The Yard House (Cigar Smoke 9-23-10)

I was sitting on the end of the couch last Friday night and Marge said, “Do you want to go out tonight?” And I said, “Can I take the couch with us?”

So we decided to help out the local economy and grab some dinner and check out the new ArcLight Theatre in the Paseo de Plaza de Weirdo de Layouto in semi-beautiful downtown Pasadena. I love making online reservations to overpriced movies, and then strolling past the lines of non-online user losers and smirking at them over my shoulder as I waltz by with my officially printed letter-sized bar code document. Besides sitting, it’s my life.

But before we get to the theater we have to eat, and before we eat, we have to navigate the plaza to get to the restaurant area. So I do what I always do: I get on an elevator or escalator purely by chance and go up to the supposedly correct floor and then I walk out in the plaza to always determine that I am standing across from the restaurants with a chasm between me and the restaurants and no way to get there. I curse to myself. I curse to Marge. I curse for the honey-covered-ant-hill death to the guy who designed this place.

Eventually, we are in the restaurant section, and Marge suggests that we eat at The Yard House. I don’t want her to know, but I don’t exactly know what a Yard House is. I know what a yard is. I know what a house is. I know what a house with a yard is. But I do not know what a Yard House is.

So I say to Marge, “Sure, I love eating at yard houses. It’s three times as good as eating at The Feet House and 36 times better than eating at The Inch House.” Her laughter rocks the plaza.

We go inside and the waitress looks at me and my companions, my drooping eye bags and my Caucasian hair and suggests that we might be more comfortable eating outside on the empty, chilly patio, behind a concrete column, far, far away from the regular customers who we wouldn’t want to mislead and have them think they have stumbled into a rest home.

We are sitting down, looking over the menu, and then we notice at the table next to us that they have three giant, and yes, yard long glasses of ale or lager or some damn beery thing. They’re happier than three Democrats spending a Republican’s estate tax money.

When the waitress comes over to take our order, I ask Marge if she would like a yard of malt liquor or a yard of Bud Light. She says she would like a yard of duct tape and a yard of trade-in credit for a new husband. The waitress curls her lip in appreciation, and I say, “Just bring her a yard of Riesling and I’ll have a yard of nachos and a yard of guacamole and a yard of Beano.”

An hour later, we go into the ArcLight to see the No. 1 movie of the day — “Inception.” I really wanted to see this movie. I loved the director’s “Memento” of a few years back, and it just looked like it would be intellectual and flashback fun to figure out, kind of like “Pulp Fiction,” which is probably my favorite movie of all time. (So, yes, I am kind of commie in this regard using the word intellectual in public.)

We settled into our bitchin ArcLight center-ass seats right in the middle of the theater with our yard of popcorn. And then the movie started, and then the explosions started, and then people were walking up sides of walls and streets were coming apart and turning perpendicular to reality, and guys were chasing and beating and shooting other guys and acting terrified and it was like a video game for training psychopaths but, thank God, it was only a dream because they all had wires sticking out of their heads and then the dialogue was so frigging weird that I was hoping it was a dream, too.

We saw about 40 minutes of this and I realized that there was still another two hours of big-screen entertainment ahead of us and that there wasn’t going to be an intermission so we could make a civilized escape like we did when we went to see that “Sweeny Todd” piece of barber garbage at the Music Center.

So, I leaned over and whispered to Marge, “Do you really give a shit if somebody gets inside somebody else’s dream?” Marge said, “Uh, no I don’t. I don’t give a yard of piss about this whole premise.” I hugged her shoulders, and said, “Nobody has ever said premise to me before. I love you. Let’s blow this joint.”

As we were clambering over these two guys sitting next to us, one of the guys says, “Are you leaving?” And I could tell he was being pissy about it like we were just too old and too square to get this kind of hip, modern movie. So I said, “Cut the shit, Theatergoer! I could get in your dream in a flash, and make you go see “Dinner With Schmucks” with us next weekend.”

And then I accidentally spilled the remaining two feet of popcorn on his “Inceptional” lap. He said, “Why in the hell did you do that?” “Do what?” I said, “You must be dreaming.”