Here at the Desk0-Chaino Day Job™ my boss’ secretary has just quit, and until they hire someone new I’m stuck doing her job and mine. It’s been my impression for many years that the American economy burgeons through the judicious application of the Not-My-Job principle. All of a sudden it is my job, whatever it is. It’s distressing.
You’d think a surf trio called The Clams would be a perfect fit with a bar called Tavaru, which takes its name from some sort of watery tropical beachy place just off Fiji, and you’d be partly right. The Clams are good-natured and twangy like they oughta, awash in Fender-y goodness and properly Fearing Not the Reverb. Tavaru isn’t really a music venue, so they’re tucked in a corner of the narrow room, and the drum volume is moderated by heavy draped curtains partially obscuring, let’s see, if I’m reading the technical schematics right that would be Phred. A tad loud for these close quarters, but the music is boppy and up-tempo, always poised to swerve into Telstar territory, and the amps are running at less than 11. It works, in that New-Yorkers-can-handle-anything way.
But Tavaru turns out to be one of those joints that can’t be bothered to serve drinks - after all, we’re just lowly customers, the definition of rabble, and we didn’t even pay a cover. When the gaggle of girls at the front has to lean over the bar and scream “Hey Bartender!” at top volume to get service, it’s clear this a lost cause. My vodka tonic comes, when it comes, made with that juniper-extract vodka that’s so popular these days, not. At seven, er, clams a pop for drinks complete with a you-bother-me sneer from the staff? No thanks, life’s too short.
sounds like a place to put on the yuppie fatwah hit list.