farm in Africa," something unexpected and special which we didn't even plan on being or becoming special, and then it was gone. And you look back and it's stunning to believe it ever existed at all, let alone has passed. Well, I know you've had others, but Stain was a damn fine moment.
I was resisting the temptation to do any awkward or otherwise name dropping (as I know I tend to do) because your story is so fine it deserves the entire stage, but since you asked (and thank you)...
When I first went to NYC and it was kicking my ass, Tom Waits was my hero and he came into Astor Wine where I was working and I rather obnoxiously announced, "Mr. Tom Waits!" as he rocked back and forth down the aisle toward me. I think I got away with it because I really knew his music and had recently seen him in Austin and was able to deflect away from his "star-ness" toward music and then wine. He was odd, yes (I'd bet big money he's an introvert), but kinder than he had any reason to be, and he actually talked music with me for a number of minutes, and afterwards, and after I'd set him up with a bottle of Portuguese wine, which he'd requested, I got a great, authentic, and firm handshake from him.
The success of this encounter made me too cocky, so when Karen Allen came in to the store I talked movies for a moment, and once I set her up for her order and she was walking away I said, too loudly, probably, "See you at the movies!" And I saw her shrink and collapse into herself. I still feel bad about that one. Embarrassed. But what are you gonna do?
One I don't feel as bad about is the time Tim Curry reached out to shake my hand and I thought, to hell with that - I'm hugging him. I mean, he'd already bought me an Elvis wall hanging(!). And so I did, pushed right through the handshake. It was a bit awkward but I've always been a bit awkward hugging men. I'm still hit-and-miss but I'm better, and I do try to practice whenever I have an opportunity.