The AMC 8 Galleria movie theatre closed in the early 2000s and it was, as many of my New Orleans brethren will remember, a staple of pre-teen and teenage life in New Orleans.
My grandmother was forced out of her home- the home I grew up in and in which I felt the most comfortable- in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
The end of (and passing of 75% of) "The Golden Girls".
Tonight, I said a sad goodbye to a constant in my life since moving to Los Angeles in 2003: The Silver Spoon Diner/Bar.
I kept Silver Spoon a secret from many of you. Yes, it's true. And there are a few good reasons for that- the most important being that there was a bar at the Silver Spoon. A dive bar. A bar that could not hold many people. A bar that was not supposed to hold many people. A bar that was cozy enough to hold only the people it should: me and my friends who discovered the bar together.
And it was a treasure. One thing that keeps a person from going completely balls-out insane in this City of Angels is finding one's own slice of earth. Whether that slice of earth is one's own apartment or coffee shop or park bench, everybody needs something that they can secretly claim for themselves. Otherwise, they will become lost in this over-caffeinated, hyped-up, self-absorbed concrete jungle.
For me and a small of group of my oldest Los Angeles friends, that place was the Silver Spoon. By day, the Silver Spoon was a greasy-spoon diner often visited for breakfast that was notorious for giving us loyal patrons The Runs. A place where I met some legends like Shelley Winters and Quentin Tarantino and became friends with one of the most down-to-earth and friendliest people I've met since arriving in this fair city: Robert Forrester. By night, it was a diner that had a little-known bar attached to it where you could have The Run of The Place and (mostly) everyone knew your name.
I first walked into the Silver Spoon with my good friends Todd Milliner and Michael Matthews at the age of 22. In that time, I've done quite a bit of growing up here. I've talked things through, I've worked shit out, I've solidified friendships, I've put others to rest and I've made peace with many things in my own life at the bar at The Spoon. I've been funny, I've been sad, I've been creative, I've been angst-y. But every time I heard someone mention "The Spoon", it was hard for me to resist.
I have nothing but good memories of this ridiculously out of place middle-America crappy diner, and I always will.
It's a shame that, as we were all saying tonight, we can't seem to leave well enough alone in this country. When in Scotland last year, I ran across many coffee shops and small stores that couldn't possibly have turned much of a profit. And yet, they'd existed for decades. Why? Because there wasn't an absurdly frantic pursuit of the Almighty Dollar in their country and people were allowed to have their small bookstores and cafes just for the simple pleasure of it.
The Silver Spoon has been purchased.
As of tonight, the bar no longer exists. Within the next day or two, the diner will be completely closed. In its place will be a Sunset Strip-type club that will probably change ownership and concept every 6 months until it ultimately closes down and becomes an empty space.
It is indeed The End of An Era. It's the sad, unfortunate truth of our world- the times, they are a-changin'. Not much gold can stay. Places that develop meanings to people end up being bought out and torn down or sold off and completely changed... and those meanings become nothing more than memories. So maybe the trick is to hold make a bunch of good memories, hold onto them and then do your best to make new ones.
Who knows?
I surely don't.
Goodbye Silver Spoon.
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