“I distrust camels, and anyone else who can go a week without a drink.”

Comedian, Joe E. Lewis

They say that if you want to know the personality of a town go talk to the people in the bars and churches. On my travels I’ve always liked chatting with locals at their neighborhood watering holes. I’ve met some interesting characters over the years, but one of the things I always wanted to do was, “Buy The House A Round.”

I had set some self-imposed rules as to how this bucket list item had to be done. I had to be by myself, at a bar that I’d never been to before, where I didn’t know anyone else.

Two years ago it was Opening Day at Dodger Stadium and I was meeting a friend at the game (turned out to be the game that Giants’ fan Bryan Stow got beaten by those two sub-humans from the I.E., but that’s a separate story).

I stopped in for a pre-game beer at a downtown bar called The Redwood Bar. It’s not a dive bar, but a nautically-themed close relative where they shot the karaoke scene of one of my favorite recent movies, “500 Days of Summer.”

On the way in I noticed a guy out front in the front smoking patio area drinking a Pabst Blue Ribbon tallboy, and I always try and order what the locals are drinking when I visit a new bar for the first time. It was about 3:00 in the afternoon and I took a seat at the end of the bar.

There was a group of Dodger fans in a booth imbibing a mix of beer and tomato juice under the watchful-eye of a mermaid painting.

“What would you like?” the bartender asked me.

“I’ll have a PBR,” I said, and then added, “and I’d like to buy the house a round.”

“Wow, that’s really cool of you,” the bartender said.

He asked me my name and then went around the bar saying, “Dave over there at the bar would like to buy everyone a drink.”

The burger-eating, Shiner bock drinking guy a few barstools down shrugged his shoulders as if to say, “sure why not, it’s free” and then kind of half-heartedly pointed his new frosty beer towards me without saying a word.

The tomato juice & beer drinking Dodger fans were getting ready to leave and surpringly declined my free drink offer. The smokers hanging out front came in to say thanks and clink cans.

The guy next to me ordered a cocktail and when the bartender guessed at his brand of choice, my neighbor busted out with his best Ed McMahon impression, “You are correct, Sir.” The guy on my other side was a public defender and had played his high school baseball championship on Dodger Stadium’s field.

The bartender offered me a slice of recently delivered Domino’s pizza and bought my beer. The Philippino guy at the far end of the bar who ordered Bud Lights two at a time had another Bud Light, and walked down to my end of the bar to offer me some French fries from his plastic basket. We had an short but informative chat about his torn meniscus and his workman‘s comp case.

I would have stayed longer because the whole experience was an interesting study in human behavior, but it was getting near game time so I paid my bar bill which came out to be under $50. I said my goodbyes, and the public defender and the Ed McMahon impersonator continued their conversation. I left feeling that I had added a little warmth to the place and confirmed my belief that generosity breeds generosity.

How You Can Do It To: www.movie-locations.com

The Redwood Bar 316 W. 2nd Street Los Angeles, CA 90012 (213) 680-2600