119 Liberty St., Newburgh, NY

“Where should we go?” I say in that strained voice that only happens when holding in a hit of weed. I blow out a plume, brace for the cough and hand the bowl to James.

“Hmmmm, not sure, let me hit this one more time and the ideas will spill out of me,” he sparks the Bic and puffs on the homemade corncob pipe. I’m waiting, then an idea pops into my head.

“What about that Irish pub, over by the Salisbury Mills train station. Looo…rahns… Lou…rains?” I have no idea how to pronounce it. I’ve been wanting to pay another visit to this place. It’s kinda out there by itself, no other commercial stuff around it. I like places like that. Like I’m hiding somewhere and drinking secretly where no one will ever know. The Golden Rail in Newburgh is my favorite local example. Love “hidden” bars… I have a long history of drinking in hidden bars.

“I dunno, I could really go for some nachos.”

“Nachos, mmmm, yeah, that’s a good idea. I’ve actually been thinking about nachos lately.” I reconsider.

“But they fuckin-well better have beans on them, that’s all I have to say. Any motherfucker that sends nachos out of a kitchen without beans on them should be killed, plain and simple. Or at least run outta town.”

James is staring off. “Yeah, I have to agree..” I cut him off. “Beans, cheese and jalapenos, those are the true requirements and some salsa and sour cream on the side for self application purposes. Other stuff is alright, but without those crucial three ingredients, forget it. And the jalapenos better fucking be pickled, not those flavorless fresh ones. That vinegar is crucial to balance out the cheese and sour cream.”

James exhales from hitting the pipe – “Damn you got some serious opinions when it comes to nachos.”

“Fuckin right.” I take a long swig of my beer. I look around the basement, the black cat on a box on an upper shelf, looking annoyed, gazing at me as usual. I love it down here. There’s something about hanging out in basements and garages, something comforting, especially in the winter, not sure what it is. The smell of tools and top soil, being able to ash on the floor, those little refrigerators where you can hide your beer, there’s just so much to love.

“What about that Rock Wall place?

James tosses his empty in the recycling bucket. “Meh.”

I think. “You know, it’s a shame that place has potential, decent food, out of the way location, outside tables where you can smoke while you drink. But they have no decent beer, the acoustics suck and there’s always a bunch of drunk, back woods yahoos there yelling about freedom and fuck the government, and those damn immigrants and all that shit.” Which really sucks because they do put beans on their nachos.

James nods, in an agreeable manner as he thinks. “Hey, what about The Wherehouse?”

“Yes! I love that place, fuck yeah, good idea.”

A decision made we get back to the important task of rounding out our buzz. But with ideas of bean-laden nachos dancing in our heads, we begin to gather things and James yells something up the stairs and I take one more puff off the pipe while rolling a cigarette to enjoy on the walk to the car.

Yes. The Wherehouse. I haven’t even been there that many times, but esthetically, it’s exactly me. Lots of crazy stuff cover the walls, lots of art, black light posters, random madness everywhere you look, kooky stuff behind the bar, beads hanging on a sunglass-adorned bust of George Washington (he lived and ran a large part of the Revolutionary War from his headquarters, right down the street), murals on the walls, stuff hanging from the ceiling, antique beer advertisements, steins hanging on hooks. It’s bar paradise, like something you’d see in Key West. It even reminds me of one of the coolest bars I’ve ever seen, vesuvio cafe in the North Beach neighborhood of San Francisco. And the brassieres. I don’t mean a bunch of dusty bras hanging from the ceiling, that’s been done to death (but, I have to say Jeremy’s Ale House in lower Manhattan has to have the largest collection…if you’re into that sorta thing) but brassieres that have been placed on chunks of mannequins and decorated in all sorts of nutty styles. We stumbled into this place one night and they were auctioning them off for charity. You gotta love Newburgh.

“Hey, park over here,” James motions toward Grand Street, a block away from our destination. “They started charging on Liberty.”

“Really? That’s just sad, fuck the Man.”

We step over a couple sad lumps of dirty snow and make our way to the entrance. Even from the outside, you know you’ve stumbled onto a special place. It has the classic Victorian lines and paint you might find on an English pub but the name is written in like a 70’s style bubble-type of font that just screams, your gonna have a good time in the place.

We do the obligatory, “we sitting at the bar… a table?” that always ends in the bar decision. We’re lucky enough to score to end seats at the head of the long L-shaped bar. Which is always good to have the lay of the land and watch all the potential weird happenings, unobstructed.

Even the menus are cool in this joint, printed on newspaper broadsheets with “All the Food That’s Fit to Eat” at the top. It’s those clever, little touches like that which puts a momentary smile on one’s face that makes life worth living. Well, I suppose there are a few other things, but that’s nothing I want to think about while I’m trying to get my drink on. I grab the beer list and pick out a local New England style I.P.A., my obsessive beer of choice. The back of the broadside menu was covered with those great old comic book adds, novelty items that we thought (or…hoped) were real when we were kids, x-ray vision glasses, showing a guy looking through a girl’s shirt. The stuff boy’s dream’s were made up of in a pre-internet world.

Frog Alley Hazy I.P.A., from Schenectady. Nothing more delicious than a tasty, fresh, hazy I.P.A. Keep cold, drink fresh! James takes the same and we perused the nacho options. Sure enough, not only did they have refried beans, but they were the chili variety, so some red kidneys in there too. We also ordered some pulled pork potato skins that would successfully break the spell that bacon-cheese skins had held over me all these years.

I hit the bathroom while waiting for the grub and it’s one bar where I actually look forward to doing so. Every inch of wall is covered with art. Brightly colored and psychedelic and they seem to have a “Down the Rabbit Hole” theme going on here, cause the Alice in Wonder characters in here seem to match the engravings that sneakily, illustrate the menu. Also there’s definitely a heavy 70’s biker magazine art influence going on here which announces itself before you even enter the bar with the aforementioned bubble letters above the front door.

I ordered another Frog Alley and snuck it out side to accompany a smoke I rolled at the bar. When I returned I noticed a big smile on James’ face that was underlit by the glow of nachos. There they were, in all the glory we had hoped for. We clinked glasses and dove in. Ok, so they did have fresh jalapenos, which was fine, I can live with them and they were actually more of a garnish, a little splash of green, riding the waves on the ocean of melted cheese, with peaks of chili poking through. I’m sure I could have gotten some pickled japs from the kitchen, but I was too busy cramming, carefully constructed nacho bites into my pie hole. Riding shotgun with the steaming plate of happiness was a little side plate with sour cream, pico and salsa verde, all of which I dripped and dabbed on certain bites. For me, it’s always about the ratios. It was a nice portion, so much so, that we even left one of equally-delicious pulled-pork potato skins behind.