We’re taking in the the bar’s rich style moderne detailing, seated at Cary Grant’s favored corner stool when the sight of a guy making his way across the room, the distinctive grip of a 9mm Luger projecting from his pants, persuades us to put down the Manhattan. He’s also hefting two rifles by their barrels in each hand. The old smokes at the rail don’t blink. “Springfield ‘06?”
“No,1903” Contempt shoots from wild eyes. “Don’t you see the bayonet stud? They’re now fully operational.” He hands the Legman one of the WWI era weapons, which we shoulder and site. This is another night at the American Legion Hall, Post 43 in the vaulted bar beneath the Egyptian temple of a building planted between the Hollywood Bowl and a pot dispensary. Many pass along Highland each day, few enter. It’s our brief inglorious Army service that allows us entree, making all the pushups and bunking with idiots seem worthwhile.
The armorer goes off, we shit you not, to “fix the gyroscope on the torpedo.” We shoot pool where Minnesota Fats ran the table, hit the ringside bell salvaged from storied Legion Stadium, and pee in the most glorious marble toilet outside the Doges Palace (where Christopher Walken got killed in Dr.Detroit) before calling it a night. An enjoyably hipster free night in Hollywood at that.