The Great American Saloon Series
Anderson, Ivory Jas.
The Great American Sees Saloon Ivory Jas. Anderson Naive young things and even old chowder horses sometimes suggest that a certain establishment merits inscription in the Great American Saloon...
...May I remind them that if somebody wants to discuss the issues of the day, what do we have street corners and park benches for...
...It is one of the few working models of benign neglect...
...Wino" here refers to an occupation...
...Pete's is a place, in short, to booze it up in the traditional style, without the distractions of original lithographs, visiting poets, and swinging dingles...
...What his last name is, whom he voted for in '72, and what his views on Cyprus and mushrooms are, I do not know and never intend to find out...
...There, it is not measured in phony racial, social, or financial terms...
...Pete's is one of the last bastions of true and fundamental equality as envisaged Pete's by the Founders...
...To learn, why libraries...
...Any bar that caters to this intellectual bandwagon is no Great American Saloon...
...It is, with its alcoholic atmosphere and authentic decay, a place for a true individual to roll in the gutter awhile, finding or losing his soul...
...It is a tribute to Pete's that nothing so shabby as self-righteousness ever occurs on the premises...
...Go down a ramshackle step into the hazy interior, where patrons in various stages of dementia are dazedly perched on red vinyl-covered stools, and somebody is playing pool in the "new" wing...
...as The Toilet East...
...What entices the newcomer immediately is the pleasant seediness of the surroundings, where societal constraints on belching and spitting are totally inappropriate, and where the pervasive and intoxicating fragrance of hops, malt, and barley hovers in the warm air...
...The premises themselves bear this out...
...16 The Alternative: An American Spectator February 1976...
...That is Pete's back door, and its only door for any practical purpose...
...He is an affable Greek import, his thick accent tolerated because he keeps the suds coming...
...Ethnic identity is preserved at Pete's precisely because nobody cares who anybody else is...
...Speculation has it that a certain managerial reluctance to mop up spilled brew has allowed it to seep into the woodwork...
...To listen to scintillating conversation, why AM America...
...Leaving the police station through the prisoners' door, and making one's way through the alley perpetually darkened by the ancient el tracks overhead, onesees a nekkid light bulb illuminating the gloom...
...And if it isn't a saloon, it sure as hell ain't real American, no sir...
...This is what Americans have historically thought of each other before they became stupefied by self-righteous liberals with their guilt-inducing tirades and synthetic martyrs...
...Pete's is named after the owner and bartender, Pete...
...Anderson Naive young things and even old chowder horses sometimes suggest that a certain establishment merits inscription in the Great American Saloon Series because it is so "stimulating" to be there, what with all the famous and infamous passing through the portals...
...Any bar without these prerequisites, and despite its other merits, is simply not a saloon, let alone a great one...
...Pete's is totally American, and a great saloon in the purest sense of the term...
...Rather, everybody who drinks at Pete's knows intuitively that, just like himself, everybody else there, be he a police superintendent, a reporter, or a vagrant, is a bum...
...The winos are not in the least-awed, inspired, or intimidated by the cops, who are not too impressed by the journalists, etc., etc...
...Located a half-block from the Chicago Police Department headquarters, Pete's is frequented by cops, winos, and journalists...
...My candidate foc this distinction is Pete's, fondly referred to...
Vol. 9 • February 1976 • No. 5
