Oddball Santa Fe

OK, so I’ve mentioned the wonders of music at Evangelo’s Lounge on a sleepy January Santa Fe Saturday afternoon. But I did not include a photo of Evangelo himself. This is one famous guy, photo-wise. Take a look at Evangelo on Normandy Beach, 1944:

Notice the word “Papa” scrawled on the print. That’s not a call to the priesthood. It’s written by Evangelo’s son, Nick, who, as I mentioned las week, now runs the bar that bears his father’s name. Nick is not as photogenic as his father, besides which he doesn’t stand still long enough to be snapped. He does, as he says himself, “mix a good, honest drink!”

In case you were thinking that Santa Fe was all about movie stars, Hispanics and Native Americans, let me tell you a little story. There’s another family bar and music haven here:  Tiny’s, run by the third generation of the Palermo family who continue to dish out basic New Mex fare in low-fashion surroundings, just as their father did starting in 1950. A couple nights ago, after a decidedly high-brow  evening of tapas and wine tasting at Galisteo Bistro, Bernard and I stopped off at Tiny’s, which is just five minutes from where we’re renting.

Tiny’s vast parking lot was dark and empty, as was the multi-room dining area. But in the bar there were a few tables, plus a row of curved naugahyde banquettes holding up the back wall, a few of which held diners picking at plates of fries and burgers.  Fortunately it was so dusky that details of the carpet went unnoticed. Tiny’s does not strike me as a place that would benefit from daylight.

Occupying stools at the bar were the regulars, doing a slow nursing swirl of various drinks and long-neck bottles of beer. Wedged in a corner next to the yellow brick walls was the low stage where, perched on stools under a disco ball ignited to magenta by a solitary spotlight, three musicians played covers of 1980s light rock.

The place was not hopping, but those who were there all knew each other. Every once in a while there’d be a shout-out from the band’s acoustic guitar player, as a blast of street-cold air announced the entry of a familiar face. He’d look up, reach an arm with a pointed finger toward the regular, his lank silvery hair held back by the elastic which kept a black patch securely over his right eye. His partner didn’t seem to care much, adding a friendly shrug now and then, but mostly bending his orange do-ragged head to his electric guitar.

At a nearby table sat two white haired ladies, one sucking oxygen, both dressed for an evening out in black sweaters, jeans and heavy turquoise, with careful makeup and coiffed white hair. A stout Taos Pueblo matron, black hair in a coiled bun, made the rounds, showing a small velvet board full of dangling bead earrings made by her grandchildren. The pair Bernard bought me, made from buffalo bone, adorned my empty earlobes immediately.

The sole waitress found us, her black and yellow skirt just short enough to flounce around chubby thighs in black tights.  I ordered a Knob Creek bourbon, Bernard a Glenmorangie single malt (where did he get that habit from?). Her earnest face peered at us, first trying to memorize the odd named bourbon and then wondering what Bernard could possibly have said that related in any way to what is served at a bar.

After some finger-pointing of the polite kind at bar bottles shelved between two small, blue-lit acquariums, each holding plastic treasure and patrolled by one lonesome tropical fish, an understanding was reached. Shortly she returned; both our drinks arrived in fancy short-stemmed shot glasses.

From time to time the guitar players called a blond girl to join them. She laughed out excuses on her way to the stage, saying she was living on Ricola right now, nursing a sore throat. No matter. Her husky, sultry voice stopped what little conversation there was and everyone swiveled away from the TV screens playing football and basketball, to watch and listen.

Shortly after we settled in, an older man pushed open the street door, white cowboy hat with faux snake band on his head. He approached the bar with a timid swagger, the small smile playing on his swarthy face making his pencil-thin mustache twitch. I could see his lips mouth a “Hello, beautiful,” to the bartender, as he bent over to kiss her hand. A frumpy, pale woman seated nearby was embraced, both by the man’s arms and by the long silky fringe of his tight, white bolero jacket, which swung back and forth as he leaned in, slapping his back, then slapping hers.

He looked around for more people to hug, kiss or in other ways share his arrival with. I turned away, not wanting him to think he recognized me. The man, trim in his pressed blue jeans, with evidence of slicked, neatly combed hair under his hat, took temporary possession of a stool and ordered a rum and coke…cuba libre if you’re on some tropical island while reading this. He wasn’t seated for long.

Restless, looking for company, he continued scanning, hoping for action. When the band returned from their break and struck up an under-tempo version of Aretha’s Chain Of Fools, he approached the white-haired woman seated next to us, graciously bent low, stuck out his hand and invited her to dance. She’d been bopping in her chair even without the music, so he could be forgiven for thinking he’d meet with success. She would have none of it though, shaking her head in a quiet decline. He stood there, hand outstretched for a moment longer, perhaps hoping she’d realize her error, perhaps not knowing what to do now that her hand was not in his. Dreams of swinging his fringe to a funky foxtrot dashed, his swagger sweeping the floor, he returned to the bar to sip his solitary drink. The white haired lady returned to bopping as he walked away.