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Mornings are different. The patrons are older. More dedicated and somber about their health. There are less short men with tribal tattoos and nipple rings, so stiff and pumped up they can barely bend over. Fewer desperately skinny girls on the ellipticals, their ponytails swishing from side to side. They are sweet, these jaunty ponytails, and the only thing on these girls that moves; their fake breasts stay in place like steadycams on jibs. Gyroscopically. Afternoons, it is a frenzy. The gym smells like rubber and skin and for some reason, hummus. People on treadmills and bikes read scripts and Allure, or stare at Lou Dobbs. I like to stand at the windows. I squinch my shoulders up, holding twin 45 pound plates in my hands, and stare down at the entrance to the Arclight where couples smoke, out on early dates. With each shrug I sneer with cartoon villany. It’s not purposeful (something about the connection between the shoulders and the neck and the lips) but, this afternoon, apt.

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…in LA has shut down and is in progress of becoming some sort of place that serves, “fancy libations inspired by the mod movement including fizzes, rickeys and bingo bangos.” This is the sort of thing that makes you feel very old and crumugeonly for having a “in my day, this was the sort of place to sit with a friend over a Guinness or take a girl and hunker down with a whiskey and make out in the dark listening to good music!” kind of reaction. But then you realize no, it’s not you. It really is empirically shitty when good bars close to become something as overly contrived as this sounds. But then again no one was EVER in there aside from busloads of middle-aged women during the intermission for Menopause: The Musical playing at the adjacent theatre, so it must not have been a very viable business in the first place. Whatever. I’ll sigh, pour some bingo bango out on the sidewalk for the Coronet’s passing, and move on.