I've met these types, at foreign correspondent dinners, and at the BEA. The types who imagine all writers must be unwashed because they themselves are.

Really, it's OK. Such quotes demonstrate nothing at all, except perchance where the troglodyte making such a comment hails from: in this case, the land of chips and plainwrap booze.

When I was at UPI in the 70's and early 80's, we frequented the Redwood, a less-than-elegant joint up the street from the Times. When I moved to the Daily News in 1985, the most convenient bar was in a American Legion hall attached to the old building in Van Nuys. I spent a lot of Friday nights there with the rest of the staff, including Beth and Rick. That was far from fancy. "Chips and plain-wrap booze" was a joke about a lovable group more fond of dives than the Sky Bar. Had we hired Wolfgang Puck to cater the mayor's party, we probably would have been criticized for being too extravagant. Cheers.

As I remember the American Legion hall, even chips would have been extravagant. As a general rule, the less said about the Redwood the better!

OK, Kevin wants nothing said of the Redwood. Let's ignore that request...

~~~

I always liked the Redwood, especially the barflies and the Writers Hopelessly Past Deadline (not at all the same as the Writers Hopelessly Past Peak). I drove by it the other day and almost popped in.

In the late eighties, there was one bartender, a former merchant marine, who used to also tend bar at Milano's here in Los Feliz one day a week (a place so bad that another bartender once said of it to me, "That place was so bad I wouldn't even go to the place that replaced it.") I can't remember his name but I want to say Mickey.

Anyway, Mickey was always running off to the Sierras to hike and especially fish. If you went up to the Sierras via Yosemite or Sequoia, you were OK. If you went via Bishop/Mammoth, you were one of those "eastern Sierra guys." Vurrrry suspect, those eastern Sierra guys. Scheiss--I was one of them myself, and took a lot of heat for it.

A few times I popped in on Mickey here at Milano's. Shudder--the exact same crowd as at the Redwood, day after day downtown.

~~~

One additional guy at Milano's, who was blind, who would routinely fall off his chair drunk. And then when we would prop him up, and he would beam, "Did you SEE that, huh? God, I wish I could have SEEN that myself!"

Mickey would call him a cab. While he waited, the blind guy would pantomine himself in the cab. "You've got to turn right here, RIGHT HERE, I feel it...No, g-d-it, too effing far, you're on effing LAS PALMAS, I can feel it...hey, you're SCREWING me...I said seven bucks, that's all I'm paying..."

Oh my God. I haven't thought of that in a dozen years.

~~~

One guy at the Redwood, Al, was also busted one week, by a rookie cop. The cop came to his door and asked him to come along.

Al thought he'd have some fun. He said, "OK, hold on a minute, I'd like to get out of this shirt."

The rook says, "OK."

A minute later, Al comes back with a rifle pulled on the cop, and asks him to put his hands up.

"Thanks," Al said. "Are you ever going to do that again in your life?"

"No sir," the rook said, after Al put his rifle down and put up his hands to be cuffed.

~~~

Al sensibly drinks at the Rustic now, like the rest of us who don't want to talk about either Milano's or the Redwood.