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London, May 2003
The Bedlam Bar finally opens,
featuring a four-sided-wall-plus-ceiling mural with full moon, swirling night
sky and glowing white stars overhead–homage
to Vincent van Gogh’s Starry
Night.
And that's because every
night is a full moon at the Bedlam Bar.
The
bar area is called The Department of Mood Enhancement, and the bartender offers
free counselling to those in need, encourages group therapy among barflies (no
TV) and dispenses alcohol-based remedies at discounted prices during Mad
Hatter's Happy Hour.
Van Stein painted a prototype for the logo:
(The full moon links to lunacy and lunatics, luna being Latin for moon; those blessed with madness become restless during a full moon.)
Some involved in the project find this logo spooky; they do not quite (at first) grasp the concept (Don’t suffer mental illness, enjoy it) so we settle on a different design, incorporating the full moon with a pair of statues that once graced the arched entrance into Royal Bethlem Hospital at Moorefield’s, east London, by a Dutchman named Cibbius. Life-size male nudes, one named Raving, the other, Melancholy.
(Royal Bethlem is the world's first and oldest mental hospital.)
Back in the 1600s, mental illness was divided
into "raving" or "melancholy."
Hence our logo: a cloud halo over full moon, winged by Raving and Melancholy, creating a subtle angel of the universe.
Hence our logo: a cloud halo over full moon, winged by Raving and Melancholy, creating a subtle angel of the universe.
Six renowned institutions, dominated by Royal
Bethlem, are spread throughout our bar mural, each with its own sense of
place.
A
bottle of champagne is promised to any customer who can name them all. (No one
ever does.)
St. Paul-du-Mausol. Van Gogh’s
greatest source of inspiration.
MacLean. The best known mental institution in the
United States, located in Belmont, a suburb of Boston. This is where James Taylor wrote Fire and
Rain and was the setting for Girl,
Interrupted.
The Priory, Southgate, north London,
where my brother lost his taste for alcohol, became an expert on the subject of
addictions, and made a new set of friends.
Tricky Dick’s. Precursor to the Bedlam Bar. A late-night coffee house I ran with my
brother in the mid-1970s, the looniest of the lot. (Patients included Bronco John, Burned-Out
Paul, Coughing Abdullah, and folk singer Tim Hardin.)
A
surreal Bosch-like ice age on the lower left (home to the Kleppur) depicts
freezing cold water and a snake, symbolizing the treatment of mental patients
centuries ago (especially in Germany), when patients were lowered slowly into
snake pits or hosed with ice cold water.
Why such barbaric treatment?
It was believed such “therapy” would shock melancholy catatonics to their senses.
Why such barbaric treatment?
It was believed such “therapy” would shock melancholy catatonics to their senses.
Walt
Freeman, the lobotomist, is commemorated within the mural, ice pick in hand, as
is Philippe Pinel, a Frenchman who revolutionized the care of mental patients
in the late 1700s.
Pinel, as Keeper of the largest French asylum, Bicestre, removed the shackles and decreed that the insane should engage in conversation as therapy.
Pinel, as Keeper of the largest French asylum, Bicestre, removed the shackles and decreed that the insane should engage in conversation as therapy.
Nearby,
an icon of St. Dymphna, patron saint of lunatics, for whom a blue candle always
burns.
On another wall, Jonathan Winters’s two drawings are framed with an autographed photo of himself sitting with me inside the Montecito Bar, and this inscription: “Bedlam and Breakfast for Two.”
And a framed kazoo, accompanied by this instruction: In case of emergency, break glass.
And Vincent van Gogh’s severed ear, framed and bolted to the wall.
Clubhouse on Wheels: VAN GONE-VILLE 2: GO-FIGURISM
Around a banquette hangs original artwork by Charles Bronson, declared criminally insane in 1978 and considered Britain’s most dangerous prisoner: electrifying art that reflects his unique reality, having resided, at one time or another, in the criminally insane wing of every prison in England.
Around a banquette hangs original artwork by Charles Bronson, declared criminally insane in 1978 and considered Britain’s most dangerous prisoner: electrifying art that reflects his unique reality, having resided, at one time or another, in the criminally insane wing of every prison in England.
On
another wall: A Hall of Lunacy features
expressionist portraits by Papa Duke of Van Gogh, Dali, Nietzsche, and Rasputin.
Clubhouse on Wheels: NIETZSCHE IN TEN SENTENCES
Two pictures by Thomas Van Stein:
Jack Nicholson from The Shining and a portrait of Edgar Allan Poe, which the artist painted while a student at college, earning him a degree.
The
décor is orange and blue, Van Gogh’s
favorite colors. (Orange and blue
dominated Van Gogh’s palette and his clothing.)
Orange is the color of insanity, appeals to one and all as a unifier; blue compliments orange and triggers tranquilizer hormones.
Orange is the color of insanity, appeals to one and all as a unifier; blue compliments orange and triggers tranquilizer hormones.
For
background music, the score from One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest–and anything by
Brian Wilson.
Downstairs,
the ladies room is decorated French bordello style. Tart
Ville.
The men’s
room?
Poopland!
Greeted at the door by a mural of Colonel Crappeur, gents enter The Battle for Dung Hill, whereby two armies of poops–the French Foreign Faeces and Nerdy’s Turds–face off over who can claim Dung Hill, amid flatulent sound effects.
Poopland!
Greeted at the door by a mural of Colonel Crappeur, gents enter The Battle for Dung Hill, whereby two armies of poops–the French Foreign Faeces and Nerdy’s Turds–face off over who can claim Dung Hill, amid flatulent sound effects.
Bedlam’s duty manager
is The Keeper (official title of Bethlem Royal’s top nutcracker);
the bartender, psychoanalyst; wait staff are therapists; busboys
are orderlies, customers are Bedlamites.
(Said one genuine Bedlamite, a witty dramatist named Nathaniel Lee: “They said I was mad, and I said they were mad, and damn them, they outnumbered me.”)
(Said one genuine Bedlamite, a witty dramatist named Nathaniel Lee: “They said I was mad, and I said they were mad, and damn them, they outnumbered me.”)
Our
menu is called Ideas of Reference, and it offers this encapsulated
history:
Bedlam, both in word and concept,
derives from the world’s
first mental institution, Bethlem Royal Hospital. Opened in 1247, Bedlam housed and treated
Britain’s maddest
visionaries for six centuries.
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| William Hogarth: The Rake's Progress, Bedlam |
Three hundred years ago, aristocrats
and tourists would pay an admission to observe and question the “poor lunatikes.” be entertained by raving Bedlamites.
The word Bedlam has come to mean a state of mindless chaos.
It
points out that one in four British people will experience mental illness at
some point in their lives.
I greet
customers myself and astonish them on a walking tour through the history of
madness.
Everyone inevitably asks, What ever compelled you to think of this?
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This would be a "third place" that gladly suffers fools, but particularly welcomes artists, writers, musicians, bohemians, eccentrics and lunatics.
When
the neighbors complain, our strategy is to drive them mad; if taken to court,
we plead insanity.
You’re already
committed (so you might as well have dessert), says the menu. Prove you’re certifiably
nuts and it’s
free! (Letter from Dr. Riddlebollox
required.)
In keeping with
Royal Bethlem’s
strict policy of distinguishing between the mentally insane and the
feebleminded (who were not admitted) our offer does
not extend to idiots, imbeciles and morons.
And
The Keeper’s
Cell Phone Policy:
As we are trying to build a radiation shield to thwart the prying ears of Big Brother, the use of cell phones is not only permitted but encouraged (and may be monitored by management).
As we are trying to build a radiation shield to thwart the prying ears of Big Brother, the use of cell phones is not only permitted but encouraged (and may be monitored by management).
