You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy™
Louisville.
It’s a city better known for baseball bats and the birthplace of Muhammad Ali than thriving night life.
It’s Saturday night, around the bewitching hour and I find myself in this Central Kentucky city.
It’s clean and green and full of possibilities.
But somehow there is more in the air here than Autumn.
It’s a strange, almost imperceptible vibe.
Like a cat whose whiskers feel the sides of a narrow space, I sense something awry. I decide quickly that this city is caught somewhere between the Twilight Zone and Saturday Night Fever.
We hail a Yellow cab on 1st street.
Unlike the recalcitrant bastards in Nashville, the cab arrives 10 minutes early. That’s a surprise.
Muhammad is a cab driver, from North Africa. He has a big smile for us.
We climb in, beers in hand.
“Where to?” he says with a discernible accent that is very understandable, his voice dancing with aspects of the King’s English.
He tells us he has been here 17 years, but doesn’t want to reveal too much more.
My friend presses him for more information about him, his country, his secret wants and desires? Does he miss the sand?
He will only say he likes the USA.
I secretly think he is in the North African version of the witness protection program.
As I take a swig of my beer in the back seat, the piercing eyes of Muhammad lock in on me.
“You cannot drink beer in cab,” he says as if I am camel that has left the pen.
I just figure Louisville is like Vegas.
NOT.
“Oh. Sorry. Can we drink them on the streets downtown?”
“No it is illegal in Louisville. They will cite you,” he says with all the knowledge of a city inspector.
He pulls over on a dark street and we drop our beers in a garbage can.
It seems like such a waste. What’s the harm Muhammad? You want a tip or you want to enforce the laws of Louisville all night.
He drops us off at a downtown location known as 4th street live.
It’s sandwiched between West Liberty and East Muhammad Ali Blvd.
It’s 2 blocks in the heart of Louisville, closed to traffic. It is covered by a glass roof and bordered by restaurants and bars like the Hard Rock Café and Makers Mark restaurant. But there are also businesses that make me wonder.
I look up above a sports bar and the neon blares out: FOOD COURT.
Is this a party destination or a strip mall?
In theory, 4th Street live is a great idea. It’s a pedestrian friendly zone where alcohol flows freely and citizens can stroll from bar to bar.
If 4th street live was in another city, this would be a home run. In Vegas, it would reek of sex appeal. If this was Los Angeles, it would be trendy and hip. If this was Louisville? Well, it would be UNSOPHISTICATED.
I look around the zone. I get the overwhelming feeling that I was here before, in another life, perhaps in 1999 when I was looking for a lawn mower at a swap meet.
It feels like a socially inept crime scene, like a time warp, where they check your I.D. to enter a public street.
I hand over my i.d.
“thanks,” the woman says hardly noticing it like this is a training ground for the TSA.
“What the hell was that for?,” I muse aloud.
Every bar we go to will ask for my i.d.
Are they checking to see what decade I’m from?
I inhale the ambience of the moment.
There are bright lights cascading down like pulsing rainbows. There is loud music pulsing like a beacon in the night.
I keep looking for Michael J Fox to arrive in a silver DeLorean.
4th Street Live is open for business, but something is off. Something doesn’t feel hip, it doesn’t feel cool.
It feels one part 1999 and one part truck stop.
I watch people mill about. They are goofy, from another time, from another dimension.
The clothing is swap meet chic. I’m having a flash back, as if I’m suddenly at a tractor pull in Pocatello, Idaho 1988.
I see big hair girls sporting stretch pants and blue eye shadow. It’s as if these women got dressed watching a Facts of Life VHS.
I see guys wearing rumpled t shirts as if their shift at Jiffy Lube just ended.
A group of men walk past me showcasing beer guts. When was that ever a good look, dude?
Another group of young men are sporting plaid and denim as if they just left a Pearl Jam show.
The apparel is vintage I-65 truck stop, with a little Sandusky Ohio thrown in for good measure.
We buy a beer and walk to the end of the zone. 2 blocks takes us all of two sips.
The zone is marked by cones and guarded by a security agent.
“I feel like a trapped animal,” my friend says with a smile.
We walk back to the center of the complex.
That takes another sip of beer.
Not much here I think to myself.
I look up. There is a huge TV screen hanging from the roof.
UCLA vs Cal is playing.
I stop to watch.
We sip our beers and let our eyes digest the crazy vibe that is now forced on us, funneled into our ears, channeled into our souls.
I feel like the crazy guy in NYC wearing the tin foil hat who is talking telepathically to aliens.
The vibe of Louisville is that foreign to me I feel like this could be the beginning of an alien abduction sequence and I am about to be probed.
“Let’s go in there,” my friend says.
Good idea, I think to myself.
I don’t want to get probed by aliens out here in the open.
We enter a piano bar called Howl at the Moon.
It’s packed, full of energy. But everything is just off.
The swap meet crowd is also in this bar.
There are a group of truck stop girls wearing bright pink T-shirts.
The words on their collective saggy chest says: Team Bride.
OMG
It’s like a bunch of waitresses from the Waffel House left their Mary K Party and decided to do shots at a piano bar.
I look at the stage and listen to songs that sound vaguely familiar.
Two pianos are face to face. The performers sing into microphones facing one another. There are tip jars full of cash and song requests. There is a mirror behind the players. People have written funny slogans on the glass, like so and so is getting married, “better learn to swallow.”
HUH?
Only in Louisville, right?
Howl at the moon is a good idea. The premise is simple, take requests, sing popular songs, spice them up and have fun with the crowd.
The songs should sound like the songs, but they should be piano-esque.
It’s a piano bar. If you need more instruments, get more pianos.
This group has lost that idea. They decided we are a piano bar so let’s get a bass player, a drummer, and another guitar player.
It’s like dueling pianos with a back up band.
It’s not that they sound bad, it’s just that it’s OFF. Everything about this place is a tick tock behind the life I left the moment I entered the 502 area code.
We leave the Moon and go to another night spot called Sully’s.
It’s thumping pretty good.
“That’ll be $10.00,” the woman at the front door says.
I look inside the bar, at a myriad of zombies lost in space, dancing to a DJ who is dropping the F bomb like crazy.
I look back at the change girl. I think she’s joking.
“$10.00!” she says again. “cover to get in.”
I look around for a Metro Fraud Detective since I feel like I’m getting ripped off.
As I hand her the ten, I try and figure out what this ten is worth in 1999 currency.
We go inside. The music is contemporary, with a driving beat.
The bar is long and well stocked with liquors.
A female bartender looks at me. Instead of taking my drink order, she turns to a male bartender and starts dirty dancing with him.
Really?
I watch this 1980’s exhibition half expecting to see Patrick Swazy pop out of the woodwork.
What is wrong with 4th street live? I think to myself.
Is something in the water? Is something in the air?
I order a couple of drinks and smile.
Suddenly, surprisingly, a hundred napkins rain down from the ceiling.
Yes, I just wrote that.
100 napkins, bright and white and sailing through the air, like a ticker tape parade at Target.
Where did they come from? How did they explode into the air above me?
None of these questions will ever be answered.
It’s 1999 and the night is filled with bar napkins.
It’s like New Years Eve at Wal Mart.
It’s exciting and unexpected but also problematic.
I look at the wait staff. Nobody blinks. Nobody cares that 100 napkins are on the ground. I think it’s a bad idea. They think it’s a reason to grind on each other in a dirty dance.
I sip my drink and watch as big girls tucked into tight skirts walk across the floor. Their stiletto heals like lawn darts stick the napkins.
Suddenly white napkins are stuck to heels all across the bar.
It’s truck stop couture at its worse.
Everywhere I look, neon white napkins are being dragged around.
It’s so apropos for 4th Street Live where everyone is trying to be so cool, but sadly don’t realize they part of an alien abduction to be probed and cloned.
I laugh out loud. It looks like a scene from the Breakfast club where the vice principal comes out of the bathroom with toilet paper stuck inside his under pants.
Girls trying to be so sexy walking around with soiled napkins stuck to them.
It’s one of the great conflicts in imagery of all time.
It’s a lace teddy being worn on a 200 pound woman.
You want to look away, but how can you?
I watch as one girl notices the napkin stuck to her shoe.
She tries using one foot to pry the wet paper product from one foot using her other foot. But the napkin just sticks to her other shoe. Like a bad Abbott and Costello movie she transfers the napkin back and forth from heel to heel.
Hilarious.
Finally she reaches down and pries it off her shoe with her hand.
Now she is holding the napkin with her fingers and she seems disgusted. She throws it back on the ground.
She seems satisfied.
Then she takes a step away from the bar and unknown to her, another napkin sticks to her heel.
She walks to the bathroom.
She looks ridiculous, paper napkin flapping in the breeze behind her.
She reminds me of my bike in 6th grade with the baseball cards stuck inside the spokes.
Don’t get me wrong.
The 502 was a blast.
Next time I’m here I’ll bring my disco pants and big hair.
Life’s crazy™