Snake and Jake's

When I painted this large piece in late August, no one knew where the location was or what the building with the pink roof was. Even my neighbor who's lived in this neighborhood for more than 20 years had to ask "now where is this at?" 

Snake and Jake's on Oak Street
oil on canvas, 20"x30"

Only after I tell them the building in the middle is Snake and Jake's, you know, that dark late night hangout for college kids, they'd go "oh I went to that place every weekend for 3 years." No one knew what Snake and Jake's looked like in the day time.

The problem with, or the beauty of, this hole-in-a-wall joint is that they don't have a huge sign out front with their name on it. And it is notoriously dark inside and out at night, and things don't get interesting until really late at night, or actually early in the morning. At least it used to be that way. Who cares what it looks like in a broad daylight? And who cares that the real name of the bar is the Christmas Club Lounge?

The last time I was inside Snake and Jake's sometime in the late '90s, I got my toes run over by a wheelchair with a legless Vietnam vet sitting on it, who was being carted around by a German guy, who would sing "I'm turning Japanese" every time he saw me. It didn't hurt because I was wearing steel toe engineer boots. It was probably in late August.