Paying Dues at the Club

There are some things you have to do. Everyone tells you so. Like go see certain movies or read certain books or even go to certain restaurants. You may not want to see a flick about unrelenting poverty in Ireland, but you have to. You really have no choice. For weeks on end, everyone you run into will say, “Have you seen that movie they made from Frank McCourt’s book, ‘Angela’s Ashes?’ ”

You might say, “It sounds kind of depressing.”

But they will only raise an eyebrow at you and say, “Yes, but you really have to see it.”

And so sooner or later, your wife or husband says, “I guess we should go see that movie where all the babies die in Ireland and it never stops raining and the father is an alcoholic.”

And you say, “Yeah, let’s spend $8 a ticket to see that.” Because it can be exhausting trying to explain to people over and over why you are the only one who hasn’t seen the movie where they eat a sheep head for Christmas dinner and little boys lick newspapers with the juices and crumbs from some old fish and chips because they haven’t eaten in days.

For just about the same reasons, I went to the Clubhouse at South Coast Plaza. Because everyone I know had already been there. Because the last 40 people I’d talked to all started their conversations by saying, “Have you been to the Clubhouse?”

No, I had not. But now I have. Now I can say, “Yes! I have been to the Clubhouse.” I went there with my son, Max, and his girlfriend, Alex. We went to celebrate Max’s 18th birthday. I called the day before and made a reservation for early on a Friday evening, and now we are here and they have given me a pager that looks like a portable CD player because, the young hostess sweetly tells me, our table isn’t ready yet.

So we stand around the bar, which is packed, Max and Alex celebrating his official coming of age with a Pepsi and a Sprite while I enjoy a Knob Creek Manhattan. It’s loud in here. So we don’t talk much. Just sort of stand around sipping our drinks and waiting for the little vibration attached to my pants to tell us when our table is ready, which soon comes.

I hurriedly pay our bar bill and herd Max and Alex to the receptionist’s lectern. The hostess is surprised to see me. I take out my pager and show her how the little red flashing lights are going around and around as if I’d just hit the progressive slots in Vegas. “Well, that’s just a bad pager,” she says. “But your table still isn’t ready.”

No problem. There is nothing wrong with sipping a cold Manhattan on your son’s birthday and watching the action in the Clubhouse. It’s very theatrical, this place. There are red lampshades that look like upside-down fez caps, and navy blue curtains masking hallways to the restrooms, and props. Lots of props. Cricket bats and leather boxing gloves and old Brownie cameras. I’m not sure what any of this has to do with the Clubhouse, but I don’t think anyone cares. Props are good. Props are fun.

We are admiring the props when the Magic Fingers pager goes off again. I tell Max and Alex our table must be ready. Surely they wouldn’t accidentally page us twice. But the hostess is again surprised to see me. “You still don’t want me, do you?” I say, and she sheepishly acknowledges the sad truth to this, offering me a new pager, one that won’t go off when I’m not wanted.

But even this new vibrating black box is mischievous, and I am called back to the lectern for a third time, which befuddles the hostess, who turns me over to her manager. “I don’t know why this is happening,” she confesses, all but in tears. The manager calms her, assures me it won’t happen again. But it does. And the manager--just as perplexed--agrees that, really, to be paged four times when you’ve been waiting half an hour for a reservation made the day before is, gosh darn it, just a bit much. So he’ll take us upstairs to our table right now, even though, he tells us as we hike up the stairs, “The table still isn’t ready.”

We order the bruschetta for an appetizer, but our waitress brings us a tomato-and-onion salad instead. Hmmm. “This doesn’t look right,” she says, staring at the offending vegetables. She quickly whisks the indignant beefy tomatoes away. Off, no doubt, to the room where they keep delinquent pagers (“What are you in for?” the huffy tomato asks a slouching, blinking pager. “I kept going off in this guy’s pocket--I couldn’t help it. How ‘bout you?” The tomato shrugs. “He wanted me chopped on toast. I just wasn’t in the mood to be chopped tonight.”)

Max and Alex don’t care about any of this. They are pondering the idea of Alex ordering the meatloaf and mashed potato sundae. “Should I try that?” Alex asks. Max shrugs. Max does not eat meatloaf anymore. Or any other meat dish. He will eat seafood--and so orders the special of the day, which is a rare ahi steak on wasabi mashed potatoes--but he will not be drawn into a discussion about the feasibility of eating something that is described as “meatloaf mounded high with mashed potatoes, brioche & crispy onions served with a BBQ jus and chives.”

Alex decides to go for a chicken dish. “You should have gone for the meatloaf sundae,” I tell her as the waitress takes our menus.

“Really?”

“Absolutely. Everyone I’ve talked to says you’ve got to try it.”

She changes her order. When the meatloaf sundae comes, she delicately picks at it, not knowing quite what to do with a dish that looks a bit like a humorous piece of artwork. Like something from a controversial exhibition titled “Food as the Canvas: The Canvas as Food.”

Most of it is left uneaten and boxed up to take home. “You didn’t like it, did you?” I say to Alex.

“No, it was. . . “ She searches for the right word. “It was interesting. I’m glad I tried it. Now I can tell people I went to the Clubhouse and had the meatloaf and mashed potato sundae.”

I think to myself, “That’s the spirit.”

Because it is Max’s birthday, the waitress brings out a slice of banana cream pie with a candle and, very quietly, we sing happy birthday to Max. He makes a wish, and we have a bite or two. “So do you two have any plans after dinner?” I ask them as we thread our way through the buzzing crowd.

“We’re thinking of going to a late movie,” Max says. “Any recommendations?”

“Oh, you have to go see ‘Angela’s Ashes, ‘ “ I tell them.

“Really?” Alex says. “It sounds kind of depressing.”

I raise my eyebrow. “Yes, but you have to go see it.”

Later that night I ask Max how the movie was. “Alex slept through the whole thing,” he says. “I don’t think she liked it.”

“Maybe not,” I say, with the logic of an older, more mature adult. “But at least now she can tell people she saw it.”

Max nods, even though I can tell by the look on his face that he’s beginning to doubt my judgment. These kids these days. What are you going to do with these kids these days?

The Clubhouse, 333 Bristol St. Costa Mesa, (714) 708-2582, Hours: Sunday through Wednesday, 11 a.m.-10 p.m.; Thursday-Saturday, 11 a.m.-midnight.

David Lansing’s column is published on Fridays in Orange County Calendar. His e-mail address is occalendar@latimes.com.