The Frolic Room occupies a sliver of the ground floor in the landmark Pantages Theater where the starred pavement of Hollywood Boulevard begins. The theater opened in 1930, the bar sometime after and hasn’t closed a day since, remaining  the oldest gin mill in Hollywood.* The Frolic is adorned with autographed glossies of its celebrity habitués, ones that hung around after the neighborhood spiraled into shit, like Silvester Stallone and John Belushi. But above them all hangs a linocut profile portrait of the poet Charles Bukowski who was a regular before his death in 1994, and fans of the poet will gather here come Monday to discuss the literary works they share a common interest in. With neither stage nor microphone, they will casually recite their favorite poetry in the quiet time before the joint fills up around six. The bar maintains a small library of volumes “but anyone can bring stuff they downloaded from the internet” says Reece, a photographer who on a recent evening took up the authors favorite stool, at the end of the bar by the cigarette machine. And while the past three months the event has drawn a range of Bukowski devotees from old smokes who drank with the author decades back, to college aged artists “the best readings have been people walking in off the street.” There is an incentive to do so: a six dollar bar credit is awarded to the best recital. “That will get you a jack and coke or two draft beers here” says Mike the daytime barman who hatched the readings in part to lure back drinkers drawn to the “Irish pub” that opened down the block at Vine, the one offering an array of LCD screens, nachos and chicken wings. “Bukowksi would probably puke if he walked in and saw this. But we’re the last of his bars, you know?”

* Boardner’s and Musso and Frank Grill are older but serve food.

The Bukowski readings are held each Monday around 5:20pm

The Frolic Room  6245 Hollywood Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90028-5310
(323) 462-5890