‘Nothing to it,’ I said. ‘Just rear back and relate.’ : Drinking With the Fat Lady

There is a show biz saloon in Studio City called Residuals that advertises itself as a “conversation bar populated with bright, amusing, interesting people.”

Residuals purports to especially attract those in the entertainment industry, both because of its proximity to Universal Studios and because its owners include actors and writers.

They sit around, we are led to believe, sipping California Coolers and chatting about life in a manner that would have left Dorothy Parker speechless with admiration.

So.

As I may have mentioned before, I wander occasionally along the fringes of show biz by free-lancing for television whenever the wolf, always at the door, threatens to smash in a window.

I write, they pay and all God’s children stay solvent.

As I also may have mentioned, I am not adverse to stopping at a friendly cocktail lounge for a little something after work, though I will die in hell before I will either drink a wine cooler or chat. I just don’t chat.

Nevertheless, both the aforementioned interests naturally piqued my curiosity when someone handed me a yellow flyer advertising Residuals.

It intrigued me because I have been going to bars for about 30 years and I can’t recall ever having heard conversation that was either remotely bright or interesting.

Some of it seemed amusing at the time, I guess, but, when you’ve got about three martinis under your belt, anything seems amusing.

I was therefore anticipating another first in my life when I bellied up to the bar at Residuals. I should have known better.

It has been my experience that actors and writers, especially the latter, don’t really have a hell of a lot to say.

Actors, at least, can recite lines from scripts or talk about their bodies, beyond which their thought processes short-circuit, but writers generally can’t even recall what they’ve written and sure as hell don’t have bodies worth talking about.

Another reason not to drink with writers is that they are such a dreary lot, generally on the brink of either dementia or remarriage, neither of which is bound to lift their spirits.

Which brings me to Residuals. I was there the other night in search of witty repartee when the guy next to me, who was slightly awash if you know what I mean, said, “Hey.”

I said, “Yeah?”

He said, “Hey.”

“What?”

“You know me?” he asked.

I looked at him.

“No,” I said and turned away.

I sipped at my drink. The poor wretch said nothing for a while and then:

“Hey.”

“Yeah?”

“Hey.”

“For God’s sake, man, what?”

“I have a hard time...” He paused, trying to remember the word, then, remembering: “...relating.”

“Nothing to it,” I said. “Just rear back and relate.”

I was about to turn my back on him, but on the other side of me was a fat lady, which recalled the warning of my late stepdaddy never to drink with a fat lady. It had to do with capacity. Brave men have perished trying to drink a fat lady under the table.

So I turned back to the poor wretch.

I learned to my dismay that the man was a writer and that NBC had just rejected his idea for a movie of the week.

I knew I was in for an evening of tears and rage.

It was a warm, wholesome story, he explained in great anguish, about an Indian woman who entertained with puppets in a children’s library.

I know how much writers hate warm and wholesome, so it must have been a great emotional ordeal for him to have suggested a movie on the subject in the first place.

“You give ‘em warm and you give ‘em wholesome and what the hell do they do?” he demanded. “They shove it in your kazoo!”

“It’s a bad year for poets,” I said.

“I met with the guy four times,” he said, referring to the network movie person. “I could see right away there was no light in his eyes, if you know what I mean. He says, ‘Think woman. Think warm. Think wholesome.’

“So I come up with the Indian broad. I figure, Hey, a warm, wholesome Indian broad, a Ute maybe, ought to be a winner!”

“But they turned you down.”

“I can’t relate to those people.”

“Maybe you ought to come up with something else.”

“What do you mean?” he demanded, weaving slightly counterclockwise on the bar stool.

“Maybe a warm Indian that becomes a hooker, finds God and joins a nunnery. You could do something with ‘Cute Ute’ in the title. They like that.”

He stared at me for a long time then, turning in disgust to a guy on the other side of him, said, “Hey. . . .”

I moved to a table and stayed at Residuals for about another hour, listening to talk of deals and below-the-line production costs, but none of the conversation lit the night.

I think from now on I will stick to saloons I am more familiar with that do not hustle witty repartee but that smell of urine and stale whiskey and pour a very nice martini indeed.

The Fat Lady drinks where I drink, and she never drinks alone.