Ok. So I had this dream last night that I was at "The Snuggery". Do youse suburbanites remember this 80s coke den? I only was able to get into a later Southside suburban incarnation of The Snuggery, BG Fellows, in Alsip, IL. One of the delightfully sleeziest places I've been in. I think there was a "lingerie show" going on and the bartenders were visibly coked up. In addition (extra points): wood paneling and velvet strips of fabric staple-gunned to said wood paneling.
I found this entertaining essay about a dude who worked at "The Snuggery" after college (Northwestern, in fact) during the height of its popularity--a neon-tinted time warp back to a place in Chicago suburban history, circa 1985, gone forever--enyoy.
In addition, I totally remembered The Sabre Room--the Southwest Suburban Cheese Factory complete with genie sign in Aladdin pants wielding a huge "sabre". Check out the story about "The Flaming Sabre".
Highlights:
1. coming home and tripping over the aquarium and watching Dom Deluise movies and then making a waffle; and
2. "Always ahead of his time, Arnold brought the magic of fiber optic lights to the Sabre Room before fiber optics existed. Intrigued by the glow of flourescent [sic] colors the original dining room was aglow with this magic."
We should be in awe.
Aside from pre-inventing fiber optics--a key innovation in the progress of the later 20th century--this guy somehow created a dining room conscious enough to be enthralled by its own illumination. Not to mention that his fiber optics somehow ran on flour. A Thomas Edison of Italian dining. It's true. Not only did Arnold (and I picture him as Arnold on Happy Days) pave the way for future "pre-inventors" and masters of anthropomorphics alike, he had several girlfriends in the Niagra Falls area.
Who knew you could run an entire operation on flour? Excelsior.
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