Into a Cool Hall of Pool
The tattooed and pierced Slim Jim Phantom, drummer for the Stray Cats, was playing a gentlemanly game of pool the other night. How gentlemanly? Live chamber music accompanied him. A tray of chicken liver pate was just within reach.
“It’s kind of nice. I kind of like it,” said Phantom, listening to the Baroque strains of the Hamilton String Quartet in the background.
L.A.’s pool scene may never be the same now that Hollywood Athletic Club (which has to be the world’s coolest pool hall with amenities such as a $2 “coat, purse and helmet check”) has installed a classical music salon on Monday nights.
While the regular denim-and-black-leather crowd plays pool and snookers downstairs to rock CDs, the private upstairs rooms are open to those with more high-minded musical taste. And decorating taste. The dark green velvet drapes, striped damask sofas and crystal chandeliers are strictly Architectural Digest.
“It’s strange. There are so many different elements you don’t expect to be in L.A.,” said Adam Wheeler, a recent graduate of UCLA whose look included a goatee, hoop earring, jeans and cowboy boots. “I, for one, don’t belong in a place like this,” he said taking a swig from a bottle of Samuel Adams beer.
“You could be in a Vienna or Luxembourg or someplace,” said his friend, Susan Goines, a fine arts photographer who looked like she walked off the set of “Melrose Place.”
When the cushy men’s gym was built in 1924, the upstairs area housed the card room, library and cigar store for members like Rudolph Valentino, Charlie Chaplin and Clark Gable.
Now, except for Monday and Tuesday nights, the upstairs is open strictly for private parties, like Michelle Pfeiffer’s sister’s wedding reception, a Garry Shandling cast party, and a Kennedy-Shriver clan gathering. (On Tuesdays, a congregation of English rock ‘n’ roll types operates a late-night event called “The Globe,” which gets going around 11 and is also open to the public.)
By contrast, the Versailles Quartet, the Boardwalk Quartet and the Hamilton String Quartet (Hamilton High School students) playing on Classical Mondays pack up and go home at 11, although the rooms remain open until closing time.
“I just had it with sit-down concerts. I drove my World War II Jeep to the Music Center every Thursday night for years,” said Doug Curran, an architectural restorer who produces the evenings with Beth Oliver, an asset manager for an investment firm.
The music is definitely background stuff--as chamber music was originally intended, insist Curran and Oliver--while other activities go on, not necessarily pool. “I’m not really a pool player,” said artist and actor Anthony James, who was talking with a group of friends.
“I kind of wish I had a book with me,” said Wheeler.
“Where I usually play pool, it’s a little hole in the wall,” said Ricardo Hernandez, who was cuing up on this Classical Monday night with two roommates and another friend. “The first time I was here, I wasn’t so sure about it. I thought it was pretentious. But it grows on you. It’s definitely different. It’s definitely L.A.”
Name: Hollywood Athletic Club.
Where: 6525 Sunset Blvd., (213) 389-1370.
When: Mondays, 8 p.m. to 2 a.m.
Admission: $10 (waived for people dining downstairs).
Prices: Pool tables are free. Beer, $2.50 to $3.50. Absolut on the rocks, $5. Martinis, $5. Tempura soft shell crab sandwich, $10. Duck quesadillas, $7.