Pink Elephant

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The Russian River resort town of Monte Rio is the only place I know of where seeing a Pink Elephant doesn’t necessarily mean you’re drunk. Of course, considering that the Pink Elephant is one of the North Bay’s preeminent dive bars, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re sober, either.

Monte Rio is a depressed Northern California town of 900 where the forest is so thick that some streetlights stay on all day long. In the 1930’s it was a small but popular tourist spot, one Monte Rio hotel is listed in Ripley’s Believe It or Not, as each floor was a ground level floor, but the hotel had seven floors. The Pink Elephant was built sometime around 1937, today it’s the town’s only landmark, although do a Google Search for the Bohemian Grove and you’ll find that just up the forest from this bar is the meeting place for a private society (The Bohemian Club) consisting of some of the most powerful men in the world ….but that’s a different story altogether, …back at the bar…

The appeal of “the Pink” extends to a suprisingly large line of Pink Elephant merchandise (thongs and tote bags, no joke) and even a slogan: “All roads lead to the Pink.” This is hilarious, because this bar is literally a semicircular corrugated-metal inverted halfpipe smack in the middle of “Heroin Hill” – the part of Monte Rio on the other side of the river. The locals are missing teeth and the bartenders are rough around the edges, but the drinks are stiff and the camp appeal is magnetic. The bathrooms are two wooden outhouses, inside the bar. During one storm the back storage room broke off and fell into the creek, creating a brief moment of sobriety for patrons inside. The decor; a painting of a scantily clad, large breasted bartender that is behind the stage, and a similarily adorned woman dancing with a bear in front, and one of an elephant chasing a man with a beer through the jungle are from the forties and were made as donations in exchange for a large bar tab which couldn’t be paid. As small as it is, it attracted some of the most famous San Francisco bands including the Grateful Dead. Not on the beaten path, unless you’re driving the river area, but if so, you can’t miss it, especially at night.

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Earl Warren Showgrounds

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It seems that my interest in the events at the Earl Warren Showgrounds pattern closely a Titan weather report. For those not in the NASA circle, about every 15 years there is a change…quite similar to how I viewed the showgrounds.It began for me as a concert venue, in the days of black lights, bell bottoms, recreational drugs [alledgedly]. I was only in my first year of Junior High, but thankfully my friend had an older sister and we got to join in on many an adventure I probably would have missed otherwise. From the Greasy Slough Duck Club, the Trout Club, and the Earl Warren showgrounds.

So the Titan weather report calls for rock concerts; Led Zepplin, Cream, Blind Faith, and a list of others that I can’t recall. I don’t know why the concerts stopped, or maybe I did and they didn’t. But it just seemed like the music got smaller, and moved to the Santa Barbara County Bowl, the Arlington Theater, anywhere other than Earl Warren.

Titan weather report [15 years later] – not exactly ‘yee haw’, ‘howdy pardner’, but life in Sonoma County had put California country into me. Boots, cowboy hats and a haircut. Not just a haircut, the first one in about 9 years. Visiting Santa Barbara every so often, I’d actually check out the rodeo held in the summer. Who’d believe that 15 years later my boot would be side stepping a pile of horse manure in the same spot where I’d been frozen in a daze, standing under a stack of Marshall speakers watching Jimmy Page or Eric Clapton perform guitar magic.

Titan weather report [15 years later] – Off track betting on the horse races. It’s really not a part of the showgrounds, but operates on the showground property. Doesn’t matter to me though, it serves my purpose. Now the marquee usually seems to be advertising a dog show, cat show or flower show. Doesn’t matter to me. As long as I can place a wager if I need to, then I’m happy. Of course, there is no substitute for actually being at the track, especially down along the rail, but in an emergency, when you know you’ve got a winner and you need to drop some green, you’re in Santa Barbara…all roads point to the entrance off Las Positas.

Little Superstar

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We’ve lost James Brown and we’re not sure exactly sure what, where, or when it all went wrong regarding Michael Jackson, but it appears the void they have created has finally been filled.

It comes in a small package and surprisingly from afar, India to be exact. The little guy’s stage name is Thavakalai (Tamil for “frog”), an adult Indian actor who made his acting debut back in 1983, and usually playing the role of a child. At first I was quite impressed after watching the video, but soon found it to be a bit disturbing. I can’t quite describe how or why, but the more I watch it, the more weird it all is to me. Oh well, live with it…got to hand it to the country, if you have a question and use the telephone to ask it – you’re probably speaking to someone who lives there. Tech support, customer support, medical transcribing, data processing, they do it all. Move over Hollywood, I expect that a country with over 1 billion people will produce a lot more little superstars?


Viva La Fiasco!

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Fiesta – Old Spanish Days

In the year 1924, two circumstances motivated the first Fiesta. First there had for some time been a feeling among the business people of the city that Santa Barbara should have an annual summer event to entertain and attract visitors. The city had come to be a favorite place for winter tourists, but these visitors had not been drawn here in any considerable number during the summer months.

Secondly, in August of 1924, the Community Arts Association of Santa Barbara planned the opening of the new Lobero Theatre, which had been erected on the site of the old historic theatre founded by Josx (Giuseppe) Lobero and built by the assistance of Col. Wm. Hollister. A member of the Community Arts Association, J. Wm. McLennen, conceived the idea of having a celebration to mark the opening of the new theatre. He approached a merchants’ association and a committee was formed of which Charles E. Pressley was elected chairman. The group began to formulate plans for the celebration, to be comprised of a number of activities to include a parade, aquatic and sports events and, of course, a gala celebration at the theatre on its opening night.

1924 — The First Historical Parade

1926 — La Fiesta Pequeña

1934 — Noches De Ronda Santa Barbara County Courthouse Garden  

1936 — La Misa Del Presidente

1949 — El Mercado

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With it’s history in place, the Fiesta for me represented nearly a week of eating good Mexican food, drinking a lot of beer, and watching the fiesta goers from one of the best vantage points.

My friend Arturo was the son and nephew of the owners of two of Santa Barbara’s finest restaurants. The El Paseo restaurant, one of the two, was located in the historic El Paseo, in the center of downtown. The main section was an open air plaza with a balcony that housed a couple offices, the important one being a local modeling agency. Second only to the beautiful girls entering and exiting the agency was that the balcony served as a comfortable bird’s eye view for fiesta goer’s down below. By early evening the plaza was standing room only.

Papagallo’s has closed, the tortas sold at the El Mercado don’t seem to taste the same, and dancing to a mariachi band under a string of lights on a side street corner can no longer be found.

Puerto Nuevo

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Well he wasn’t dressed like this, and this isn’t really him anyway. But the moral of the story is that every town has it’s hero(s), and this one resides south of the border in the lobster town of Puerto Nuevo… Six of us had rented a three story, three bedroom condo on the ocean and had walked into town to a market to stock our refrigerator for the night. When Dan had paid for his bag of beer, a roll of bills he was carrying, in addition to what he had in his wallet, fell out of his pants pocket. We’d walked about 10 feet out of the market when we realized that someone was calling at us to stop. A young kid had picked up the roll of bills and was trying to return it to Dan. Dan thanked him and rewarded him with one or two twenty’s and explained there was over a thousand dollars in the roll. On the walk back to the condo we stopped into a bar to celebrate Dan’s good fortune and then to spend his small fortune on rounds of drinks and requests to a 7-piece Mariachi Band at $20 a song. Off comes another layer of Andrew Jackson’s image as the band starts playing Feliz Navidad for the third time. Yes it’s only August, but we really didn’t know too many songs to request to these guys.