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West Hollywood, California
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When I was an angry teenager growing up in Sudbury, I was a big Doors fan. I read and re-read the Jim Morrison biography "No One Here Gets Out Alive". That book has everything a pissed-off disenfranchised youth needs. Sex, drugs, rock and roll, danger, poetry, anger, lust, The Oedipus Complex, mayhem, motels, money, murder and madness. And, as the wind pounded on my bedroom window with the fist of an angry God, I read about such exotic locales as the Alta-Cienega Motel,
The Whisky-A-Gogo, Venice Beach and Barney's Beanery. Tucked away on Hollaway Street, Barney's is a restaurant with a bar and a couple of pool tables but there is so much more. The history, the mystery and the truth of this place is as rich and varied as the clientele - cops and criminals, firemen and rock stars, drunks and kings, the foolish and the wise. Everyone who'd like a six dollar breakfast or a $125 breakfast (a foot long hot dog and a bottle of Dom Perignon). All are welcome. Throughout the years, it has played host to Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin and Slash from GNR. Since they are all well-known substance abusers, I'm sure they were regulars elsewhere, but the Beanery was on the stop list. I personally saw Christopher Walken eating chicken and Bruce Springsteen eating a cheeseburger. Not together and not on the same day, but still. Since my name isn't Zagat, I won't go into the menu/prices/quality rap. I will tell you that the hot-dogs are gigantic and the beer list is staggering. It is the atmosphere that I dig. The wait staff is as eclectic as the toppings list. They range in look from angelic runaways to spiritual gurus. Not an actor in the bunch. There is a tremendous amount of yelling in the kitchen, but everything usually comes out fine. The bar is long and well stocked with booze and boozers. It boasts the second best chili in LA. The Best is at The Magic Castle, but you may have to eat your chili with an older effeminate man in a tuxedo producing the Jack of Clubs from his fly three feet from you. Me? I'd go Barney's. It is not without controversy. A sign above the door once read "No Fags Allowed". Since the Beanery is located in West Hollywood, the San Francisco of Los Angeles, the sign didn't go over well with the local gentry. In a ceremony attended by the mayor of West Hollywood, the sign was taken down. I've been there with friends; I've been there alone. Sometimes meal number one, sometimes meal number last. I got drunk there with Norm Macdonald. I once told a girl I loved her there. She said "Thank you". I've always felt at home, and I've always come back.  "Barney's Beanery" by Judith Daniels |
