Oregon Tavern Age: Captain’s Cabin

It was my first day as a resident of Coos Bay and I utterly salivated at the prospect of discovering new OTA country, if there was any OTA country left on the Oregon Coast after Donald Trump had annihilated it forever by murdering storytelling by the regulars. Now all they did was parrot Fox News lies and wear their cheap MAGA gear imported from China.

On the drive from Portland I listened to Bob Seger—yeah, Turn the Page.

I’d driven by the Captain’s Cabin in the Empire district where I had purchased a home many times over the years, but never stopped in. Now was the time—2 in the afternoon on a weekday.

The parking lot was half full. No MAGA bumper stickers on $75,000 trucks.

One step inside and I knew the name was all wrong. It should be called the Captain’s Longhouse because it is one of the biggest OTA joints I’ve ever visited.

A shuffle board table, pool tables, high ceilings with rafters, a spacious outdoor area, a far corner where a live band could play complete with a dance floor.

A female OTA bartender stood behind the bar. An OTA man sat on a stool. A Christian home improvement show played on television.

I ordered a local ale and noticed signage for Dori’s homemade fruitcake–$2.50. Homemade fruitcake in OTA country? That was a first. I considered ordering it but didn’t want to suffer a possible bout of constipation or diarrhea so I demurred. But then again, Dori might bake the best fruitcake in Oregon. Next time, for sure.

I noticed the lineup of the Cabin’s evening entertainment. DJ, blues jam, karaoke, trivia and The Eddy Ross Band headlining on Saturday night.

Eddy Ross! A great rock bank name. Think Duane Eddy, Eddie and the Cruisers, Eddie Money, Eddie fucking Van Halen!

I asked the bartender about Eddy Ross. She’d didn’t know a damn thing because he’d never gigged the cabin. The OTA man said I should google him.

Fuck that! I’d walk in during the first set and find out for myself like the good ol’ days.

I was about to find a table when the bartender said she’d googled Eddy and his social media described his sound and “modern country and rock.”

Eddy Ross had gigged Winston and Roseburg, VFW halls, dive bars and such and now he was going to make his Coos Bay debut.

I watched a short soundless clip of the band—a four piece with a gargantuan physical presence on stage. I mean heavy and not heavy metal.

Would I attend the show? Probably not. Modern country is crap uneducated white man nostalgia and rock is dead.

I retired to my table and whipped out my journal. I noticed an old black and white photo of the New Deal boys building the McCullough Bridge over Coos Bay during the Depression.

I once lived in Newport where one of Conde McCullough’s art deco masterpieces, the Yaquina Bay Bridge, the greatest piece of architecture in Oregon, graced the landscape. I was so captivated by the Green Lady that I wrote a book about it.

Now I was back under Conde’s spell again.

I began to write. A young man (soon to be OTA) entered the joint and sat down at the bar. I read the back of his t-shirt: Stay the Fuck Out of My Face!

We’ve certainly devolved as a nation since “Don’t Tread on Me.”

I listened for Trump bullshit. Nothing. The men were talking about the Christian home improvement show and the building of a huge log cabin church in some desert wilderness where Jesus would presumably return one day and commence the rapture.