Then There Was the Time #5

Turn It On / 2016 / Pasted Paper Collage / Russell C. Smith

Then there was the time a couple of guys opened an unlicensed underground Speakeasy in a room in a house, on the Capitol Hill Art Walk. Only those in the know knew it was there. Hiding in plain sight, as they say. The house was around the corner from Hugo House, a writing center located in a soon to be torn down two-story house. One of those welcoming, you felt good just being in the space, which contained a large theater space. When I first moved to Seattle, it was the home of a Friday night cabaret theater event that only cost a dollar a show. Which is to say, this was a happening corner for several decades prior to the underground Speakeasy popping up in a house that had recently started showing art. There was another art house close by. But it wasn’t a house. It was an art gallery inside an apartment. Located kitty-corner from my apartment building, and this one was truly a magic act. The guys who lived there hid an entire two rooms of stuff away on the nights they turned their apartment into an art gallery. Every bed, chair, table stacked and hidden from site. The piece of art they showed there I remember the most was a long horizontal wall scroll across all four walls of a room. The two ends of the scroll met itself. Like Ouroboros devouring its own tale. Anyway, the underground Speakeasy just appeared one Thursday night, on the Capitol Hill Art Walk. Whichever of the three friends who had had the inspired idea of installing a bar, stools for about half a dozen people, and a lit-up bar light advertising a local micro-brew on the wall – had made a nutty notion into a real bar. I’d been making the gallery-in-a-house a regular stop on my Cap Hill art walking for several months when the bar sprang up. “Welcome to the Speakeasy,” said a tallish guy I’d seen there before, behind the bar. “This is new,” I said, while gesturing at the bar. He half smiled, half grinned. “We’re here, but we’re not here. Get my drift?” “Oh yeah,” I said. “Sure.” He looked over his shoulder to see what they had in stock. Then he said, “Tonight we’ve got red wine and gin.” “Glass of red,” I said. He pointed at the large glass tip/payment jar next to him and held up two fingers, while mouthing the words, “Two bucks.” I dropped in three dollars, as a decent-sized pour filled half my wine glass. A couple of bucks and a tip was a reasonable price for a drink in Seattle’s most happening neighborhood. It had changed massively over the years, since I moved into the neighborhood in the late 1980s. I’d witnessed Seattle go from having an underground music scene, to become a worldwide phenomenon with the Grunge music scene. Rain City was soon to be known for three things, Grunge, coffee, and computers. Only one thing stayed the same. We all felt the buzz of novelty when we experienced it. Cool and slightly edgy, often not meant to last, like a performance art piece. An illegal bar inside an art house on a Thursday evening was just the thing to put a smile on every patron’s face, as they sat on a stool and ordered a drink.