The Oceanic Brew Pub Chronicles
Larry Lenihan and Hobgood Rivard, a pair of aging ne'er-do-wells, have found a home in the Oceanic Brew Pub, Larry playing saxophone, and Hobgood working the grill.
Billie Holiday Blues
by Dan McClenaghan
Don't Explain Raphaela showed up at her job at the Oceanic Brew Pub with a slight swelling beneath her eye and a discoloration of the skin beneath it. The new grill cook, Hobgood, saw this right off when she came into the kitchen. Her effort to avoid eye contact and to avert the damaged side of her face told him to mind his own business, so he continued with the hand-shaping of the six-ounce hamburger patties from a ten-pound block ...
Continue ReadingHello Angelina
by Dan McClenaghan
I Fall In Love Too Easily Angelina poured down her first pint of the night in ten seconds flat, standing right there at the bar. Her job as a field reporter for the local news had given her the unenviable task of performing a mock interview of Charlie, the pelican who had taken up a roost on Oceanside's pier railing, just east of the bait shop. That interview hadn't gone well. Charlie had bitten the microphone out of her hand ...
Continue ReadingI Wish I Were In Love Again
by Dan McClenaghan
The Dance of the Infidels Word around the Whispering Palms Trailer Court was that Barb, the lady who ran the place, could have cleaned Mike Tyson's clock, in his prime, if it had ever come to that. It never did, but she came on top of about every physical confrontation she got herself into. If your let bougainvillea bush encroach on your neighbor's trailer space, she might march right up and let you know about it, and if you gave ...
Continue ReadingDance Dance Dance
by Dan McClenaghan
Dolphin Dance The dolphins frolicked just south of the end of the pier, leaping in playful arcs that took them completely out of the water. They bumped fins and swooped in and out of the pod. A select few angled their slick bodies into vertical positions, coming half out of the water to eyeball, up on the pier, the delighted casual strollers and the jaded fishermen behind the wooden railing above them. Children laughed; the dolphins smiled. A bright sun ...
Continue ReadingJazz Night At The Oceanic Brew Pub, Part 3: How You Loved Me On Mars
by Dan McClenaghan
The Oceanic Brew Pub's waitress, Rafaela, told the owner, Roy Leahy, not to hire that dumb ass pianist and his chihuahua again to play on Jazz Night. But Roy ignored her. The place had gotten a lot of publicity out of the duo's previous engagement, when pianist Sinbad Rindowski's howling vocal accompanist chihuahua, Sweetie Pie, damned near got eaten by a python that had set up shop inside the house piano. The snake--at the Rindowski's first touch of the keyboard--lunged ...
Continue ReadingJazz Night At the Oceanic Brew Pub, Oceanside, California, Part Two: I Don't Stand A Ghost Of A Chance With You
by Dan McClenaghan
Juanita Diaz-Johnson haunted the house piano at the Oceanic Brew Pub. The baby grand had been hers, when she was alive. But when she passed in December 2020, at age 79, another victim of the Coronavirus, her older daughter Evangeline penciled the piano in for a spot at the estate sale. But Rafaela, Juanita's younger daughter, intervened. She wanted that piano to take up residence in the Oceanic Brew Pub, down on Old Highway 101, for use in the newly-established ...
Continue ReadingJazz Night At The Oceanic Brew Pub, Oceanside, California, Part 1: I've Got A Crush On You
by Dan McClenaghan
Nobody seemed to know how the python got into the piano. Or if anybody did know, they weren't talking. But the how of it didn't matter; this is what happened on that Jazz Night at the Oceanic, February 27, 2021. The Oceanic Brew Pub seats sixty, but the current Covid-19 restrictions limit the house to twenty. In fact, only six people showed up to listen to the artistry of pianist Sinbad Rindowski and his vocalese accompanist, Sweetie Pie, ...
Continue Reading
Buy Now
