San Dimas: Home of the Bar Brawl

I moved to Los Angeles proper a couple of years ago to add some excitement to my life, but I still believe that the best adventures take place on the outskirts of Los Angeles county. A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of visiting Sam Dimas (home of Bill & Ted!) to see my friends' band play at a bowling alley bar, and the experience was delightfully trashy. The place was full of twenty-year-old bros and hos and a few eccentrics. I'm guilty of not paying too much attention to the band because the people-watching was so ripe. Let's start with the eccentrics:

* Boat Guy: an middle-aged, short gentleman with a ridiculous picture of his boat embroidered on the back. Not sure how he found his way into this bar, but he had a lady friend (twice his size in each direction) who must have had a thing for boats considering that she kept putting her tongue in his ear. Things got so amorous that they fled for the parking lot before even finishing their drinks.

* Golf Hat Guy: a dude who was doughier and a bit more preppy than most of the buff bros in the place, but he still managed to bag one of the bleach blond girls. (Every girl in the bar had the same fake color hair.) As he danced with his new friend, he couldn't wipe the "how-did-I-get-so-lucky" grin off his face and would clench his fist in victory when she'd rub her butt against him. Occasionally, she'd pull her top down to show him (and a hundred other people, whether she realized that or not) her boobs and he'd wriggle with excitement while pointing at his Titleist hat. "It's the hat, it's the hat!" he'd brag to everyone.

* Cowboys: a group of dudes with cowboy hats, buckles, and boots, looking just short people in bad costumes. I wasn't close enough to hear any of their conversations, but REAL cowboys, guys!

* Over-Sexual Grandma: Probably the oldest person in the bar, she came in making out with a man, then proceeded to flirt with every other younger guy in the room. After freak dancing with a few gentleman, she asked if I'd like to take her for a spin, but I declined, pointing out that her man-friend, who had been glaring at her, seemed a little jealous. "He let's me do what I want, he knows I'm young at heart!" she insisted. Except that she ended up dancing with one too many dudes, because they were soon in a fight and all of her apologizing and cheek kissing wasn't enough to placate him and she left in tears.

But again, the real excitement was just the sea of bros. They were mere feet from us, so I had to routinely cover my face so they wouldn't catch me reacting to every dumb thing they said and did. It was like watching a National Geographic special on assholes, except that I could reach out and touch them... or they could touch us, as it wound up transpiring.

Michael called it well before it happened. A chick (blond, obviously) had come in with her boyfriend, but then was spending a lot of time talking to another dude. The boyfriend start fuming and rather than expressing his displeasure with words, he went right in with a fist. One punch spurred dozens more, as there were at least 20 bros that wound up getting involved in the fight. A sad excuse for a security guard tried to come break up the fight, but against that many buff dudes, he just ended up getting attacked, too. Organically, the brawling mob started moving across the bar. Someone would try to flee and another guy would chase and soon they'd all be moving as some uncontrollable pack. Unfortunately, the scene went from funny to dangerous when the fight came crashing into our table. Allison had dudes land on her, another guy got his head slammed against the table, and we all had to get out of our seats and back away to avoid being injured.

Finally the fight stopped, thanks in no part to the ineffective security guard. The management tried to kick them all out, but they wanted to stay and have "one more shot" before leaving. They found it incomprehensible that the bartenders refused to serve them, got livid, and finally stormed out not because the police had arrived, but because they couldn't get a drink. I couldn't get served either because for some reason I had been lumped in with the bros until some fellow patron was like, "Come on, does he look like one of them? Give him his drink!" and finally I got my $7 pitcher.

The funniest line of the night came from my friends in the band: "Looks like we can't play Sheryl Crow anymore." In the past, they've had to stop performing Rage Against the Machine at certain bars because it riles the crowd up too much, but in this instance they were playing a Sheryl Crow cover when the violence erupted. Who knew she had the power to provoke a twenty-person brawl?

For obvious reasons, this is now my favorite bar. I don't care that it's a half hour drive, if anyone wants to make the trip to San Dimas, I'm game.