If Lawrence Welk's spirit came back as a 29 year old hipster with jagged bangs, a penchant for PBR and parliament cigarettes, you'd find him cozyed up at The Hideaway every night of the week. Once there, he'd strike up a nominal conversation with the Coen brothers, who, too distracted for anything beyond their furious note-taking, brainstorm their next bizarrely situated movie, most likely some sort of dark comedy, opening with a menacing twist on Moon River for the opening title track.
Weeks ago, Ethan Coen actually asked Mark Dew, The Hideaway's resident and blinded keyboard piano player if he would play Moon River at his request. Ethan's hand snapped quickly away from the Garfield Tip Fish Bowl jar as Mark snarled in a low growl, "I don't sing that song here," and went on to masterfully slip into a perfectly pitched Willie Nelson "Always on My Mind." Back at the table, Joel was so thoroughly impressed, that he yearned to hear Mark sing "Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain" but his brother's exchange created too much fear in his heart to ask.
Relinquishing any hope of decent conversation with those two, Lawrence turned his attention back to his contemporaries and smiled. His soul danced and sang with the still lively octogenarians, sipping on their kitty cocktails, enjoying the soft bounce clap round the piano that old people are fond of doing. Yet his spirit ran with the youths, wrapped in their well worn flannel, chipped nail polish flicking cigarette stubs , raking through unwashed yet still attractive hair and keeping time to intense chatter of some sort of cultural disaster or another. To Lawrence, The Hideaway was the ying and the yang, the salt and pepper, the ebb and tide, the perfect balance of the self.
Somewhere on a humid summer night, our road weary brethren heed the silent call of The Hideaway. Barmaids always wanted, Mark Dew always singing, (lately a recorded voice sings, as his health ails him) and the damned best cheap Makers Manhattans always flowing atop of the red shag carpeted bar. Like the dried up fountain at the front door, the past and hope for the future is gone here, just an endless shadowbox bar in the diorama of time. read more