So Esquire has posted a list of America's Best Bars. It's a fun read, organized state by state with blurbs putting the bars in their local and historical context, and sidebar telling you what you're going to be eating or drinking there: Rum Rickey at Burt's Tiki in Albuquerque, tequila shots with beer chasers at Los Ojos in Jemez Springs, N.M.

I scanned the list and was startled to see how many of these bars I had been to. I spent my 20s and 30s living the life of a journalism gypsy, working at one paper after another, so I sat in bars pulling info out of sources in many area codes. Other nights I spent evenings at these same bars in drunken, witty banter with my colleagues about the current events we were covering --  a time-honored fourth-estate social hour reimagined in the NPR show "Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me."

So here the bars from the Esquire where I've tossed back a few:

ALABAMA
The BlueGill
Mobile
A supper club in the true Gulf Coast tradition. It stands in Mobile Bay on pilings, and gets knocked down about every six years by a hurricane.

Callaghan's Irish Social Club (below)
Mobile
In the Oakleigh Historic District and housed in a converted 19th century meat store. Perfect place for Sunday afternoons and nights after the Mardi Gras parade.

COLORADO
The Cruise Room
Denver
Original art deco bar where the curving, vaguely nautical lines of the bar and walls and stools suggest Fred and Ginger and Capt. Stubbing and Julie, all at the same time.

FLORIDA
The Bahi Hut
Sarasota
A tiki bar where you can drink mai tais till you see iguanas on the ceiling -- or walk into the oncoming traffic out on the Tamiami Trail.

Linger Lodge
Bradenton
A 1930s era hunting camp turned RV lodge. Kick back with a Bud and be afraid of the walls of taxidermied endangered species.

LOUISIANA
Napoleon House
New Orleans
This ain't some French Quarter tourist trap. Locals go here. Try the Sazerac.





Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop (above)
New Orleans
The most romantic bar in New Orleans. I was once sat in the cold gloom of the 300-year-old place with a boyfriend, both of us warming our hands on a candle on a table in a broken down corner of the broken down building. We were arty rebels against the world, too creative to go to a bar with central heat.

MASSACHUSETTS

Doyle's Cafe
Jamaica Plain
Irish bar in an Irish neighborhood. There's Guinness on tap, fish and chips, and lots of politicians out trying to be seen in a bar where the politicians are supposed to be seen doing their deal making and fixing.

NEW MEXICO

Tiny's Restaurant and Lounge
Santa Fe
Screw the faux adobe. Tiny's is in a mundane strip mall on Santa Fe's busiest suburban street.

The 49er Lounge
Gallup
Housed in the uber-retro El Rancho Hotel where John Wayne and other stars stayed in the 1940s when they were filming westerns in the surrounding New Mexican desert.

Silva's Saloon
Bernalillo
True New Mexico. It's no wonder Sam Shepherd set his play "True West" in Bernalillo. The locals are tough, and they come to Silva's to drink Tecate beneath the cowboy hats of their dead ancestors.



ue
Burt's Tiki Lounge
Albuquerque
Retro kitsch rules in this Route 66 tiki lounge. You gotta go.

Los Ojos
Jemez Springs
Roadhouse in the Jemez Mountains just north of 'Burque in a town where there's no stoplight but one rehab center for priests who, um, stray. And lots of bikers. I had a bowl of green chile stew here once with Ron Howard. He was in Jemez shooting his movie The Missing.

There are scads of bars I'd add to this list: The Florabama in Orange Beach, Ala.; the The Old Salty Dog on City Island, Fla.; The Buckhorn Saloon & Opera House in Pinos Altos, NM. (below) and Manci's in Daphne, Ala.



How about you? What bars would you put on the Best list and why?

I'm not one to complain about opportunities to watch George Clooney. But The Weather Channel's plans to begin airing weather-themed movies is just stupid. The AP reports"The Perfect Storm" will air on TWC on Oct. 30, the 18th anniversary of the real-life storm depicted in the film starring Clooney and Mark Wahlberg. Other movies slated for airing on TWC: "Misery," "March of the Penguins," and "Deep Blue Sea."

TWC hopes to attract a broader audience than its current base of weather nerds -- and get more advertisers, of course. From the piece:


For The Weather Channel, the risk lies in alienating its regular weather-obsessed viewers, who tune in for news of high pressure systems rather than high drama. The potential reward is that new fans will tune in, and they'll stay on the station for a longer period, pleasing advertisers.

This just in, TWC honchos: People watch The Weather Channel because they like weather forecasts. Really. I'm one of those people, a weather devotee who tracks hurricanes on a paper storm chart every summer and who has TWC on my TV with the sound muted all the time. I want an on-air meteorologist standing in front of a map of the United States on my TV 24/7. It comforts me. I like to know about the high pressure system in the Midwest and the cold front in New Mexico. I know tomorrow will happen if there is a weather forecast. I don't want anything messing with my endless loop of predictions about tomorrow's temperatures. Not even Clooney.

This is a Category 5 screw-up. What next, fire Jim Cantore?

Urgent Weather Message from NWS New Orleans

WWUS74 KLIX 281550NPWLIX URGENT - WEATHER MESSAGE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE NEW ORLEANS LA

1011 AM CDT SUN AUG 28 2005


DEVASTATING DAMAGE EXPECTED

HURRICANE KATRINA MOST POWERFUL HURRICANE WITH UNPRECEDENTED STRENGTH...RIVALING THE INTENSITY OF HURRICANE CAMILLE OF 1969. MOST OF THE AREA WILL BE UNINHABITABLE FOR WEEKS...PERHAPS LONGER. ATLEAST ONE HALF OF WELL CONSTRUCTED HOMES WILL HAVE ROOF AND WALL FAILURE. ALL GABLED ROOFS WILL FAIL...LEAVING THOSE HOMES SEVERELY DAMAGED OR DESTROYED. THE MAJORITY OF INDUSTRIAL BUILDINGS WILL BECOME NON FUNCTIONAL. PARTIAL TO COMPLETE WALL AND ROOF FAILURE IS EXPECTED. ALL WOOD FRAMED LOW RISING APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL BE DESTROYED.


CONCRETE BLOCK LOW RISE APARTMENTS WILL SUSTAIN MAJOR DAMAGE...INCLUDING SOME WALL AND ROOF FAILURE. HIGH RISE OFFICE AND APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL SWAY DANGEROUSLY...A FEW TO THE POINT OF TOTAL COLLAPSE. ALL WINDOWS WILL BLOW OUT. AIRBORNE DEBRIS WILL BE WIDESPREAD...AND MAY INCLUDE HEAVY ITEMS SUCH AS HOUSEHOLD APPLIANCES AND EVEN LIGHT VEHICLES. SPORT UTILITY VEHICLES AND LIGHT TRUCKS WILL BE MOVED. THE BLOWN DEBRIS WILL CREATE ADDITIONAL DESTRUCTION. PERSONS...PETS...


AND LIVESTOCK EXPOSED TO THE WINDS WILL FACE CERTAIN DEATH IF STRUCK. POWER OUTAGES WILL LAST FOR WEEKS...AS MOST POWER POLES WILL BE DOWN AND TRANSFORMERS DESTROYED. WATER SHORTAGES WILL MAKE HUMAN SUFFERING INCREDIBLE BY MODERN STANDARDS. THE VAST MAJORITY OF NATIVE TREES WILL BE SNAPPED OR UPROOTED. ONLY THE HEARTIEST WILL REMAIN STANDING...


BUT BE TOTALLY DEFOLIATED. FEW CROPS WILL REMAIN. LIVESTOCK LEFT EXPOSED TO THE WINDS WILL BEKILLED.AN INLAND HURRICANE WIND WARNING IS ISSUED WHEN SUSTAINED WINDS NEARHURRICANE FORCE...OR FREQUENT GUSTS AT OR ABOVE HURRICANE FORCE...ARE CERTAIN WITHIN THE NEXT 12 TO 24 HOURS. ONCE TROPICAL STORM AND HURRICANE FORCE WINDS ONSET...DO NOT VENTURE OUTSIDE!

LAZ038-040-050-056>070-282100-ASSUMPTION-LIVINGSTON-LOWER JEFFERSON-LOWER LAFOURCHE-LOWER PLAQUEMINES-LOWER ST. BERNARD-LOWER TERREBONNE-ORLEANS-ST. CHARLES-ST. JAMES-ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST-ST. TAMMANY-TANGIPAHOA-UPPER JEFFERSON-UPPER LAFOURCHE-UPPER PLAQUEMINES-UPPER ST. BERNARD-UPPER TERREBONNE-1011 AM CDT SUN AUG 28, 2005.


About 24 hours later, we watched the city drown. Wear a fleur de lis today in memory of New Orleans and the rest of the northern Gulf Coast, much of which remains in ruins and under tarps.