"Everything in here is fake, but it's nice fake."

THE ELEPHANT BAR


It's a jungle themed restaurant/bar with lots of elephants and its now open at 10100 Stockdale Highway, but this picture is from a different branch of this chain restaurant.

I spent a good portion of last weekend driving around with two slightly inebriated fellows as I stayed stone-cold sober whilst visiting restaurants, bars and clubs for my "Club Review 2005." We went to a lot of places, but by far, the one that was the most interesting and ridiculous was the Elephant Bar. It was so amazing I had to drag my non-bar hopping friend there the following day for an early dinner because, heck, I needed to envelope this thing, this crazy, expensive, glorious, overdone, theme restaurant thing by eating its teriyaki grilled salmon and strawberry shortcake.

The food was just meh. I mean, it's a chain, so it's not like it was nasty or anything. It was deliciously inoffensive and devoid of personality in that way all major chains are. Like an upscale Chili's. Where a place like this really shines is in the people who patronize it. That's what makes a bar/restaurant/club interesting. And the night I went with the boys it was beyond interesting.



OWN YOUR MASCULINITY
a bar story

By the time we got there The New Guy was already wasted. Poor new guy. He didn't know he would be hanging out with The Champ who managed to literally know at least half-a-dozen people everywhere we went and managed to be the most popular guy in every room. It was uncanny. He could also put away beer like it was nothing, so by the time we got to The Elephant Bar at 11 p.m. he was ready to finally drink something that was not a beer, settling on a Long Island Iced Tea. The New Guy went with the Mohito and was gracious when he learned the kitchen was still open, as he'd had about five beers at this point in the evening on an empty stomach.

I'd convinced The New Guy and The Champ to go on a "bar field trip" with me rather easily. How often did you get the use of a sober driver at your disposal for a whole evening who would ferry you from night spot to night spot then drop you off safely at home? But I only invited two people because I only have two arms and two eyes. I figured I could babysit two happy drunks, but not much more. They didn't quite know what to do at first, but five or six beers later they'd completely gotten into the whole notion of club reviewing, happily spouting off witty bon mots with the help of our friend — "Alcohol."

"I'm seeing a lot of long legs," announced The Champ with a smile.

"This is my favorite place so far because it has the most people," said The New Guy.

The bar was packed with people, primarily the long, legged women The Champ preferred without any sort of shame. They were all illuminated in the favorable blue light of the reflective dome above the restaurant's bar. I'd never seen so many camisole tops and short ruffled skirts in my life.

Where we sat we had a good view of the action inside and outside, and for some reason nearly every young, nubile blonde in the room seemed to be concentrated near our table, which, of course, made The Champ happy. Unfortunately the men were the same here as they were everywhere we went that evening — toolish.

"There's certainly a lot more to look at if you're a guy going to bars in Bakersfield than if you're a girl," said The Champ throwing me some pity that lasted all of two seconds until the next kitten-heeled-sandaled, long-limbed, flaxen girl strolled past.

But the Elephant Bar was such a nice place. All the women dressed up. Even someone's mother who was cut to the nines with Farrah hair. Of course, she looked woefully out of place among the meat market, 20-something crowd, but still. Why did all the men have to look like they just came fresh from Ashton Kutchner's Mesh Trucker Hat Eporium? Why did they all dress like Johnny Knoxville? What's with the manpris?

"There sure are a lot of blondes in Bakersfield," said The New Guy who'd recently come here from the Bay. "You never see a blonde in the Bay Area, but here!"

"Well, I don't think they're all really blondes," I said as the blonde standing closest to us kept flipping down the back tag to her pants to show it to her girlfriend.

We had no idea what that was about.

"It's not like Bakersfield has a higher population of Swedes and Germans compared to the rest of California," I said.

Later the sampler platter the size of our three combined heads arrived and as The Champ and I watched the New Guy plow through the food like a rhino in the bush, we continued our discussion on the merits and demerits of the Elephant Bar.

"It's like 'The O.C.' threw up in here," I said, actually a bit sad at the fact that there would not be one sooty-faced punk kid trolling about or a knife fight at any point. Nothing but Maroon 5 and pink polo shirts for as far as the eye could see.

"Everything in here is fake, but nice fake," said The Champ as he blissfully smiled.

He'd already spotted friends and a least, appeared to get hit on at some point. Who knows? But he was happy. His Long Island Iced tea was deceptively tasty, "lemonade-like," meaning it was probably chock full of alcohol. But The New Guy was befuddled by his Mohito, which came with a giant stalk of something hard and beige stuck in it amongst the lemons and mint that was not a straw.

"What is it?" I said.

"I don't know what it is. I think it's bamboo or something."

"Maybe, it's ginger," I said, clearly just screwing with him at this point. "Lick it."

And of course, since he was drunk, he did.

"No, it's not ginger," he said frowning, then laughing. "And you totally had me lick this thing!"

I just smiled innocently and shrugged.

We all agreed it was the best night spot we'd been to so far this evening, trumping a loud, unfortunate experience at The Jungle Cafe on Truxtun and the nice but pracitcally empty Sandrini's in the old Lucky's.

Since The Champ was also the most popular guy at the Elephant Bar as well, the New Guy and I were left to our own devices for most of our time there. The Champ was so drunk at one point he clearly forgot he came with us, but I reminded The New Guy that even though The Champ kept wandering off he would likely be fine. I could easily keep an eye on him from our vantage point as well as the rest of the Elephant Bar's fake Newport Beach crowd.

"He knows everybody," sighed The New Guy, who despite being dark haired, tall and cute in a David Duchovny sort of way, remained unaccosted by the female of the species.

"Look at that guy in a pink shirt," The New Guy said pointing out some yuppie in a pink polo whom some blondes were chatting with, "A dude with a pink shirt. That's saying, 'I own my masculinity.' I should get a pink shirt. All I have is a salmon tie. It's as close as I come."

The New Guy vowed to buy something pink and own his own masculinity, then we spent a long period in silence as the crowd gyrated around us. After last call the herd began to gradually thin out, causing the return of The Champ, still happy and now even more inebriated.

"I forgot I came with you guys!" he said as he sat back down. "Everyone's going to RJ's next! Are you going to review RJ's? You have to review RJ's!" said The Champ, referring to the popular northwest bar, "It's HORRIBLE!"

I looked over at the New Guy who was wilting like a gas station rose on me.

"Are you all right," I said.

He gave me a thumbs up.

"Do you want to go to RJ's?" I asked.

"It's not far from here and you're so far out," said The Champ. "If we go now you won't have to drive this far out to go there again to review it."

My wilting New Guy rose raised his fists triumphantly and shouted/mummbled a hearty, "yeah!"

"All right! We'll do shots at RJ's!" announced The Champ and our party moved on into the night.

Fin