The semi-monthly Night Out with the Giant Swedes. The night began when he backed out of the driveway and crunched into a snowbank – a sound with which we are all quite familiar. The banks are five feet high and made of nasty hard snow seasoned with dirt and salt; every morning I pull out, crunch into one, put it in drive, go forward, crunch into another. Repeat. This time, however, the crunch sounded different. I looked at his rear-view camera monitor: that was no drift, that was my car.
Well, no damage. No harm no foul no regretting the point at which you set your deductible. However: the simple act of inspecting the bumpers shaved a minute off travel time, which meant we missed a light, which meant we got behind a city bus trundling down snow-narrowed streets like an elephant going down the aisle of a champagne-glass store. Winter slows life down in so many ways – and at the same time you wish it would go faster, end, and bring back grass. Flowers. Leaves. Life itself. This is statis; this is life entombed in the glacier.
Parked. Ate at Chino Latino, one of those places where you have to share. The food arrives in six-pound portions, and everyone has some. Sometimes I really don’t like this idea, because if I find an item on the menu I really want, well, I really want to eat it. But that would be churlish – and besides, the burrito was literally the size of a football. As you can imagine, it fell apart when cut, and collapsed into a mush of Ingredients, but it was delicious, as was the Mandarin Beef, the lime-soaked pepper-rubbed Satays, the Fish tacos, and the something-or-other with Mego sauce, who can tell after a while.
The restaurant was located in the space occupied for years by the Rainbow Cafe, an Uptown tradition for decades. But no more.
I don’t recall a good meal there, but it was past its heyday when I moved into Uptown. Served a quarter-million annually at its peak. The sign was a bit more wordy; it included the usual thumbs up from Duncan Hines. (A word about him: since that was the name of a cake mix when I was growing up, I was always perplexed to see the name when I first started reading Life Magazines. Duncan Hines wasn’t a name; it wasn’t really anything but a series of phonemes that indicated cake would follow if the items in the box were assembled in the proper order.) The sign came down in the early 50s when the city banned overhanging signs, and thus blandified the entire city at a single stroke. Idiots.
One of those modern-is-better lessons: the Rainbow was a hep place for its time, but I can’t imagine the menu was anything like the explosion of percussive flavors you can get in Uptown now. You had American, you had Italian, you had Chow Mein – and that was what you had. Perhaps in a hundred years they’ll look at our menus the way we look at the Gilded Age bill of fare – you know, Oyster Consumme, Braised Beets with Ladled Squash, Potato Confrit a la Rousse, Squab with hominy stuffing and cabbage marmalade, Peaches Rockefeller for dessert with Stewed Brambles. Maybe. I know that Roman menus sound horrible – I swear the entire ruling class survived on pigeon brains and olives – and they didn’t eat cows. I understand why – more useful as draft animals, milk givers, ceremonial beasts, etc.; it’s like asking why we don’t eat our tractors, I suppose. But given their ingenuity I’m surprised they didn’t figure out a way to steak. What’s the point of being Caesar if you can’t have a steak.
Anyway. The new place has one hideous flaw: clever bathrooms. I don’t believe bathrooms should ever be clever, especially if the restaurant serves alcohol, because then men pee in the sinks or the potted plants. This place plays a cruel trick: when you walk into the BANOS, you see sinks and hand-driers. You don’t see MEN or WOMEN, so you don’t know if you’ve entered the wrong room. If you are a MAN and you see a WOMAN, you assume you did not choose wisely, and you backpedal.
Do not confuse people who want to void their bladders.
Once in a bar in Butler Square, a rehabbed warehouse, there was a bar with a two-way mirror on the other side of the urinals. It faced the main lobby. Once you knew the gimmick it was obligatory, on the way out, to sneak a look at the mirrored side, feign shock, then point and laugh.
In my first novel I named a distasteful editor “Fikes,” because that was the name of the plastic shield that held the urinal cookie. I figured a few fellows might pick up the reference on a subconscious level.
Later today: my “24″ complaint video at Startribune.com, and a minor Comic Sins. Until then let’s talk about memorable bathrooms! Really: Jasperwood has my all-time favorite bathroom. The worst was in the Birchwood, an ancient apartment alongside a highway. No shower. Clawfoot tub. Painted-over window, peeling walls; if you saw four lines on the wall you’d conclude that was the number of people who OD’d in here. Last year.
Other things I hate in bathrooms: soap that is not meant to be used and towels that are not meant to be touched. But I’ve said too much; over to you.
Okay, more Rainbow.
Pass it along, if you wish
85 Responses to Tuesday, Feb. 16
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“Fikes,” I would not have gotten. “Royal Quiet-Flush, Sloan Valve Co.” — the most commonly-read phrase in the English language — now THAT I would have gotten.
Let’s see… hands are wet; only towels have embroidered/beaded holiday designs. Wipe hands through hair and on shirt.
I worked for a few years as a salesman in Manhattan, with no office. You get to learn where the decent bathrooms are (mostly hotels).
One late morning, needing to find a bladder-drainage facility, I walked into the bar of the Royalton Hotel on 44th Street (it had gone from a flop-house to a boutique hotel in the mid-80s). Very fancy place, nobody there since it was pre-noon. Strode to the men’s room, and was perplexed–no urinals, but a slanted slate wall with water pouring down into a trough at the bottom. After a moment’s hesitation, I gave it a “what-the-hell” and let loose. The whole time, I was expecting a maitre-d’ to charge in and yell “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!?!? YOU’RE PEEING IN OUR FOUNTAIN!!!”
Sloan valve is #1 – The Avis of the business is the Delany flush valve. I remember when the beautiful actress Dana Delany was on Letterman (back when he was funny) and talked about how that was the source of her family’s wealth. “It may be [bleep] and [bleep] to you, but it’s our bread and butter”, she said – naming popular waste products “number one” and “number two” in the bleeps. Made Dave pull out his cigar and puff on it.
By any chance did Fikes work on one of those fancy European 3.8 Lpf typewriters?
Our local movie theater has urinals with the brand “Zorn.” All I can think when I walk in there is that they are made by Zorg enterprises, from the movie _The Fifth Element_.
Re: Fikes. For a time those plastic shields had “Just say no to drugs” slogans on them. Do you really want me pissing on a policy you want?
Embellished towels are a passive aggressive invention. I remember admiring them prior to setting up housekeeping. Somewhere along the way though, I was the victim of some particularly fanciful fringed towels and swore I would only keep the real usable kind for my company. That did mean banning the kids from “the powder room” when they were little and, like “Pig Pen” from the Peanuts, soiled everything they passed.
We called those cakes, “Marine Mints”.
“I remember when the beautiful actress Dana Delany was on Letterman”
Oooohh. Dana Delany… I actually got to wait on her in the ’90s when I was a waiter in Boston. She was in town doing ‘Love Letters’- with Brian Dennehy, I think. I was very professional and didn’t even mention the crush I had had on her since she did a guest role on ‘Magnum’.
I am always pleasantly surprised when I enter a nice Men’s room (marble, wide stalls, and whatnot), and there is an attendant seated with an array of colognes, mints, warm face cloths, etc. Makes me feel so William Powell.
Why hasn’t anyone mad a footrest for inside the stall so your gluteus maximus is less prone to falling asleep?
Years ago I worked with a young woman who had managed a chain restaurant; every other week she would take inventory of supplies: things like cocktail napkins, toothpicks, cash register paper, urinal mints. The home office would ship out the necessary supplies to maintain appropriate stock levels. Problem was, she had no idea what urinal mints were… so every week she entered a zero for that item, and every other week another case of urinal mints would arrive. A few months into her tenure there, the district manager stopped in to see how she was doing, and one of the things he wanted to find out was why she was using so many urinal mints. “We aren’t using them,” she told him, “I keep entering zero inventory, but they never arrive.” They went back into the storage area, where there were cases stacked on cases of the things. It turns out she thought “Urinal Mints” were green wrapped chocolate mint candies to be given away at the cash register…
In 1968 I had the opportunity, as a 16 yr old, to tour the USSR. Our group stayed at the Mokba Hotel in Moscow. The public facilities were Posh! I was, however, put off to find that the toilet attendant in the mens room was a glowering Russian grandmother. Put me right off what I had come in there to do.
Yeah, but are they really minty?
Urinal cookies, urinal mints…I’ve always been partial to the term “urinal cakes”. But that’s me. It just seems, I don’t know, more festive.
Indeed.
hunkybobtx, that’s the phrase that stuck with me, too. Using it, James…soon!
Reading about bathrooms reminded me more of the one in the first apartment of my own. There’s a feeling of dislocation that’s almost primal; cats must feel the same about a place they haven’t squatted in yet.
The bathroom also featured a tub at the narrow end shrouded in a deep blue shower curtain. No light above, which meant you cleansed yourself in the dark.
Don’t forget the most recent innvoation in urinal technology–Imbedding the image of a fly into the porcelain at a precisely defined location. Giving men somewhere to aim apparently dramatically reduces cleanup time.
@Terry Fitz:
“Urinal cookies, urinal mints…I’ve always been partial to the term “urinal cakes”. But that’s me. It just seems, I don’t know, more festive.”
Guess it depends on what flavor they’re offering.
Last year the “facilities” in our building were renovated to meet ADA standards. Everything except the door is automatic.
Toilet flush
Urinal flush
Water at the sinks
Soap dispensers
Paper Towel dispensers
Wonderful innovations, one and all.
Except when there is a power failure.
Which we seem to have weekly.
As well as when the electronics go on the fritz.
Which they seem to do weekly.
And @GardenStater is correct. “Cakes” is how they are marked on the bulk packages.
I had a roommate years ago who put towels and soap in our half bathroom on the main floor of the house that were never meant to be used. How horrified she was when I had a friend over one afternoon and he dried his hands on one of her not-to-be-used towels! Apparently these people don’t believe in handwashing after using the bathroom, which is a whole nother realm of yucky anecdotes.
If you’re ever in Destin, Florida (or New Orleans, or Pensacola), make an effort to visit McGuire’s Irish Pub. Great food and drink, great atmosphere, about a million dollars in dollar bills hanging on the ceiling, and they’ve amused themselves by putting trick signs on their bathrooms:
stop, this is not the MEN’S room; and, stop, this is not the WOMEN’S room. If you don’t read the sign carefully, guess where you end up. Just imagine Friday nights in that place.
Our Facilities have Zorn band hardware as well. Makes me thing of Emperor Zerg from Toy Story
Ancient Roman food is a lot like modern European food, especially German. You can find Roman recipes on the intertubes and there are several Roman cookbooks on Amazon. It’s good stuff. I do living history as a Roman militas (legionary) with Legio II Avgvsta and our cohort cook has done a ton of culinary research.
Zorn brand flushers – I always think of the word ‘zorn’ used in the book Watership Down. It’s used as term of lamentation, as in ‘alas and alack.’
Old women as men’s room attendants – yes, that put me off too the first couple times, but you get used to it.
Electronic flushers and other sensors – gawd, I hate, hate, hate those. The ones at a building I used to work in ran on batteries and they were always running out of power. And there you are. Standing around with wet hands was the least of it.
I am not a fan of automatic bathroom appliances–it seems a little silly. At my office, we have automatic (flushing, that is) toilets, automatic faucets, automatic paper towel dispensers and automatic light switches. At least the toilet paper dispenser isn’t automated!
Re: Today’s Comic Sins.
Charles Biro did alot of junk to pay the bills, but ah the man could write and draw. The Death Defying Devil is still a great, if relatively unknown, character and read 70 years later.
I remember when I was in college and working for the summer in Manhattan. I think I used the toilets at the Plaza (maybe? can’t remember) and each ladies stall had a toilet and a sink. I thought that was quite posh to be able to wash my hands in private. Silly, to think of it now.
I work with a woman whom I know to have a “for show” trash can in her bathroom–like those silly towels, it was not meant to be used. The real one is inside the cabinet.
A few weeks ago I had jury duty. The Denver City and County Building is a beautiful 1930s edifice, but the facilties leave more than a bit to be desired. The urinal dividers are marble and about 5’6″ high. They’re also very close together. I’m broad-shouldered, so I had to stand at a weird angle. I suppose I should have sued for disability discrimination.
@Joe Broderick:
“I am not a fan of automatic bathroom appliances–it seems a little silly.”
I wasn’t crazy about them, either, but I’ve come to appreciate them. No more dealing with how to shut off the faucet while avoiding someone else’s germs. (Not that I’m a germophobe, but it is a little gross.)
One of the best hand-drying solutions I ever saw was at Gramercy Tavern in NYC. On the counter next to the sink is a big basket filled with rolled-up white washcloths. They’re the perfect size for drying hands, and they feel better than paper. When you finished, you tossed the used cloth into a nearby hamper.
What I absolutely HATE are the automatic paper-towel dispensers that shoot out about 3″ of paper, hardly enough to even start drying your hands.
Urinal Cakes: I always like to see the holder configured as a target- a man needs something to aim at. I once heard of a urinal that had a fly painted on/ part of the glaze when it was fired at a strategic location to encourage proper usage. (have never seen one, though).
My sister-in-law not only has the fancy towels that you are not supposed to use in her guest bathroom, she actually redecorates the place depending on the holiday! Was over there on the weekend and it was all Valentine’s hearts and flowers, candles, etc. If a woman wants to make the place nice, that is OK, it just needs to be FUNCTIONAL- a small towel holder with a REAL towel in an out of the way place or even disposable paper towels on the counter would be useful.
Please Mr. Lileks, oh please, please, please, refrain from using spanish here. (bano) I’m sooo tired of it here in southern California. I speak it and read it just fine, but let’s stick to english. I’ve been known to reply in German to someone speaking spanish to me. Talk about about seeing a flummoxed look.
True urinal adventure story.
Couple years back, I’m in a very rough pub in East-End London. Not far from streets frequented by Jack the Ripper, etc: still nasty. On all sides of me are lager lads with shaved heads, nationalist tattoos and football scarves (always bait for a brawl). But I’ve had about six lagers myself and must use the facilities …
So, I’m using their tight cramped filthy facilities when I’m surrounded by the cast of “Trainspotting”. They eyeball me closely. When I move from the urinal to the sink, I get a taste of local hospitality. “Oho, he’s washin’ his ‘ands. Must not be from around ‘ere! Where you (expletive deleted) from?”
Your Truly mumbles the Canuck mantra, “scuse me” & bolts out the door.
Moral: if you ever need to blend in with Whitechapel skins, make sure your hands smell like p*ss.
Coincidence, I spent a good part of the 3 day weekend fixing a leak at the toilet water supply which included replacing pipe and tearing out dry wall.
Valentines Night we discovered it was leaking elsewhere. I discovered the bowl was cracked by cutting my finger on the fracture.
President’s day was celebrated with a new American Standard installation. Interesting, the American Standard was made in Mexico just like my Mercury. Vive Mexico!
I had to go check and make sure Manny’s was still there. It looks considerably gussied from the evening two decades ago when this hayseed was introduced to sauteed walleye cheeks. Which don’t appear on the menu anymore. Maybe it was a special.
When I was a kid I remember my family stopping at the “Madonna Inn” somewhere in California, which to a 6-year-old girly girl was sooo pretty, but I’m thinking now it was probably pretty Gobblerific. My stepdad informed us all that instead of a urinal there was a waterfall. I was disappointed I didn’t get to see it.
Worst bathroom ever for me was in a motel in Limón, Costa Rica. My cousin’s husband actually owns the place and we had to stay there when we were in Limón on family business (Costa Rica=gorgeous; Limón=horrid). The towels were old and thin, the shower was literally a cold trickle, and the ceiling tiles were missing above the shower so we could hear late-night karaoke from the neighboring bar. And no, the rest of the motel did not get any better than that. Never again.
Oh yeah, funky bathrooms. The Madonna Inn in San Luis Obispo, CA has waterfall urinals. Ladies are always coming in to see them, usually after a man checks first but, not always.
Italy isn’t really a great-open-plains kind of place for pasturage, so the Romans never got into the habit of raising large numbers of and eating cattle.
Fun etymology fact: “butter” comes from the Latin “butyrum”, which is the Greek “boutyron”: bous cow + tyros cheese. Butter was a basically alien substance, so the Greeks identified it as best they could.
“Vive Mexico”? Mexico lives? Maybe, but it’s sick.
I always tell my wife – I will attempt almost any handyman chore, but whenever I attempt plumbing, I end up wet and bleeding.
@JerseyAmy: posted at same time, too bad your parents were too polite to just barge in with you.
For people wondering, The Madonna Inn is Gobbler-like but, more gaudy than tasteless, it is very pink. Good food when I was in High School.
Look up the honeymoon rooms.
Ah yes, attempting to deal with your own plumbing problems. I was permitted to do this just twice by the Minister of Finance and Under Secretary of Defense (AKA She Who Must Be Obeyed). The first time I managed to twist the head off the faucet. She called the professionals. The second time I managed to fracture the incoming coper line under the sink. She called the same professionals who just couldn’t resist a crack about “So Conan the plumber’s been at work again huh?”
@bgbear: That is pretty funny that we posted the same thing at the same time. My stepdad did take his sister in to see, maybe they were just afraid I’d try to squat into the waterfall or something!
The urinals in the exclusive Headliners Club, about 26 floors above downtown Austin, were mounted on a tinted glass wall facing out.
Gave new meaning to the word “peons,” in a top-hat-Monopoly sort of way.
@grebmar
Are you serious????? They actually put something on the wall for guys to “aim” at? LOLOL!
To quote Elaine from “Seinfeld”: “I don’t know how you guys walk around with those things.” : D
It’s just one word– go read it again. ZURN
My family goes to a place in New Hampshire called the “Poor People’s Pub”, where the toilet rooms are labeled “WIPE IT” and “SHAKE IT”.
Every year they do a souvenir T-shirt. One year the artwork was a guy standing between the doors with his legs crossed and a confused expression.
*****
“[Romans] didn’t eat cows. I understand why – more useful as draft animals, milk givers, ceremonial beasts, etc.; it’s like asking why we don’t eat our tractors, I suppose.”
Well, modern Americans don’t consider horsemeat to be acceptable on the dinner table; same with dog or cat. At least not when we can see it coming. Whaddya think’s IN THE BURGERS?
“Perhaps in a hundred years they’ll look at our menus the way we look at the Gilded Age bill of fare…”
Ha. They’ll see “Prime Angus Beef Hamburger Cooked To Perfection with Succulent Lettuce, Juicy Tomatoes, And Fresh-Cut Onions, Served With Mumpy’s Delicious Home-Made French Fries. Full Range Of Premium Condiments Available.” They won’t know that the actual meal was a microwaved Meat Hockey Puck served with a piece of wet green construction paper, a frozen-for-your-convenience slice of tomato, a sliver of onion skin, and a paper sack containing a handful of oil-soaked sponges. This is served with one plastic tear-open packet of watery ketchup, one plastic tear-open packet of watery mustard, and one plastic tear-open packet of synthetic lard with chemical egg flavoring which was labeled “mayonnaise” as a joke.
Yes, I do not really like plumbing, however, years of not being able to afford a pro has left me pretty good at it.
The only plumber I have ever called in my life was to do the roto-rooter thing on the septic tank pipes.
Don’t know how pigeon brains and olives would go over at lavish orgies, everyone in their best togas ‘n all. I heard they ate a lot of pork prepared in cheery sauces. Beans not so much. Can you imagine the “fallout”, at an orgy no less!
At the Saturn Cafe in Santa Cruz, CA, the doors were labeled “Them” and “US”.
The Madonna Inn – always a sure sign that we are almost to our destination: Avila Beach. Strange that there can be fog socked in all over the area, San Luis Obispo, Moro Bay, even as far in as Atascadero, yet it’s always breezily perfect at Avila Beach. We seem to stay there at least twice a year now. Early June, and then either Easter or the week after Christmas. One of the few treasures left in California that makes it hard to leave.
Funny how this thread is going. I happened to read this story this morning: http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/226/whats-the-deal-with-urinals-in-womens-restrooms
Now THAT’s weird.