#dive bars

I like the places I have been on this list:

Frolic Room, Hollywood

Frank ‘n Hank, Koreatown

Kibitz Room, Fairfax

Jumbo’s Clown Room, East Hollywood

Hinano Cafe, Marina Del Rey

New Jalisco Bar, Downtown

Monte Carlo Bar, Koreatown

Good Bar, Long Beach

Scarlet Lady Saloon, Culver City

Boyle Heights Bar, Boyle Heights

Copper Bucket, Reseda

The 626 Bar, South El Monte

Sam Cooke -- the Best of Sam Cooke

Man, I love this record sooooo much. I used to listen to it all the time. I remember the first time I really listened to Sam Cooke was at this bar in Oakland called Biggum's Silver Lion. It one of those neighborhood bars that had been there forever, was a fixture of the North Oakland black community. An Oakland detective would come there after work, and I swear to God he actually wore a fedora. There was a guy who would drunkenly mumble things to himself, and occasionally he would say something that spoke to our lives so poignantly we thought he might be a genius. My favorite was, 'if you have a good thing, don't fuck it up.'

When I started going there it was being run by the original owner's son and his mother. Eventually, it started being a punk bar, then kind of becoming a hang out for a local motorcycle club and other people who loved doing cocaine. It stopped being fun (for me, anyway). The last day it was open, a bunch of people essentially destroyed it--tore out the sink and urinal, punched holes in the wall, that sort of shit. A lame end to a fun place.

Anyway, when we first started going there the jukebox was fun of the original owners' favorite music--Johnny Taylor, Al Green, Aretha Franklin, and, of course, Sam Cooke. We would have dance parties. 'Bring it on Home to Me' was often selected, and it still makes feel feel like I've fallen in love for the first time.