A bartender's childhood memories of his father.

The other week I was at this new bar, a former private events section of this one restaurant that got turned into a smaller bar with an exclusive cocktail menu, and when there was a lull in cocktail making I started talking with the bartender, this (younger) (white) guy who was playing a lot of Beatles over the stereo.

First, he told me about the original mono sound, versus the crappy fake stereo stuff that was released in the 90s back when they were "remastering" all of the Beatles albums and selling them for marked-up prices.

Then, he told me about how his dad was an old hippy who grew up in the city during the 50s and 60s, but he grew up on a suburban horsefarm, but they would drive in a lot of weekends, so that he could hang out with his dad's friends' kids his own age, and so that his dad could get drunk and smoke a lot of pot with his friends.

He said his dad used to put on a Beatles album for the entire drive in or back one way, the drive was just the right length, and sometimes they would talk to it and sometimes not, and he learned a lot of music that way.

When he got older, his dad started playing Blondie and the Ramones, too, and sometimes other things.

One time, his dad pulled off the highway so that they could really listen to this one guitar player who was on, this self-taught guy who could play both melody and harmony simultaneously on the same guitar, which is really tough since you have to press down the strings in just the right ways and keep them moving.

"It's mad hard," the bartender was like.  "I just remember my dad sitting there explaining it, and I was trying to understand, and I was like, 'Dad, I like it, but I don't get it!'".

"What a cool father," I was like.

"Yeah," he was like.