Iñaki Domínguez Madrid

Madrid

Updated Monday, March 25, 2024-00:40

  • Misery, dances and wrestling at the origins of AZCA

  • The passage of terror in Barranquillas

  • The skins of the Plaza de los Cubos: "They stopped there until Boixos Nois"

  • El Búfalo, the Falange and the war of the Radical nightclub

  • The Pedro Gómez feathers, the fetish garment that seduced the bakalas

Madrid is a city in which bars have proliferated. It is known that at the time of 2021, Spain was the EU country with the most bars (

260,000, one for every 169 inhabitants

), Madrid being, in turn, the city with the most bars in Spain, with 6,758. As one study states: "Only in the area between the Atocha roundabout and the Plaza de Antón Martín there are more places that sell alcoholic beverages than in all of Norway." It is not surprising, then, that, among so many bars, some are (or have been) truly unusual.

A former bar lover, a posh facha whom I will call

Luisito

, tells me about some of these mythical places: «The

Ramón bar

was on Lagasca street with Don Ramón de la Cruz. He was very curious, because he had a dwarf at the door. Ramón was out of date. Inside I had

Pollito de California

, who was an American who wanted to be a flamenco singer. He sang flamenco with an American accent. He also had a black Cuban who dressed up as an airline pilot and played

Julio Iglesias

. He had a very fun troop, with very original ideas."

He continues: "He restored his grandmother's car, one of those that has a crank, and he had it parked at the door of the bar. When I was going with a girl to dinner, I told her: 'Wait, I'm going to call my driver so he can Come look for me.' He called Ramón and he sent Pollito de California and a dwarf to look for me and then take me to the bar. The girl was amazed. The old convertible car arrived with the dwarf and Pollito, and gave you a tour around the Salamanca neighborhood, until he took you to Ramón's bar. For a time he had a donkey tied to a traffic sign in front of the bar. One time the donkey escaped and got into the

Mallorca cafeteria of Don Ramón de la Cruz

. They also threw midgets in the bar. Something that would be prohibited today. They put a Velcro at the back of the bar and the customers threw midgets that stayed stuck."

One of Toni's pianists, in full performance.EM

His story continues: "Ramón, finally, had problems because Aída, the one from Big Brother, started living next to the bar and started to bother, because the noise bothered her. At that time he was a councilor for the district of Salamanca a uncle who threatened to close the bar. And Ramón, without thinking twice, dressed up as a prisoner, with a striped uniform and a black ball tied to his ankle. He also disguised the dwarf and they went to the PP headquarters in Genoa to protest. In the end they closed the bar. People like

Álvaro de Marichalar

, the bullfighter

Julio Aparicio

, etc. often passed through the bar.

There was a certain amount of fame. It was a bar that served meals, but at night, until three in the morning. , gave drinks.

A character linked to Bar Ramón had his ups and downs with

Herman Tertsch

: «One day they beat him up, he was on TV and everything. It was sold that it had been for something related to the

Greater Wyoming

television program , but not at all. It was at Toni 2, on Almirante Street. A guy who frequented Bar Ramón was with a girl and Tertsch got annoying with this girl and my friend, who was a guy who didn't mess around, kicked him in the sternum and left him dry. He sat him in an armchair at Toni 2 and said to a waiter: 'Please give this man a glass of water, he is not feeling very well.' He would also punch him a few times. My friend was not politicized, he was a fool of life.

Another bar that was part of the rogue circuit of many posh people in the 90s was

Baker Street

, on Zurbano Street: «Until recently you could smoke inside. They would put an alcoholic outside, give him drinks, and watch for the police to come. They closed the door and we put out the cigarettes. He played music on a boombox he had. The public was disastrous: elderly and divorced people. Emilio was the owner, a very charismatic guy, with a very hoarse voice. "He shit on the whore right away, all the while drinking whiskey at the bar."

Toni's piano, packed.EM

To end the night it was not unusual to go to another very curious place, it was on Arrieta Street, near the Plaza de Oriente. The peculiarity that this establishment had was that the clientele were given helmets upon entering. “They didn't play music in the place,” Luisito told me, “but they gave headphones when you entered to listen to music. It was called

Arrieta 13

. For their part, the skinheads, so present on the streets of Madrid during the nineties, "moved around Drake's Bay, another bar. There was also The Limit. There were a lot of mods and a lot of skin there. In Chueca, on Belén Street, there was also a joint called Ska, where mods and skins gathered."

Inaki Dominguez

He is the author of

Macarras interseculares

, edited by Melusina, [you can buy the book here],

Macarrismo

, edited by Akal, [you can buy the book here],

Macarras ibéricos

, edited by Akal, [you can buy the book here], the

The true story of the Moco Panda

. [you can buy the book here] and

San Vicente Ferrer 34

[you can buy the book here].