Blues Bar Memoir
The Mile High Club Takes a Dive
My friends Penelope and Tim invited me to meet them at their house and drive to a bar in Oakland. It would be our first visit to Eli’s Mile High Club. A “dive” was how they pitched it. Not a dive bar because that would have been redundant. Everybody knew dive meant a lowlife saloon — or a honky-tonk if there was live music. And the music was taken for granted to be blues, if not R&B, unless it was country, but a crude joint either way. Eli’s fit that mold, rough around the edges. The neighborhood, too, but not so rough inside you’d expect to see fists fly. Well, not unless you count Eli getting murdered there by his girlfriend. But that was a long time ago. Bullet or blade, that wasn’t clear. Anyway, true or not, it’s a good backstory for a dive where you can check your conceits at the door and enjoy some cheap booze with a live soundtrack. If you’re solo, maybe plunge into a pity party. Maybe get up and dance if you lock eyes with a damsel-in-distress type who’s got the mojo, or helps you find yours.
I don’t recall who said so, or sang so — it might have been Willie Dixon or Buddy Guy — but I know what I heard: “Playin’ the blues don’t mean you’re sad; it just mean…
