A Coupla Bars

I'm starting to feel somewhat human again as this whole divorce thing winds down. I don't recommend it and it wasn't my idea, but there it is.

Not to steal a pal's thunder over at The Epic, where he occasionally will post Fuzzy Photos From Great Bars but ...

Recently screwing up the nerve to go back out with friends, I hit two of my favorite bars in Honolulu. The first is in Chinatown. The neighborhood has evidently experienced a renaissance in the years I was OnceABachelor and all but absent from the rosters of the bar-hopping. Wonderful martini bars and intriguing lounges have replaced the sailors' dives and pool halls of my underage. There are about a dozen great joints to go tie one on in Chinatown, which all manage to avoid the "nightclub" feel that poorly-executed spots have.

The Dragon Upstairs is a former 2nd floor tattoo parlor. It boasts nightly acoustic jazz of surprisingly authentic quality. If you're gonna drink in Chinatown, it might as well be in a room with red walls, a mural of a giant serpent -- held over from it's inking days -- guarding the entry, and oversize voodoo masks glaring at you.

Across town you will find a rotating restaurant called the Top of Waikiki. I would give their dinner menu a fair-to-middling review if I were so inclined, but their bar -- which rotates around its central pillar of premium liquors -- is something to behold, something akin to a Bond villain's lair. A Sean Connery Bond villain's lair.

A Sean Connery Bond villain's lair complete with pictogram proclaiming "The World is Not Enough". Which is NOT the attitude to take when going through a divorce.