Popination Memorization

a series of unhinged personal essays disguised as pub reviews. Today: The Local of Boulder (it’s Murphy’s tho, always will be).

It’s funny—ever since I started my memoir (which, reminder: I’ve finished and it’s great and I’m trying to get it published now so hmu), I have been admonished by all my editors and beta readers that a) I am in fact an interesting person, and b) I have and still often do lead an interesting life. This always, to this day and including this Substack, makes me cringe to hear. My entire first chapter of my memoir is centered around how difficult it is for me to talk or write about myself. Memorize an entire Shakespearean lead or Fool character? Sure. Take my clothes off artfully onstage in front of a noisy crowd? Sign me up. But, words about myself? My Self? Ew, allow me to shudder alone over here in the corner.

However! Memoir and personal essay (or what

Martha Nichols

recently called ‘first-person journalism’) has become not only my biggest strength, but the only thing I do or even want to write anymore. It’s weird to me—if you don’t know me, this may not make sense, but it continues to freak me out a little. 

I bring this up because, when I first started this popination series, the overwhelming reaction from readers was that the more these pub reviews are really about me and my life, less about the pubs, the better they are to read. Which. Okay, I just need to believe others, that the things I do are interesting to learn about and the person I am is an interesting subject for an essay. :Jenn runs to the bathroom to go retch for a moment:

The thing about this whole topic, though, is that, fascinating though I tend to be /insert eyeroll at self here/, I don’t always, every day, every pub, find myself in exciting or unusual or even interesting circumstances. Today’s popination is (I think) an example of this. So, allow me to present this popination as more of a spewed-forth list than a full narrative essay. Cool? 

Too bad, I’m doing it anyway.

JJ Abrams, check my artistic lens flare and eat yer heart out!

The Local

Why did I find myself here at The Local pub last Tuesday, in a weird corner of an ancient crumbling strip mall in North/Central Boulder? Well, the reason I’m here at this pub is that it used to be a regular place I’d go back when my college boyfriend lived upstairs here near the tattoo shop (the first tattoo I got was done there, actually), and even before then, as a kid, it being walking distance from the trailer where I grew up.

It used to be called Murphy’s back then, a grungy bar/restaurant with an Irish vibe, whose Guinesses were properly poured, appetizers mediocre and overpriced, and whose Denver-Bronco-named Mecklenburger was a favorite meal. Now, it’s called just The Local, though it’s still Murphy’s on the Uber map, I noticed. It’s set up pretty much the same: same booths and high tables, a refurbished bar but the same bar, gussied up but same bathrooms. They’ve taken down all the Reader’s-Digest-humor style Irish slogans from the walls, and the menu is more contemporary trendy bistro than pub grub. It’s more pricey, too, even for Boulder. But they still know how to properly pour a Guinness, and their whiskey list is long, long.

Each time I’ve been here since it morphed into Local, it has been pretty empty. Deserted, even. When I meet my parents for a Friday happy hour, no less than on a Tuesday afternoon. Look at the above picture. Crickets. When it was Murphy’s, it was pretty hopping. When did it change into Local—was it a post-pandemic reopening thing? That might explain part of it (no I’m not going to do any research on these, I never do). There are still Murphyses (?) in South Boulder, and in nearby teeny suburb Louisville. I wonder why this one decided to change so much, and I wonder if those other ones are doing well. I don’t feel like going to South Boulder, and I certainly don’t want to have to bus to Louisville to find out. So. Which reminds me:

A Loaf of Bread, a Container of Milk, and a Stick of Butter

Speaking of being Gen X, remember this sequence from Sesame Street?

I was in Boulder in general because I had a bunch of errands to run. One of which was the DMV, to renew my driver’s permit. I got it back when I still lived here in the Birdhouse, Boulder address and whatnot, so I thought it’d be easier to renew it at the place I got it from. Yes, it’s just a permit. I need to continue the driving lessons I began pre-pandemic, and actually get my license, so I can be another adult driver in this household. Growing up in Boulder, I never needed nor really wanted the stress of (nor could afford the expense of a car for) driving. But Boulder isn’t an ideal town for driving. Where I live now? Driving is pretty essential.

Of course, you’ll probably understand the level of anxiety and panic that driving instills in me, as a 50-year-old who hasn’t driven hardly at all unless you count the two 2-hour lessons I already have experienced. That instructor was a no-nonsense retired kindergarten teacher who treated me appropriately like one of her 5 year olds, and did say that I was doing well. I only had one or at most two lessons left there before I would be ready to test. But that school shut down and so it’s up to me to find another. And I’m tearing my cuticles with my teeth about it. But. Needs must.

The Boulder DMV is, and has been for about a thousand years, at the far end of a really spooky little hallway of a mallish type thing squozen between a 24 Hour Fitness (that used to be an Albertson’s and briefly a Wal-Mart); an extremely crunchy laundromat that’s been there also forever, from where my first husband and I once got two whole loads of clothes stolen; and flanked inside by a trophy maker, a watch repair shop that I’m convinced is a front for something, a scary looking Chinese takeout place, and a mom-and-pop Mexican restaurant with a patio that looks out on the parking lot and from which I have, weirdly enough, gotten authentic and tasty homemade cannoli. The lighting in this hallway is both fluorescent and somehow dim gray, and it has been so weird for so long that as kids we dubbed it the Twilight Zone Mall. I wonder if it’s haunted.

The permit renewal process was surprisingly quick and smooth, and so it was time for my third errand. (My first errand of that whole day was to get my hair dye and undercut freshened up by the mid-posh salon near downtown.) So. After the DMV, it was time for a brief sojourn into DV8 Distillery, the lovely junkyard-chic place where Bue Dime Cabaret has all our variety shows. We’re showcasing a lingerie line by a local designer, and, as I am going to be one of the models, I had to go down there to get a fitting done for same. While there, my co-producer and I would meet up and discuss plans for 2024 shows.

SIDE NOTE: I’m doing a comedic monologue for this upcoming show: it’s the piece by Rowan Atkinson where he plays a stern schoolmaster doing roll call and all the names are dirty jokes. The show is a Sex Ed / Back to School theme and so I thought it’d be perfect, and since I used to have his whole show memorized, not just this piece, I thought it’d be perfect. But now in my old age I’m actually having to work on re-memorizing it, which I find rather disconcerting. 

Oh, but! Point is: The Murphy’s Local is just across the street from the DMV. So I thought I’d pop in and take a couple pics and notes for a popination before I went there, and then went East.

Back to Murphy’s (er, Local)

Well. They still do know how to pour a Guinness. So I had one, after my Jameson’s, neat. Why not honor the Irish history of the place, after all? The bored-looking, tatted & pierced ‘tender complimented my order. “I enjoy both of those choices, very much.”

Was he flirting? Ehhh I never know. Particularly with bartenders. There was one, back in the early days of my polyamory, at another Boulder place where I was a regular. The server and I had an intense flirtation that spanned months, until he finally texted me for what would explicitly have been a booty call. I had to turn it down, though, as I had a deadline for a script for a 24-hour theatre festival, that I had to fulfill. And this is why I can’t have nice things. Me. It’s me, I’m the problem. And. Yes, I am that nerdy. This is a true story.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes🎶

Here’s where I’d put in a Musing and reflection about how I’ve changed, how Murphy’s has changed, change is changing… I don’t know, though. I’m still the same person, though I’m trying new things. The DMV’s hallway is still weird and spooky, though the parking lots and part of the building surrounding it have been razed to dirt. Murphy’s is still laid out the same way, even though it’s the Local.

Plus ça change? Eh, kinda.