The Blue Moon

• December 31, 2004
• Rated 5 of 5 by El Gallo from Monkey Junction, Newfoundland, Afghanistan

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The Blue Moon Tavern is the most famous bar in Seattle or the Northwest, hands down, and in certain circles, the most famous in the West. Not the best circles, to be sure: we're talking Deadheads here, and beatniks, and hippies and yippies and Free Thinkers and bootleggers. The Blue Moon is a singularity that transcends the whole idea of what a tavern is: a totem, a lifestyle, a mecca, a legacy. The Blue Moon as a fringe element goes back to the ‘20s, when it was built like 6 inches over the legally demarcated "One Mile from Campus" for purveyors of alcohol, tosspots, and rakehells. Even when it was a college roadhouse, it was tough and artsy at the same time. Those effete Eli's might have their Temple Bar, but UaDub has wallowed in squalor and epiphany in the Moon and lived to tell the tale.

Nowadays, the Blue Moon has actually become respectable, mostly to those who wouldn't set foot in the place on a bet. It's a raucous, grubby joint where poor behavior standards seem to have rubbed into the wood booths like grime. Not for nothing does the front door read, "Sorry, We're Open." But when it was about to be razed in 1990, the hue and cry was heard abroad, mostly because the Moon is a star in the literary constellation. It was declared a historic site and sits there with its psychedelic mural, neon sign, and ruffian smugness.

The literary thing is real. Kerouac mentioned the place; Roethke has taught classes there; Richard Hugo, Carolyn Kizer, Stanley Kunitz, and David Wagoner were regulars and wrote of the place, which even East Coast literary snobs could read. Tom Robbins has darkened the door and called it, "a frenzy of distorted joy spinning just outside the reach of bourgeois horrors." On the other hand, it’s just another roadside attraction.

I met Robbins at the Blue Moon, and Ken Kesey as well. I saw Alan Ginsberg there, reaffirming my impression of him as the most overrated American writer of all time. You mention such meetings in Seattle and people shrug and say, "Where else?" There is even a literary magazine (in some ways the best in the area) dedicated to the Blue Moon, or at least largely written and published right there on the wet tables. It's been declared a historic preservation site.

Your visit there will probably be a disappointment, like visiting Kerouac towards the end, sitting there drinking and watching TV and being bitter. The Moon doesn't try to entertain you, and it doesn't try to impress you. It just continues to give people beer and a chance to interact. The Moon is what it is; you are who you are. Live with it. The winner of a crapper "craffiti" contest was from the Moon: "There are times when the wolves are silent and the moon howls." Maybe you'll walk in at one of those times.

There is no phone; just show up and take your medicine.

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From journal IGO U DIZ