There’s an island bar in southern Thailand that I hope still exists. Unlike the other bars on Phi Phi island, this place served no Mai Tais, attracted few backpackers and had no DJ. While the music was loud, it wasn’t so loud that you couldn’t strike up a heated political conversation with an old farang or a young transvestite — and their food and drink offerings amounted to little more than cold beer and hot peanuts. I fear that it was destroyed by the 2004 tsunami, but the bar lives on in my memory. I like to imagine that its patrons are still talking about the Clinton/Lewinsky affair.

Ballard’s Tigertail Bar & Restaurant sits on an island of its own — the same obscure, partially residential strip of Northwest 65th Street that’s home to the Tin Hat and Molly Maguire’s – and like that Thai bar, it felt like home from the minute I walked in the door.

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