You don't go to the Lone Star in search of the perfect microbrew or single-malt whiskey or shots with esoteric liqueurs and clever names. You go for the bulk intake of domestic brew and cheap whiskey, and to hear the tales of woe from the seedy downtowners who call the bar home. It's not far from the city's Greyhound station and it's right across the street from a huge local bus terminal, so you get your bus passengers from near and far here, some wetting their whistles after a long ride in from Dallas or New Orleans, while others are steeling themselves to face whatever calamity awaits them in apron strings (or stained boxers and wifebeater) at home. Expect some surliness, but nothing buying a round won't cure.
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Happy Go Lucky
4016 Telephone Rd.
713-649-1126
If you've ever read A Confederacy of Dunces, you'll remember that the action in that classic culminates in a den of sin called The Night of Joy. The Happy Go Lucky is Telephone Road's Korean-style Night of Joy.
It's intensely dark, and there's a sickly-sweet oatmeal aroma about the place. Red leatherette is in abundance, both on the couches in their den-like setting and lining the bar. Where many bars have TVs, the Happy Go Lucky has monitors wherein the staff can watch four-way split-screens of the action in the parking lot.
A cage with a tiny green parakeet in it rests on the bar. Stick your finger in there, and the little bird will attack.
Behind the bar, a fiftysomething Korean lady exudes authority. Another parakeet perches on her shoulder, and judging from the little bruises on the lady's arms, this bird had only a little better temper than his caged compatriot.
A few other, somewhat younger, Korean women flit about in the shadows, and dozens of bottles of bad, if not cheap, champagne sit on a table behind the bar. A buffet waits on a table in the middle of the room, casserole tins loosely wrapped with foil.
"What kind of girl you like?" the barmaid asks two visitors. "You like Asian girl? Wanna dance?"
The jukebox features an assortment of Korean pop, Mexican workingman's music and blue-collar country and classic rock. Patsy Cline has pride of place here, as she has always and will ever in all such places. A mix of Duane Eddy's "Rebel Rouser," Vicente Fernández's "Volver Volver" (the "Brown Eyed Girl" of South Texas and Mexico) and "The End" by the Doors really suits the place and will only set you back a buck.
Back at the bar, a clean-cut twentysomething Mexican kid in a leather jacket comes in. He's a live wire. "I'll have a Corona!" he beams. One of the shadow girls is immediately at his side, as the mama-san looks on approvingly.
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Harrisburg Country Club
3618 Harrisburg Blvd.
713-237-8526
A venerable quasi-icehouse in the shadow of what used to be the Maxwell House coffee plant, the Harrisburg Country Club is still a pretty close approximation to the titular bar in Eagle Pennell's cult drinking-in-Houston film Last Night at the Alamo. It's easy to imagine the bar's famous sign — "May Wives and Girlfriends Never Meet" — hanging in the Alamo, and while the clientele is more heavily Hispanic than those you would have found in Houston's East End of a generation ago, at bottom they are the same blue-collar folks with the same workaday blues.
On Friday nights, DJs spin a mix you'll only hear on the south coast of Texas — Emilio followed by George Strait followed by Outkast followed by Selena followed by Earth Wind & Fire, with a little P-Funk and Vicente Fernández thrown in for good measure. Fiftysomething Hispanic ladies dance together on the tiny dance floor, re-enacting their long-ago prom nights and quinceañeras — while the Vietnamese owner looks on. Outside, a wiry, wizened old Hispanic lady cadges cigarettes and tells a visitor the story of her life. She's from Corpus Christi, and she's so dark-skinned everyone has always called her La India. All her life she'd never had much luck, until a few weeks ago, when she got up at the nearby D&W Inn on karaoke night and sang Patsy Cline's "Crazy." Her version brought down the house. "I won," she beamed. "For the first time in my life I won something...Now, can I have one more cigarette?"
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