PALM SPRINGS – So we’re doing a tiki crawl in this dusty, grassless prairie two hours from Los Angeles. In summer, it’s like living in a lava flow, but right now Palm Springs is as green as your chopped salad at Mr. Lyons, the luxe steak house everybody loves.
Tiki bars are a subset of dive bars. Ever been to a brand new one? No, because tiki bars were all built in the same year, 1945, to welcome home troops from jungle battlefronts. And Hawaii.
You can get a good drink in a tiki bar, mostly crushed ice, pineapple juice, 47 kinds of rum, some hope, some understanding, a spritz of salvation, all of it topped with a little sword stabbing a blood-red cherry thingy.
Very Biblical.
At the Bootlegger, the drinks are perfect. Across the booth, my daughter Rapunzel, and her brother/ sidekick, Smartacus.
As usual, I’ll be picking up the tab. My kids always offer to pitch in. But why did I work 45 years if not to be able to pick up a bar tab or two? It’s the ransom you pay for time with your adult kids.
My son Smartacus is back for spring break and now 21. This is his first tiki crawl. Might be my first tiki crawl. By rights, every American should do at least one tiki crawl.
Yes, we Ubered over, and poor Daniel the Driver had to overhear some story I shared with the kids about my recent lunch with Angie Dickinson. “What a tool this guy,” Daniel the Driver must’ve thought. But, trust me, he was hanging on every word.
I was telling them how, when Burt Bacharach was about to propose, Angie decided she needed to warn two key people in her life: her mother and her boyfriend.
I presume the second call went something like this: “Baby, just wanted to warn you. Burt’s taking me to Vegas this weekend. I think he’s going to propose. Hope that doesn’t affect our relationship in any negative permanent way. Yet, it might.”
Like a Roman candle, Angie used to light up Palm Springs. Back then, it was a swanky Rat Pack getaway, a mid-century playground.
Palm Springs is still a playground, though I’ve never found it very swanky. Now, it’s more for golfers and bachelorette parties.
Places evolve, is what I’m saying. That’s the only explanation for that giant Marilyn Monroe statue, the one where she is flouncing her petticoat over the subway grate. On a hot day, wouldn’t that feel refreshing?
Please note that, for thousands of years, sculptors carved statues from the finest granite or marble. Then California found a better way: aluminum. Coming soon: statues made of bacon.
Later, I warn my girlfriend that I might soon be marrying Angie Dickinson. Suzanne seems very relieved by this news, and wisely suggests I craft a pre-nup, so that Angie doesn’t claim anything of value I bring into the marriage.
“Like my Butkus jersey?” I ask.
“Um, yeah,” she says.
“Or my Emil Verban baseball card?”
“You get it.”
So, I draw up this pre-Angie pre-nup. Mostly, it protects my power tools and my self-help books, but also the many boxes of holiday decorations in the basement. It also protects the letter Shirley Jones (aka Mama Partridge) once sent me, with her lovely picture.
Back then, I was a pretty big deal, and The Times was still a very big deal. If I mentioned someone in a column, I often got a nice call or a courteous thank you note. Mel Brooks once invited me to lunch that way. After that, I was careful not to mention any more celebrities.
That’s how I met Angie Dickinson, by the way. Our first date was at Bob’s Big Boy in her hometown of Burbank, where there’s a statue as well.
Generally, California isn’t much for statues. It prefers bronze stars in sidewalks, so people and dogs can step all over you. That’s better than a big, elegant statue any old day.
Meanwhile, it’s raining goosebumps here in Palm Springs as we steam in a hot tub under a chill rain. I prefer hot tubs in bad weather – at ski resorts when it’s snowing, or in Palm Springs when icicles drop from the sky, exfoliating your skin. It’s just more romantic.
And suddenly I remember: In the pre-nup, I should mention that Smartacus gets super itchy sometimes and you have to scratch his shoulders for 2-3 minutes, till he quiets down and leaves you alone to watch the Dodgers on TV.
That’ll be an important codicil to this pre-nup. But it seems worth mentioning, in this funky desert town of lanky palm trees and fevered nights.
Such a place, Palm Springs. Really dig it.
Do you dig Vin Scully too? Check out “Perfect Eloquence,” a new collection of Scully tributes by Bob Costas, Orel Hershiser, David Halberstam, Joe Davis and many others (including me). Order it online or from your favorite bookstore.
Or, buy the book at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. Come hang with me at the Pages booth, #3050, where I’ll be signing copies of “Perfect Eloquence” with editor Tom Hoffarth. I’ll also sign “What the Bears Know,” the best-selling memoir of “Bear Whisperer” Steve Searles. That’s Saturday, April 20 at 2 p.m., at Booth 3050.
Please email any question to Letters@ChrisErskineLA.com
Great post … you’re still a wonderful read and the LA Times is a dim memory unfortunately …
Tiki bars are my fave kind of bar. I hope you warned Smartacus that tropical drinks go down all too easily…and often come back up all too quickly. Another delightful post! Tough choice between Angie and Suzanne, but I hope you stick with Suzanne. That way, you get to keep using “Silver Sidekick.” And we know how much you love that.
Great post, as usual. See you at the Festival of Books next weekend.
HI Carol. Looking forward to it.
Perfect Eloquence arrived yesterday!
Thank you! Cheers to Vin!
My wife ordered Perfect Eloquence for my 76th birthday. Breathlessly anticipating its arrival. Thank you for the recommendation!
Happy birthday. Hope you enjoy the Vinny book!
Heard you were in town. Shoulda called me for some recommendations on dumps and dives. Nineteen years at a downtown PS restaurant (it will remain nameless) I have a wealth of knowledge. Back in the 80s I worked at Alfredo’s right across the street from Lyon’s English Grill. Those poor servers wore crazy milkmaid outfits back then. One of my best jobs was at an Italian place owned by a celebrity. Only three women worked there and it was heaven! The Elbow Room on Arenas was the coolest after work. The Amigo Room, which is now a hipster Ace Hotel place was sublime at 1 am. And the ChiChi club! There is a cool place on the corner of Vista Chino and Gene Autry in a dumpy strip mall and the very upscale Bar Cecil that are must-gos. Come in the summer and really enjoy our hovels. You missed out, my friend.
I should’ve done more homework. But I’ll be back.
The Springs. Still magic. The main drag is still a star walk. With blocks of old movie stars, and “philanthropists” (they bought in) to walk on. They tore down the old cavernous auditorium locals like Sinatra et al used to do shows in, and built a six story hotel, the biggest thing around, and put in the park where the giant Marilyn now permanently cools her skirts. The hotel has a sheeshy lobby bar, but the best show in town is at its rooftop pool and bar, where you can lounge and sip whatever, and talk the state of Rock with a visiting British boy band, and from high above the town watch the sun die on the entire length of the massive San Jacinto flank steeply towering over things. Stay at the Alcazar (old twenties renewed black and white courtyard pool wrap around motel); or Korakia (moroccan gas flares, cottages, courtyard walk-in pools, silent movies on walls at night, etc. in a movie star’s old digs); both within an easy three minute walk to downtown and a large incredible museum you would never expect, More restaurants and bars than people, sometimes. No more Springs Follies, done by locally retired Vegas show girls et al ( just indescribably fabulous) at an old style theater that’s still there, downtown, but theres still plenty of flash under the palms for those that dig kitsch, Barbie, and the inevitable tee shirts and plastic—not me. I could go on. It is possible to still see the way it was here, in your mind…. Hot as hell the Summer, but magic Winter and Spring….and with Cakes and that willowy silvery along for the pool and the dip and the umbrella drinks…paradiso, mon amour.
I remember when you wrote in your column about Posh’s unexpected pregnancy, and how shocked everyone was. I think you wrote about the Lovely elder daughter being embarrassed. she was off to college? Now 21! How wonderful.
Amazing, right? Yes, the older daughter was 19 when he came along. Everyone was aghast.
“But why did I work 45 years if not to be able to pick up a bar tab or two? It’s the ransom you pay for time with your adult kids.” Love this! We were in the PS area same time as you, it appears, rain and all. We’ve not only picked up the bar tab but have paid for approximately five desert VRBO houses since the beginning of the pandemic for our Drysdale Party of Five. So worth every cent! We’d rather spend a few days with those peeps than fly to some exotic place and sit on a beach alone. Next stop, a June trip to Mammoth where I will know how to handle whatever bears come along, thanks to you and Steve!
Hi Donna. How lucky are we that our kids want to spend time with us, even if it costs us a few bucks now and then. Great to hear from you, as always.
From the Spring series Of The Time, now in progress…
The Ides Of April
There is a white mist mingling, unclear
In the grey early morning fog
Swirling in the air like fine ash
It is the color of burned paper
Its motes in tumbling piles of numbers
And inscrutable words ocean breeze
Has blown like rusty obscurity
Or time’s faulty dust—dim memory
Of green haze—into the ides of April;
This is an uncertain time of year
Winter dissolving into Spring’s lush bog
Of muddy delights, foliage rash
And fluidly profligate, a stir
Blaring in every silent blur
Of movement waking up Slumber’s freeze
Snow once held in thrall, the sanctity
Of ice shattered by fields of flowery
Explosions, color and chlorophyll
Drenching sight with Spring’s flooding light
Denying darkness, quickly quenching night;
Why then this blank lens getting in light’s way?
Could it be Winter’s risen one last say?
What else but its hoary ghost—tax day….
For many, “The Iceman Cometh”….and soon.
Each time I read you I remember Jack Smith.
I hear that a lot. Never knew him, except by reputation. He was beloved.
Jack Smith was my daily column feed once upon a time, and I loved it. He suffered from heart disease, and when he died, I cried. What followed was a column void until you came along. Then there was periodical writing that I could love again. Both of you were/are beloved.
I’m making a to-do list (sounds less final than “bucket list”) for my upcoming retirement. Now I can add “tiki crawl in Palm Springs.” Thank you!
Jenny, congrats! Hope you enjoy the tiki crawl!