MEET ME AT OUR USUAL

Joint redux: Ventura, California’s favorite “joint”, the Star Lounge.

By MICHAEL PERKINS

I RECENTLY READ WHAT MIGHT BE, in tavern terms, public notice of a wake of sorts, advertising the partial return of a favorite local hangout that winked out during the darker days of The Plague, capping twenty years of a generally fine stretch as an Irish pub in the main streets of Tempe, Arizona. I say “partial return” because said hangout will not be returning to its original address, but will be merely a seasonal “pop-up” within the nearby Arizona State arena district, with a small commemorative bar and fixtures from the old site on display, pulled out of storage for some strange museum effect, or, to my mind, a kind of open casket viewing. Think relics of the Titanic with a liquor license. Not exactly warm and cozy.

I have, over a lifetime, availed myself plentifully of bars, but I am nearly religious in my zealotry for what are often called “joints”. The word is elusive in its precise meaning, and we can have many a beery dispute about what qualifies this or that place for the title. Suffice it to say, however, that most joints are also bars, but many bars fail utterly at being joints. It’s a term of endearment, one which must almost always be earned.

Right this way…

The fine establishment you see here, the Star Lounge in downtown Ventura, California, meets my very subjective criteria for a joint, and indeed is specifically known as one to the locals. As a photographic subject, you can see that it offers tons in what could loosely be called “atmosphere”. It is weathered without being seedy, unpretentious without being subtle. It’s comfy as an old bedroom slipper but still slick and busy and boisterous around the edges. Chain restaurants break their necks trying to make their mass-produced watering holes pass the joint test, and most of them come no closer than a TGIF or a Chili’s. Bars they may be; joints they most certainly are not.

I love taking images of places that have earned their slot in permanent cities, as opposed to strip malls. Joints are community assets, gathering places where great ideas are argued, great songs are sung (mostly loudly) and great reunions and occasions are arranged. In short, they are more than the sum of the accumulated furniture, which is why they can’t be replicated by merely showing off a few fixtures. Joints, in a way that a photographer can truly love, aren’t pop-ups.

They’re stick-arounds.