Swing Night at Henry's

Henry’s is by far our favorite bar in San Diego and it is speedily becoming our Cheer’s. Well, sort of. It’s more of a work in progress, like the Familia Sagrada in Barcelona.

Last week, we exchanged pleasantries with Justin, the bartender, so there is some potential there. And one of the bouncers has clearly noticed us, as he has remarked several times now that we sure do come to Henry’s an awful lot.

I have a sneaking suspicion, however, that he just thinks we have a drinking problem. So he only half counts.

But hey, slow and steady can still win the make-nice-with-the-bar-staff race so you can get discount cocktails and all-you-can-eat maraschino cherries!

One of the coolest thing about Henry’s is that it does theme nights. Wednesday is rhythm and blues, Thursday is 80’s, Friday and Saturday are hip-hop, Sunday is karaoke, Monday is mixmasters, and Tuesday (my favorite) is swing night.

Swing night features a live, rock-a-billy band called The Stillettos, who are amazingly T-Birdish. And all of the bar's T.V. screens show clips of people from the 50’s doing the Lindy Hop, the Charleston, the Shag, and the Balboa (trying to become well-versed in swing lingo, or as I like to call it - swingo - so that I can impress all of my new, wannabee swing friends).

The crowd of dancers that swing night draws is seemingly rather elitist. They dress to the nines in 50’s attire and all sit and chit-chat together between sets on the far side of the dance floor, while all the non-dancing cubes and clydes congregate near the bar like the lepers of middle school dances.

Stacey and I, however, have made it our mission to penetrate the inner swing circle. We actually made a little bit of headway with our goal this past Tuesday.

A fancy-footed, college professor named Mark took a liking to us and he showed us some of the swinging ropes.

He was a little too into the turns, however. After awhile, I almost had to say to him, “Ok Marky Mark, you keep spinning me like a maniacal dreidel and I am going to vomit on your saddle shoes.”

Then along came a herd of delightful Marine boys - all the size of redwoods, all sporting buzz cuts - so typical.

They were very sweet, but they had absolutely no skills and zero rhythm. But I gotta give them all A pluses for their afforts. Even though as they were attempting to spin Stacey and myself, we undoubtedly looked like nightmarish, dislodged ferris wheels.

My guy was so adorable though...like a really meaty, lost puppy. After we haphazardly bopped and jiggled around on the dance floor for awhile, he goes, “Ok, I’m gonna flip you around now!”

“Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!”

It was amazing. Totally razzed my berries (yep, I’m a cool cat - I googled 50’s jargon. What about it?). Not gonna lie though, I definitely donkey kicked several innocent bystanders in the back. But hey, go big or go home…or to the hospital to tend to your possibly ruptured kidneys. Whoops.

Can’t wait for next Tuesday!