There was once a baby shower at Billy’s Pub Too. I’ll repeat that. There was once a baby shower at Billy’s Pub Too. Okay, so what?
If you’re not familiar with this local dive in downtown North Miami, allow me to get you up to speed. Billy’s Pub Too is where those in service industry wind up in the early morning hours - hopped up on the rush of waiting & cleaning tables, tending bar, and putting on fake smiles & pleasantries - to drink themselves into stupors so that they can finally stagger out and succumb to sleep. It’s one of those places that is strategically open until who-knows-when to cater to this clientele of zombies, but is often filled with a laundry list of ne’re do wells beyond that of disenchanted wait staff. The bathrooms (at least the men’s, which I’ve reluctantly visited numerous times) smell of stale piss pooled on the floor beneath kitschy cut-out keg urinals, while the sounds of snorting and grunts emanate from the stalls. A quick glance at the opening beneath the stall’s partition often reveals a suspicious set of four feet. Do I need to tell you what is being snorted? It is so dark inside the bar, that you feel blinded exiting even at 4:00am in the morning, your voice lost from yelling over booty-bumping bass, smelling of cigarettes and lack of sleep. It’s not uncommon to encounter local legends there, though I’m pretty sure Mickey Monday, who I’m specifically referring to, got roped. That is just Billy’s as I’ve most often experienced it, wandering in after playing a show or after my wife tended bar at the much tamer Luna Star Cafe across the street. For the record, I love both establishments.
The baby shower in question was in the early hours of the evening, with the sun still up and before the coke-heads and the disheveled had entered the building. At some point over the past few years, Billy’s had started serving food, and this baby shower was being catered by Billy’s chef. While I felt it was necessary to describe Billy’s as some sort of demented homage, I’ll cut to the chase because this story isn’t about the baby shower or Billy’s, for that matter. It’s about chicken wings… the best fucking chicken wings I’ve ever tasted in my life, provided by this godsend of a chef. Talk about the internal battle I felt ripping into their fleshy goodness. How could something so amazing come from a place as putrid as this dive? For hours after, I pondered those wings: their perfect crispiness, their perfect saturation of perfect sauce, their overall perfection, perfectly perfected by the Billy’s chef. My god, those wings. My mouth waters at the thought of them writing this now.
My wife happened to be working at Luna Star Cafe that night. Walter Parks, known for being Richie Havens’ guitarist was playing there, and like so many nights at Luna before, I was coming along for the entertainment and wine. Parks was incredible, no doubt, but my mind was centered on those wings. I often feel inspired listening to artists play at Luna, grabbing for an inky pen and a stack of napkins to write and doodle. What follows is a series of words and drawings I made while listening to Walter but thinking of those tasty wings. Enjoy!
Could you describe a chicken wing poetically? Would they think you are joking?
I want to play music… right.
All I know:
Very tall
Richie Haven’s guitarist
Eats at the bar
But I’m already inspired
Simply
And that’s how you do it…
That’s how you describe the Chicken Wing.
Exhibit B - clockwise from the top
Slightly burnt spot
Crunchy Tag
The meat of it
Flavor Pocket
There’s good stuff here too
Gnawing Nub
Skin Crispss
From the depths, a bag of chips. No need to bring your own. Only a bottle to share with a friend. Soundcheck, and let echo the whi…? Sounds like, we’re in for a show. A Ford, Mustang interrupts as we… truck commercial, killing machine across the floor. Waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, wings, waiting, waiting, waiting, wings, waiting for the pin to drop.
Soundcheck sounds like a Ford truck commercial.
THE SWEETNESS OF THE TORMENT
What I know now:
I’m listening to Leonard Cohen and Tom Waits sing gospels through an octave pedal.
Still tall
Music is sweetness in torment
I’ve nearly forgotten about the wings…
Like a bridge over troubled water
Ahhhhhhh!!!! *goat scream
“Ain’t got long to stay. So I wanna hear a goat skreem. I wanna eat another wing.”
In conclusion…
I just play guitar with the Jesus TAR
Your argument is that Billy's chicken wings are akin to psychotropic drugs? I'm persuaded.
You're sure those wings weren't laced with something else? Sounds like you had a heck of a trip 😁