The Wreckoning - August 8, 2007

(Read Part 1 here.)

The heavy, immovable stanchions are meant to control the unruly crowds and funnel them up to the door, where heavy, immovable doormen pat them down, scan them through metal detectors and inspect, rub and verify every driver's license with the humorless suspicion that each one card is probably a fake. Security like this must be for an event with a notoriously bad reputation. Perhaps this is a troublesome nightclub in Fort Lauderdale or South Padre Island during those insane two weeks known as spring break. Or maybe it's the swamped VIP tent at the Coachella Music Festival--where the prospects of air conditioning and alcohol are enough to get even the emo boys to start throwing elbows. It could be the House of Blues, where an east vs. west thunderstorm is brewing because tonight's lineup is a double bill of The Game and 50 Cent, and neither man is going on stage first. Or maybe it's Saint Patrick's Day, when everyone is Irish, drunk and gearing for a dust-up. But the truth behind this near prison lock-down is something much more puzzling. We're outside Saddle Ranch Chop House at Universal City's Citywalk. It's a Tuesday night. And the place is a ghost town.

The phenomenon is something I call the siege mentality--whereby a club, or concert venue, or theme park, or middle school prepares itself for a riot that never materializes. The security men working the door at Saddle Ranch--and there were at least a dozen on this very dead night--are a menacing bunch. With bright yellow windbreakers usually worn by men protecting the stage at the Staples Center, covering bodies that usually protect quarterbacks, they are also impossible to miss. But Saddle Ranch has taken a step to soften their appearance. Written across the back of these yellow jackets, without a hint of irony, is the word "Host."

It's as if by calling them hosts, instead of security (or, God forbid, bouncers), the true purpose of these men is more palatable. The New York Police Department, at the height of its thuggish, smack-down era in the 80s, tried a similar move with powder blue police cars. The public wasn't fooled that time either.

Host, huh? Something tells me he's not taking a reservation for Sunday brunch.

I asked myself, what could be going on inside that building to warrant TSA-like security measures. TSA is not an exaggerated comparison, right down to the no-liquids rule. Try sneaking into Saddle Ranch with a bottle of water you bought elsewhere.

Once I'd been carded, frisked, and magnetized, I was allowed to enter. Saddle Ranch has an enormous amount of square footage, yet every time I go I feel instantly cramped. Being herded like cattle just to get inside doesn't help any and there is really no good place to stand without being in someone's way. Tables are hard to come by. The bar is nearly inaccessible and always sopping wet, which, considering it is the backbone of their revenue, is really a problem that should be addressed. Ubiquitous TV screens assault you at every turn as do packs of stumbling, shrieking girls, most of whose bare, unfortunate midriffs seem quite familiar with chop house cuisine.

Marty wandered off to find seats while I tended to the drinks. I considered the small, beer-only bar outside, but then saw that the bottles of Heineken were poured into plastic cups. I don't mind coffee in a paper cup, but beer, wine and cocktails have got to be in glass. (Straight out of the bottle is perfectly fine.) I showed my ID yet again and ordered a beer for myself and another for Marty, who had snagged an empty (and filthy) table in the corner.

"Who's the second beer for?" the woman behind the bar asked.

"My friend," I said instinctively. The idea to say, "None of your fucking business," didn't come until a few seconds later.

"Where is your friend?" she asked pointedly.

"Sitting at a table."

"I have to see him before I can release the beer."

Release the beer, by the way. I tried not to get indignant--too many "hosts" lumbering by--and went for reason instead. "He is sitting at a table in the corner. You can't see him because there's a huge post in the way, but I assure you he's there."

"I have to see him to make sure he's old enough to drink. We could get shut down."

Okay, whenever an employee uses some dramatic phrase like "We could get shut down," or "I could get fired," or "That's our policy," they are lying--unless you were trying to snort a few rails off the bar or to top your high school beeramid record. Responses like that come from laziness and contempt for customers. I know. I used to say them.

My heart rate quickened. The pitch and volume of my voice rose noticeably. It was starting to happen: the unavoidable stare-down with idiocy that seems to find me every time I go to Citywalk.

"If he comes over here, we'll lose our table."

"Then go over there and have him stand up so I can see him," she said.

The thing about stupidity--it's unbeatable. It can't be swayed by negotiation and is impervious to reason. "Terrific system," I said, and stormed off toward our table. A few seconds later, the bartender saw Marty, all forty years of him, emerge from behind a column like a six-foot-two, red-headed sock puppet.

Still, she had the nerve to be skeptical of his legality, but grudgingly released the beers by taking my money and walking away. I snatched the glasses off the counter. They were plastic.

More contempt. Plastic cups, posing as glass, sends one of two messages to you, the patron: either you are too much of an imbecile to keep from breaking your glass and thus cutting yourself, or you are too much of an imbecile to keep from breaking your glass over the skull of the asshole next to you. In both cases the message is, "We don't trust you."

This lack of trust at The Scrappiest Place on Earth is not limited to Saddle Ranch. Most employees at Citywalk's myriad businesses seem to believe that every patron is there to hassle them, steal from them or generally serve up some form of abuse. So the employees strike first. Survival of the fittest.

One night about a year ago, I was yet again with Marty (about the only guy on the planet who can put enough spin on a night at Citywalk to get me to join him). We were listening to some horrendous live music at B.B. King's Blues Club & Grill. It was one of those pay-to-play showcases, whereby club owners pad their dead, mid-week nights by unconscionably extracting as much as $50 from desperate, deluded musicians for twenty minutes in front of a microphone and a dozen friends and mothers. Some acquaintance of Marty was on the bill.

I got there first because Marty decided to be green (or a drunk) by taking public transportation. On paper, a trip to Citywalk via the MTA's Red Line looks attractive; it's only a five-minute ride from Hollywood and the Universal City train station is right there at the bottom of the hill--the very bottom. What doesn't come across from the website or train schedule is the half mile hike at a forty-five degree incline that awaits you after you step off the train.

Last week, while researching this story, I had to swerve to avoid a drunk man who stumbled off the sidewalk and into the road as he was coming down the hill from Citywalk. It's a serious climb. Needless to say Marty was winded and sweating like a hooker when he finally made it to B.B. King's.

The thick, plexiglass ticket window at B.B. King's is siege mentality gone amok. It's about as necessary as a Hummer in Manhattan. The chilly, apathetic woman behind the counter asked me which performer I was here to see.

"Does it really matter?" I asked.

Apparently, it did. Some rigorous head-counting affects which acts will be invited back and so forth. How that is my problem, I fail to see. I told her I had no idea of the guy's name. It turns out "Marty's friend" wasn't a sufficient answer. There I was, willing to break my no-cover-charge-ever-ever-ever rule, to hear some loser I didn't know play some God-awful music at 8 P.M. on a Wednesday in August in a cavernous club that was completely dead. And still, she wasn't sure if she wanted to sell me a ticket. Get over yourselves, people. I had to promise--and I'm serious here--that I'd be eating and drinking enough to forgive my offense of not knowing the name of the douche bag taking the stage in about an hour.

After ninety minutes of plastic-wrapped Heineken, leaden quesadillas and tedious caterwauling, Marty and I were more than ready to be done with Citywalk. We were a few steps out the door when Marty realized he'd left his backpack inside.

I sat down to wait for him at a deserted patio a few yards down. There were some empty metal chairs and a bar to my left. A bartender stood there idly. After five minutes Marty came out with his bag. He sat down across from me. We were still trapped in the perturbing confines of Citywalk but at least were free of the cacophony of B.B. King's. It was a comparative moment of calm.

Until a voice seething with forced affability turned our heads. The guy smiled broadly, too broadly. I can spot a restaurant manager a hundred yards out. It's in the walk, a walk that says "I'm not a waiter anymore, mister. Look at these keys!" This kid was twenty-five at the most and had the Gap khakis to prove it.

"Hey guys, how's it going?" There was something in his tone that screamed security breach. We were clearly in violation of some rule and were now going to hear about it.

"Great," I lied.

"Great night, huh? Hey listen, I'm gonna need you guys to go see my doormen over there and get a security stamp. Gotta make sure you're old enough to be in here."

I turned around to look. Until that moment, I didn't realize I was in the providence of another establishment. It turns out that what I thought was an all-purpose rest area, was in fact the dining patio of a saccharine, woefully ill-conceived venture called Howl at the Moon, whose gimmicky centerpiece is a pair of grand pianos, from which dueling crooners delight the surrounding patrons with an encyclopedic repertoire of pop tunes and impossible-to-ignore sing-alongs. At the moment, however, both pianists were on break, business was thin and aside from the lonely bartender and Mr. Junior Manager, not a sole was on the patio except for us. Two bored doormen stood at the front entrance forty yards away.

We stayed put and started to bust out our IDs, but Junior stopped us. "No, no. I can't check your IDs, only my security guys can do that." His use of "my" was beyond ridiculous, but I was still coming out of my post-B.B.'s daze--too exhausted to even think coherently.

"Uh, we're not staying, I don't think," I looked at Marty, who nodded forcibly. "We're just catching our breath."

"Yeah, I'm still gonna need you to go see my door guys."

And that was it. I was off. "Let me get this straight. You're a manager and you can't check out IDs? You want us to get up, walk all the way over there..."

Marty was already rising, on his face was a singularity of purpose--to get me out of there. "Are you fucking kidding me?"

Junior Manager changed. I had just become someone who had to be "dealt with". All at once the 'roided out pleasantness vaporized and his true colors emerged. Moreover, so did mine. I was now the kind of screaming asshole he was used to. "No, I am not fucking with you!" he began. But before he could finish, and before he could summon his door guys to escort me down the escalator head-first, Marty bustled me out of there.

Despite a wide, but insipid ad campaign--Way more NEW. Way MORE to do!--and a desire to be family-friendly, Citywalk hasn't done much to shed its thuggish image. The crappy old retail outlets have been replaced by a wave of crappy new ones. Nothing of importance or value is on sale. It's all useless, ephemeral tat and street-punk eye candy. Is there anything more fleeting than oxygen? The O2 bar at Zen Bar will hook you up. An Apple Store, you ask? There isn't enough security in the world.

The closest you'll find to high-end apparel is an Abercrombie & Fitch. All other clothing stores at Citywalk are slinging skater or gangsta wear. There's even a place selling nothing but Raiders gear--and it's no hold-over from the L.A. Raider years, this place is relatively new.

Embracing the sports franchise with the most belligerent, confrontational and rude fans in all of sports is a coming-out party for Citywalk. This is who we are. These are the people we are here to service. I say you're welcome to it, Citywalk. Enjoy!

Universal City's Citywalk: just off the 101 freeway and around the corner from Hell. A knife-fight waiting to happen. A great place to buy popcorn, magnets, buffalo wings and other essentials. The only thing more perilous than parking there is arriving on public transportation. Proceed with extreme caution.

Posted by Aaron Black at 10:39 PM