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| - ok, so at the suggestion of Anandita N, I stopped in at Kay's place for a drink on the way home last Friday night, right before last call. I rolled in by myself, the place was still hopping, grabbed a seat between a guy that was leaned back against the bar sleeping, and some native american old timer who was about 3/4 of the way through what appeared to be a whiskey and coke served in a small 32oz plastic pitcher. I could sense out of the corner of my eye that he was staring at me for what seemed like a good solid five minutes after I sat down. I did not make eye contact.
The crowd was pretty ethnic if you will, I felt a bit uncomfortably white walking in there, but nobody seemed to mind or pay attention. Seemed to be about half the crowd was folks from the reservation, rounded out by mexican, some black guys, samoan/polynesian even. I was one of the handful of honkies there, which included on old biker dude, and two guys and a girl in their 20's or so. Most everybody was relaxed and all smiles, just having a good time playing pool and socializing as an assortment of Nightranger tunes played on the jukebox.
The decor was indeed pretty divey, wood veneer paneling on the walls (is wood veneer paneling even manufactured anymore?), christmas lights strung about here and there, the standard dive bar issue string O' promotional flags. The drop ceiling looked like it had been spraypainted christmas tree green. The best part of the bar IMO was what appeared to be a "karaoke corner". Imagine a corner wall mural of Monument Valley, done in the style of a black velvet Elvis painting, with glow in the dark neon colors. And a coyote howling at the moon. Truly an enchanting sight.
As far as knife fights and the propensity for violence to break out at any second, I didn't pick up on that last night. I was thirsty so I pretty much guzzled down my $3 Miller Chill without attempting to make any small talk. Headed out the door, and that was that.
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