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November 18, 2010

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I had lunch at Tom's about a month ago.I was sitting on a murder trial jury, so it wasn't downtown boosterism that brought me there. Still, I knew something was wrong given the sparse lunchtime crowd. By contrast, Five Brothers in Cityscape had a line out the front door. True, Tom's is a bit more expensive but the food isn't fried in peanut oil either.

When I was a kid, I went with my parents to the Flame on several occasions. It was a "good" restaurant in the sense that it was fairly expensive and had a bar with caged monkeys behind it (you can imagine the fascination for a six-year old). It was also something of a pick-up place for its day. Young Dutch and Germans doing pilot training at Luke went there to get lucky. Time is a fogbank, but I still recall the swanky naughtiness of the place. Today, what would compare to it? Houston's? Maybe Ben Quayle knows, but Scottsdale is Republican Gomorrah. True, the sport never changes but the characters seem bleached of any story worth telling.

I remember eating at Tom's a very long time ago. It is a sad story and one I wish had a different outcome. Although I never knew the owner I knew of its history.

If Mr. Ratner were still alive and healthy, I have a feeling Tom's would exude a different aura and motif then what it looks like today. May he rest in peace and I hope that this place is picked up by someone with his memory in place, persistence, and passion.

@soleri, have you tried Amsterdam. True it is a swanky gay mecca (nationally recognized in fact), but it may have some qualities you remember. I'm not exactly sure how to relate to what you describe of Flame, but if it is what I imagine these much to see.

As for Scottsdale, I feel it is bipolar; the North vs South with the hip areas (most likely the places you refer to as "Republican Gomorrah")more in touch with the Central City then Shea Blvd, especially among my generation (whom would NOT/did not support Quayle). In fact, there is a growing presence of the young Scottsdale club/bar/Gomorrah goers invading the downtown scene (for better or worse, still undecided).

Not sure how I feel about the Scottsdalians/ers (Dirty Pretty, its also a club) invading my turf. I've often confused the metrosexuals from Scottsdale with members of my homosexual persuasion. But it seems peaceful and not "unwelcomed."

I apologize for going slightly off topic, but I'm glad Tom's Tavern and Mr. Ratner never departed the downtown scene.

phxSUNSfan, I've been to the bar Amsterdam and it's very nice for what it is. My little bit of cultural criticism here has to do with our depleted social capital. Phoenix in the 50s was still riding a swelling wave. Dressing up was still expected in nicer places. People still read books (you weren't truly middle class unless you read, and that meant serious literature, too). And sex was as at least partly sublimated in other creative ventures. When I look around today, I see anodyne people looking for equally anodyne people whose badges of social identity are dance beats, tattoos, and cell phones.

I can still remember my shock in the 1980s when I realized that youth culture was no longer couched in anything more compelling than mass marketing and lifestyle concepts. Yes, it's competitive and creative own on its own terms, but it's utterly unrooted to places and ideas. That's what I mean by "Scottsdale Gomorrah". It's fashionable without being interesting.

One mass media fix of mine is Mad Men. Some of this is undoubtedly nostalgia but it's instructive to see how there were still certain codes even as the 60s opened the floodgates of personal expression. The difference between the early 60s and the late 60s was breathtaking. You can argue that we're still living in reaction to this schism when liberated people decided to pursue individual rather than social goals.

Tom's Tavern, for all its great pictures and political lore, was not a museum or a nostalgia fix. It tried to keep the fire of shared experiences alive from a time when politics not only mattered but was informed by some vital lines of continuity. Maybe that's what we're mourning about Mike Ratner's death. In a city that has become increasingly disconnected to its own history and meaning, the sense of loss is everywhere.

Sorleri, I like your passion for "back in my day" and can see your judgment of my generation and those younger. I am sure the elders during your more youthful years (with all due respect, and not calling you old or too old in any way)felt the same way. Elvis' hip gyrations and whites dancing with blacks, oh my!

But I think you have many of us all wrong. We thrive in stimulating atmospheres, in "culture clashes" and in situations that are rather uncomfortable and outside of our normal zones of "assuagement." Dance can be an expression (in my culture especially) and music is more than a beat but a pulse of a generation, a culture, and a divergence of civilizations.

Eh, maybe I just get really drunk and mistake it for such...

I never had the pleasure of visiting Tom's, but I enjoyed your fine eulogy.

phxSUNSfan, my teeny-weeny inconsequence of a culture critique is just a speculation. To think is to speculate about the person speculating. In fact, I often wonder if anyone's initial experience of the world is primordially authentic. Everything that follows, therefore, is necessarily a let-down. So, FWIW, my let-down started in the late 60s and gets worse every year. That's not to say I'm disappointed with youth, only the crucible of their....hmmm, "youthiness". I know kids are smart, vital, and kind. What I don't know is their culture because I don't care to steep myself in the arcana of fashion or express myself with consumer items that have the shelf life of a firefly.

If I'm not "getting it", it's not for want of trying. I have an iPod with several hundred songs much more hip than the person carrying it. I read the kids' blogs. I go to their movies and ponder their celebrities. The problem is that I don't decipher the codes of their culture because it's so utterly transient. Savor at your own risk because you might miss something new. I think that's the difference I'm reaching for: the absolute acceleration of change at the expense of real shared experience. The exotic garden of youth culture is planted, watered and reaped in 24 hour cycles. If capitalism is "creative destruction", youth culture is its peak expression.

Caged monkeys behind the bar! Wish I had seen that. I wonder if our State legislators are their freed progeny?

Thanks for sharing this, Jon.

I'm sorry for your and Phoenix's loss.

However thanks for sharing this story. This man and his business are exactly the type of business we need to support, and via this support, lift up and encourage the man behind it.

These cityscape development projects that steal away customers from a real man's business are a big part of america's problem, and ironically we (the people) control the answer.

There is no need for government action, no need to start fundraising to put into power some supposedly like-minded politicians only to find new bodies in our double-speaking one party system.

But we do need to be smarter about where we spend our money. Going back to Tom's Tavern--you certainly knew who ran the place, and he was the owner, and he lived in the community. But this Cityscape--who runs this place, is he the owner, and does he live in the community?

How about the restaurants you eat in, the coffeehouses you frequent, the bank you put your money in, where you put your 401k/IRA, how about the stores you get food, clothes, tools....

Everything you buy can be a vote against the establishment that has let us down, that has dismantled the community we love.

When you turn your attention to point fingers at the snowbirds and retirees who don't understand your community, you are blaming your future fellow victims of these national and international developers/corporations who are sucking your consumer, investment, and tax dollars out of your community.

If they don't understand your community, is that their fault, or must you share the blame for not educating and encouraging them beyond their convenience-minded brains and predictable chain-store ruts.

Everytime you take a friend or relative to some restaurant chain instead of a local place like Tom's Tavern...the shame is on you as much as them.

But it happened to all of us, we were gradually migrated into using the bright and shiny franchises instead of the unknown and mysterious local places. There is no shame in being fooled once, however we know the old sayings, and we know they are old sayings for good reason.

So for us to to perpetuate our bad habits as we realize how they are hurting us...it is the definition of insanity, and the shame then is definitely on us not them. A city to love, and a country we are not ashamed to live in, is a worthy goal to pursue, no?

"A city to love, and a country we are not ashamed to live in, is a worthy goal to pursue, no?" - The Other Mike

Yep. It's called "Seattle, Ecotopia" :)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine_Nations_of_North_America

Ecotopia, oh lord! If enough paranoiacs get their hands on that...chaos! LOL ;-)

Enjoyed a recent fundraiser with Al McCoy who was there to tell of his many years in Phoenix, his love for jazz and his support for JAZZINAZ's idea of an inner city music center for kids. The attendees were mostly old Phoenix types like me and it was so refreshing to hear discussions of the old watering holes and jazz joints. Like the Tom's post, it was a reminder of our history.

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