Rancho Bar – Growing up in Altadena and having an inexplicable, inborn adoration for any divey, Western, brown and yellow, lost-soul-America thing on earth, I loved the Rancho Bar long before I ever walked in. When I was finally legally able to go there, I loved what I love about all dive bars. They’re the same thing as diners. There’s a bunch of crap all over the walls, there’s a human history, there are people who’d never see each other in the “real” world momentarily sharing space and time. Also, there’s that dive bar dream of crazy-big drinks for very low prices, which is dangerous but feels necessary. I moved to Portland, OR for college and lived there for almost 15 years, and for almost 15 years I had a broken heart for California. I had (I’ll always have) a broken heart for a lot of things, including a handsome old man who sat at the bars I tended up there and told me I was beautiful, told me about his broken heart. He had a daughter who lived in LA, and one time when he visited her he took the time to drive to Altadena and drink Corona in my favorite bar on earth. That was proof to me of some kind of real love. | 2020 |