Sliding Doors, Sloe Gin Fizz

Saturday, 4 p.m., Union Station. “It’s not about getting bombed,” says Thomas K. “T.K.” Nagano, holding a half-liter Bloody Mary. “It’s about getting people to ride the subway.”

The 53-year-old creature of the downtown arts district has wrangled a pretty big group--15 performance artists, poets, producers with day jobs and other miscellaneous urban thrill seekers--to join him at the Traxx bar. “Someday,” he foresees, “they will build the bars around the subway.” In anticipation of that glorious future, Nagano leads the “Red Line Red Eye Bar Tour.”

Nagano and a dozen drinking cohorts first held the tour in July, after the Red Line extension to Hollywood was completed. “They had the women’s championship soccer match on the TV,” he says. “It went to triple overtime and the tour stalled out.”

Subsequent efforts fared better. Rather than follow a route, weekly tours move on the collective whim (average: five people, four stops). Nagano, a merry docent in a loud sport jacket, patters about the art in the stations and MTA bungling. “Stupidity!” he cries at the Metrolink ticket machine that’s placed at the Red Line entrance. It’s only valid for the pricier, above-ground trains. “How many tourists are going to accidentally put money in it?” Almost on cue, two Red Line virgins do just that.

5:15 p.m., 7th Street/Metro Center station. Down an alley, a flashing sign marks the Back Door Pub. “I don’t charge for this tour,” Nagano says (not for the first or last time). “I don’t want the liability.” Raised in East L.A. and currently a resident of Little Tokyo, Nagano is a font of downtown historical trivia and an assiduous student of local watering holes. The mind that contains all this knowledge, however, has trouble staying on the rails. His guidebook is a stapled collection of MTA fact sheets and a raw list of bar names and addresses--from skid row’s King Edward to the Atlas on Wilshire Boulevard--in no discernible order. Some are quite a distance from any present or future station. “Oh, I don’t care,” he says. “Sometimes we’ll all hop into a cab.”

6:30 p.m., Wilshire/Vermont station. Into a neon-lit bowling alley/bar/pool hall in the old I. Magnin building, another gem you won’t find in Fodor’s. After numerous pitchers and fried calamari platters, there’s serious attrition. Only five die-hards continue.

8:45 p.m., Hollywood/Vine station. En route to Musso & Frank, Nagano loudly disses the driver of the DASH bus for not stopping in front of the restaurant. A quick martini, but still time for Nagano to irritate the guy drinking next to him. It’s time to go. As the train rumbles back, the members slump in their seats. But Nagano is still at it. “I want to start a Red Line tour for children,” he says, “and teach them about public transportation.”

9:50 p.m., Union Station. Traxx is closing. The bartender gently tries to convince Nagano that owner Tara Thomas does not appreciate the back rub. Everyone is invited to the tour’s traditional terminus, Quon Bros. in Chinatown, where Nagano often sings with the band. There are no takers.