That 50s Diner Feel

I despise cigarette smoke. Unless I’m at a casino. Then it just feels right. Breathing that shit in. Mmm. Where’s that 70-year-old cocktail lady with my Scotch?

If a gambler sits next to me at the slots with a Lucky Strike or a Chesterfield lit up, I turn to him or her and say, “Welcome, stranger. Winning today?” Whereas if I’m in a restaurant or bar I’d stick a fucking fork in his eye. I don’t want your second hand cancer, Smokey! But, same fella at a casino, I say, “Howdy, Mr. Smoker. Nice eye patch.”

I’m also not a fan of the pop and rock music of the 50s. Most of it is atrocious. There are a few exceptions – Chuck Berry, the Everly Brothers, some Elvis. The rest of it is shit. Unless I’m in a 50s diner. Then I want to hear, “Bow bidda bow ba danga dang dang,” and, “I can’t give you a tab unless you buy something, pal.” So when wifey and I entered one of these ole timey diners this weekend only to hear Don McLean’s “American Pie,” I was shocked. “Hey!” I shouted at a waitress. “Just because this shit is about Buddy Holly and that “Chantilly Lace” douche doesn’t mean it’s the 50s!”

But it got worse. Next came songs by the Eagles and Fleetwood Mac. What the hell is going on? I need something to generate the 1.21 gigawatts of power necessary to get me out of this place and back to 1955. Or maybe get the Fonz to beat the shit out of this jukebox until a Bill Haley song shoots out of it. I want an authentic 50s experience, where the only black guy around is holding a mop and he has to drink from a different fountain than the rest of us. I was pissed. At least pump out one of those awful teen tragedy songs from the early 60s about some bitch who died in a car wreck.

You might as well replace those framed James Dean photos with ones of Harrison Fucking Ford for all this place is oozing the 50s. At least fake it. Put a Sha Na Na record on, or something. If I wanted this shit I’d go to IHOP.

And why is it that these places always have photos of Dean and Monroe. How about some pics of actors who made it to the Kennedy assassination? Maybe a Brando circa On the Waterfront, you gloomy bastards?  Don’t piss all over Paul Newman and Charlton Heston because they didn’t drop dead immediately. Why not just hang pictures of thalidomide babies if your ultimate goal is to depress people? Or have live entertainment. Maybe a Sal Mineo look-alike being chased around by a lunatic with a knife. Or a tub of water with Natalie Wood struggling to stay afloat.

So, yes, thanks for ruining the decade.