Recently rooted in a new neighborhood, I found myself bored on a Thursday night. Instead of attending to the cardboard boxes stacked and scattered around my new home, I pulled up a map, like some old-school navigator, to see what life could be found around me. Little red dots quickly filled my screen and alerted me to all the adventure to be had now that I was displaced from the suburbs and now in the heart of the Mile High City. After a few scrolls and zoom pinches, I landed on the “Skylark Lounge”. It was “Western Wednesday” and they’d have a live band playing in the “Bobcat Club”. Eight o’clock. “Show starts at 9, I’ve got time”, I thought as I threw on my red cowboy boots for the impromptu “Western Wednesday”. I did a quick glam and left my new home to find me one of those fated lime green scooters that would be my wild mustang for the night. I’m sure I was a sight to see as I rode my “horse” in my red “shit-kickers” and white dress to the local watering hole. I think my Denver ancestors would be proud. The “Skylark Lounge” is a corner bar that looks like it got helicopter-dropped from a mountain town. It’s a simple and sturdy sanctuary that’s been serving Denver’s workers since 1948. I first went to the “Skylark Lounge” when I was freshly twenty-one. Then, it was a dive with potholes in the white and black checkered floors that you had to dodge as you looped around the pool tables. The pours were heavy, the lighting was questionable, and the jukebox was from the 50s. It was a “shit-hole”, and I loved it. “The band will be upstairs in the ‘Bobcat Club’”, the bartender said as he poured the night’s special, The Deep Eddy Pink Drink. As the fountain gun sprayed, I took in the room, comparing and contrasting my memory with present day reality. Everything looked much the same, but with much needed cleaning and improvements. “They got rid of all the pool tables”, I said to the bartender in a disappointed tone. “Yeah, you’d only know that if you’d been here before Nathanial bought this place and renovated”, he said while he garnished my drink. Nathaniel Radcliff is a local Denver “celebrity” of sorts who shot up the Billboard charts with his song “SOB” . I always thought the song was a little overrated, but I could appreciate Denver being put on the map for a couple weeks. He bought the bar in 2021 and since then the joint has been improved for the better and it is transitioning into a concert venue of sorts. Hence, the selling of the big bodied pool tables. I paid my tab and as I made my way to the stairwell I saw a divine presence. There, serving as a headstone for the wood horseshoe bar, was “Superstition Land of Thorn” by Mark Maggiori. I stood spellbound with my little pink drink in hand. It served as a divine message, a reminder that good and beautiful things come to you when you ignore the sensible bedtimes and instead live by the reminder, “You’ll sleep when you’re dead”. I climbed the narrow stairs to find a half-circle wood bar illuminated by pink neon light with a taxidermied bobcat perched above. The pink light complemented the bobcat mural that was on the opposing wall. The black and white checkered tiles glowed in pink and led to the corner stage where the band would play. It was a small gig in the attic of a bar and the collection of people depicted that. There were middle aged couples obviously on a weekday date night (dressed in Western Wear for the “Western Wednesday”), modern day hipsters with shag haircuts, bolo ties, and patch work tattoos. And blue collar workers still in their HVSA and steel toed boots.
I sat at the bar thrown amongst the variety and ordered my second single. “What’s that you’re drinkin’?”, I heard a dainty and cheerful voice ask. “I don’t know really, it’s pink and it’s cheap”, I joked. She laughed and copied my order as we struck up conversation as bar stool companions do. Her name was Jennifer. She was the girlfriend of one of the band’s lead singers. She wore a cotton yellow a-line dress with brown thigh-high suede boots. We “cheer-ed” our pink drinks while we chatted under the fluorescent pink bar light. It was nice to have a girlfriend for the night. As backgrounds and lore were exchanged she shared that she had recently moved from Durango. She had owned a boutique lingerie shop and erotic novelty shop down there. The disclosure fascinated me and I thought, “I know an adventurous soul when I see one”. Our conversation twisted and turned as we spun on our bar stools. We talked about professions, children, camping, music, lingerie, life philosophy, and me trying to convince her to try out burlesque. Our conversation only took a halt when her boyfriend came onto the stage. And from there, we just grooved and enjoyed the beauty of live music in a beautiful space. After their 45 minute set, Jennifer’s boyfriend Nicholas came and met us. He quickly kissed her and said, “Well from where I was it looked like y’all were having some fun”. He was right. He was quickly crowded by fans only to again emerge from the crowd with a closed fist. “Look what someone gave me as a ‘thank you’”, he said giggling. He opened his hand and there layed a psychedelic surprise. To which, Jennifer quickly yet delicately claimed as her own. She then turned to me and said, “I have to offer one to my pink lady friend”. I smiled, but declined. I’ve never been into drugs; blame it on my Catholic guilt or my firm knowledge in my addictive lineage and tendencies. Jennifer, without hesitation, put one of them in her purse and downed the other with a swig of her “Deep Eddy” pink drink and then took a hit from her banana color vape. A tornado of influences, a hurricane, a torrent tipping the scales of the blood stream. She was out to have a good time. She obviously didn’t have to work the next day or maybe being hungover is doable when you're a “budtender”. I, being a teacher, know that is never an option. We then made our way back down stairs for the band’s smoke break. I bummed a Camel off Nicholas, not my preferred cig, but it hit like jet fuel as it was my first cigarette in months. Each time I smoke a cig I feel like I am encountering my secret and forbidden lover as I am limited in my time and exposure to him because of the grim reaper that lurks watching across the room. Therefore, when I get my hands on my lover, I soak in each moment. Bask. And allow myself to be swallowed up in the smoke and ashes. This love affair is so intense, that buying my own cigs is strictly forbidden. The only ones I take are the ones that I am offered in the circles outside of dive bars. These are where the best convos are had as life turns into an even playing field of smoke and ashes. Life feels less serious as we chat and breathe in promised death between laughs. While dancing in the ashes, a new friend joined the circle asking to bum a lighter. Jennifer reached her hand into Nicholas’s pocket and pulled out his bright orange bic lighter. She handed it to the pink-stripped stranger as I said, “I think you just wanted an excuse to reach into his pocket”. She smiled and said, “You’ve only known me for an hour and you know me so well”. The pink-stripped stranger introduced himself as Matt in a horse tranquilized voice. He said, “I’ve been walking by this place every night and just wanted to get on stage for some karaoke, but my voice isn't working tonight”. We sympathized and understood as the smoking circle expanded to draw him in. He was an interesting looking man: as skinny as six o’clock, with blonde loose curls that looked equally disheveled yet cherubic…a young Gene Wilder. His face asymmetrical with heavy eyes burdened with whatever substance that dragged the rest of his body in the Bobcat Club. “Hey, what’s that stone you have around your neck?”Jennifer excitedly asked as she turned the entire circle’s attention to the newest member’s vulnerable neck. He was wearing a leather tethered stone that hung closely to the base of his neck, perfectly resting between his unbuttoned pink collar. The stone was harsh, unpolished, and looked to be a geode. Smiling, he took it into the tips of his fingers with both hands as he mumbled over his words. We all nodded, pretending to understand his mumbling which could have very well been some ancient spell or some story of how he bought it at the Renaissance festival. Jennifer broke the spell and subsequent deafening silence and said, “Well, I carry around a piece of moldavite with me wherever I go” as she took out this small leather drawstring bag that you typically find in a mountain town gift shop. My jaw dropped, not because she is carrying a random rock around with her (as a fellow rock lover…I too do this), but because moldavite is said to cause transformation in the life of the beholder…and this Colorado hippie is just haphazardly walks around with it in her little leather satchel. “Does anyone want to hold it?!”, she asked as she pinched the coal green rock and held it under the neon light of the bar signs. Without hesitation, I placed my hand into the middle of the circle as if I were about to lead us in a pre-game huddle cheer. She then dropped the rock into my open palm while my half-burnt cigarette rested between my two fingers. I didn’t feel a bolt of lightning nor a change of heart, but I do believe that magic was there. The rock of transformation passed around the smoking circle until it reached our pink-stripped eccentric friend who took it and whispered into the moldavite’s metaphorical ear. If any transformation comes, I am sure that it will come for him. “Can I bum another cig?”, this time asking Jennifer. This one was a Newport, better tasting but lacked the nicotine punch as it was my second. “I better get going soon”. I said as I dragged on my second bummed cigarette. “Why?! We’ve just got started. There is a whole other band coming on.”, Jennifer said in a cute kind of begging way. “It’s almost midnight. I’ve got children waiting on me in the morning.” I said, trying to convince my own self that I needed to be responsible and not push my luck with the fun. The smoking circle collectively shook their heads remembering that I was the sole teacher in the group of full time artists, budtenders, and vagabonds. “But before I go, there is one more thing I wana do”, I said half-jokingly. “What’s that?”, Jennifer asked. We killed our Newports and paid our five dollars to hop in the contortion box called a photobooth. We posed like models and burlesque stars for our beloved five frames, each time waiting for the flash. And flash. Our strip printed. We took it to show it proudly to the smoking circle and then they waved me off as I boarded my mighty steed, the lime scooter. I rode home thankful to have answered the call to encounter life and encounter the other. I could have stayed home, felt bored and lonely and hunkered down in my bed with a Netflix special, but I chose to be bold. To put myself out there and to be unafraid what life could throw at me…to be unafraid to live. And by making that choice, I met such wonderful and welcoming people, I got to see one of my favorite artist’s pieces in real life, and I got to be a silly little girl in my red cowboy boots spinning on a bar stool with a new friend.
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AuthorBrianna is a proud native of West Denver and she is an avid admirer of the arts. Her admiration of the arts is centered around her draw toward the beautiful and good of everyday life. Brianna finds beauty in a well-worn book, in the eclectic colors and textures of a thrift store find, and in the sound of a killer guitar solo whether it be live or through a well thought out Spotify playlist. Her passions are varied and many, but they all center on appreciating the fullness of life. Archives
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