McNEIL's PLACE

Tony and I have been spending our lunch breaks for the past twenty years at the South Oakland YMCA.  How we have managed to keep our bodies rounded over that time is anybody’s guess, though I imagine the fact that a good deal of our time at “The Y” is spent arguing about sports and music instead of sweating, may be a contributing factor.

   These are some of the sights, sounds and smells from those lunch hours:

•  A nude person, more troll than man, doing leg lifts on the wood benches between the rows of lockers.  
•  An increasingly senile long tenured member washing his wretchedly shit stained underwear out in the common sink.  Yes, the same sink that unsuspecting others will brush their teeth and shave in later that day. 
•  A man sitting in the lobby, with his shoes and socks off, cutting his toenails.  For the record, the whereabouts of his yellowed nails did not seem to be much of a concern, either to him or the oblivious staff.
•  A boner.
•  An old guy in the open shower room, backing away from the shower head, putting one leg out in front of him, foot flat against the wall, making room to slide a long handled brush under his droopy balls and into his ass region.  Though the sight was mostly grim, I did admire his agility.
•  A thirty something dandy, striding into the weight lifting area clad only in a Speedo. He went about his vigorous workout as if it were perfectly normal to be clad in a small piece of latex with your pathetic button pointing the way.  My curiosity got the best of me and I asked him “What up?”  He explained that he forgot his workout duds and still wanted to workout.  Perfectly reasonable.
•  Vomit.
• A trail of fresh shit leading the way into the men’s locker room, ending at a senile woman calling for assistance.  Many members, Tony and I included, continued to dress for our workout while she was being attended to.  I seem to recall some gagging from my brother.
•  A mentally challenged young adult on the walking track above the gym, covertly spitting at Tony and I as we played basketball.  It wasn’t until the spit began to pool at my favorite spot near the three point line that we figured out what was going on.  Our subsequent inspection revealed a bevy of spit pools. How he wasn’t dehydrated I’ll never know.
•  A man flossing his teeth in the common shower area.  My sensibilities about what is gross have been somewhat dulled by “The Y”, but I’m pretty sure that fits the bill.
•  Nude people sitting on benches and chairs reading books or eating apples.  No towels, just bare asses and hairy balls plopped where other bare asses and hairy balls previously plopped.  Go home and read or eat!
•  Urine.

Fellow stumblebum Tony and I answered the Friday night call for sensory overload of a different persuasion by heading to McNeil’s Place in Warren.  How did we hear of this roadhouse sitting on the east side of Schoenner Road just south of I-696?  They don’t advertise or have a shit website like so many do (ahem).  I saw this joint while driving by and liked it’s big parking lot, dirty white exterior, mismatched marquee letters trumpeting a live band and crappy surrounding neighborhood.  You know you’ve been to a lot of dumps when this type of inspection leads you to recommend, and Tony to excitedly agree.

There was no cover to enter, a plus that lead me to believe that we would get socked by the beer pricing.  A reasonable $6.25 for a Michelob Light and Miller Light calmed my jangled nerves.  We found a nice tall table and two chairs against one wall, offering a commanding view of the stage, long bar opposite, mismatched tables and chairs throughout, televisions and Keno.  The lighting was kind, my red nose muted.

Tony and I were anxious to hear Alibi 5 rock the house, having bet ahead of time and without seeing the band, what the opening salvo would be.  I can’t recall what we guessed, but I know it wasn’t Seven Nation Army by The White Stripes.  The song was a hair slow, the voice more than a hair thin, but we appreciated the effort.  And judging by the dance floor, so did the crowd.  A young woman, with stronger pipes but less personality, shared the lead vocals and sang on a wide variety of songs ranging from The Pretenders to Pat Benetar (that’s a joke, The Pretenders to Pat Benetar is not really a wide variety).

The crowd was exactly what I expected from the outside of the bar.  Strictly neighborhood, a great mix of ages and split evenly between regular guys and girls.  Tony pointed out that this bunch seemed comprised of groups of four or larger with a common denominator of loud.  The dance floor was populated exclusively by the ladies, so we were spared both the stiff old white man’s dance and the overly aggressive young white man’s dance.  I did not see much in the way of hooking up going on, not really that kind of place. 

The service at McNeil’s left a bit to be desired.  Our waitress always seemed to stop short of making it through the crowd to our table, forcing one of us to go to the long bar to re-up.  Oddly, when ordering two beers, the barmaid asked me to point out who the second beer was for.  I pointed to Tony holding the back wall up, he responded with the nod and wave and the two beers were mine.  Was she just curious, or was there a reason?

As an interesting(?) aside, earlier, during my work week, I stopped in at 220 Restaurant above posh Edison’s Bar and picked up a fancy pack of matches that I would surprise Tony with during Bug Juice Friday (one of us likes to smoke Capone’s and is saving the proof of purchases to score a free hat).  After a few beers, the time seemed right, so I proudly tossed the fancy matches on the table, only to have little brother trump me by producing identical matches from his pocket and tossing them on top of my pack.  Prick!

Anyway, a good time can be had at McNeils’s.  You won’t have to get gussied up, drop a ton of bank (as the kid’s like to say), or get hassled by walking testosterone.  Judging this book by it’s seedy cover turned out to be a good thing.

Cheers!

Jim

McNeil's Place:  26700 Schoenherr Road Warren, MI 48089