Trader Dick's, John Ascuaga's Nugget, Sparks, Nevada

One of my favorite spots was Trader Vics at the Beverly Hilton. It used to be a very Sinatra Beverly Hills crowd, but then the other group, producers and prostitutes, found it. Unfortunately, it was recently updated. Why, I don’t know. I guess it was on the verge of being very cool, so time to make it tasteful. At the other end of the spectrum is Trader Dicks at the Nugget in Sparks, Nevada. It’s amazingly cheesy in a 1980s porn movie way. I actually love it more. If you are looking for an evening of serious career alcoholic drinking with mai-tais, this is the place. This is dangerous, though. You can either revel in the plastic flower, velveteen booth, and fried pupu platter wonderfulness, or it can go the other way. If you are the type who drinks and has crying jags, this atmosphere may lead to the most depressing evening of your life. But it’s Reno, and a gamble as to whether the night ends with hilarity or an intentional overdose.

Trader Dick's, Sparks Nevada, postcard, 1950s

Trader Dick's mugs

Trader Vic's, Beverly Hilton, Beverly Hills

The Camp Beverly Hills jacket, photo Penny Wolin

Before I graduated from college, I worked as a photo assistant with a remarkable photographer, Penny Wolin. At one point, we spent a summer traveling through the Rocky Mountain states to shoot a project, The Jews of Wyoming: fringe of the Diaspora. It was an incredible experience. One evening, we took a break and stopped into a bar near Laramie, Wyoming for a beer. When we walked in, I realized this was the local bar for the service-men and women at the Francis E. Warren Air Force Base. I felt pretty nifty because I was wearing my nylon bomber jacket and had aviator sunglasses. “Yep,” I thought as we talked with people, “I’m fitting in just fine here.”

Now, here’s where this post takes a left turn. When we left and I threw my jacket in the back of the VW bus, it occurred to me that the bomber jacket was good, but maybe having Camp Beverly Hills stitched across the back was a little out of sync. For those of you wondering, “What the heck is that?” Camp Beverly Hills was a cool place to shop off of Rodeo in the 1980s. The store specialized in pastel colored t-shirts and outfits, with a few military items mixed in. Everything had the Camp Beverly Hills logo, which, hard to believe, is now cool again. In retrospect, the people we met at that bar from Warren Air Force Base were pretty impressive. They were friendly and chatty, and I didn’t get beaten up.

What I was trying to emulate, no luck

Drew Barrymore, ET years, Camp Beverly Hills

Vals, and Goldie Hawn, Camp Beverly Hills

More vals, 1980s, Camp Beverly Hills

Camp Beverly Hills today, retro 80s cool