What: Burlesque ‘n’ Brass, featuring Hot Pink Feathers (dance) & Blue Bone Express (music)
When: Saturday Oct. 4, 2008, 9pm + First Saturdays through December —  21& over please
Where: Café Van Kleef, 1621 Telegraph Ave Oakland 94612
Cost: $10

Uptown district impresario Peter Van Kleef left me a message the other day about a reunion involving his sister and his sister’s closest childhood chum. So I went by Cafe Van Kleef’s last night thinking it would be a good blog and, anyway, I was nearby doing research for a story.
I found there Van Kleef and several of his regulars mystified and saddened by the sudden suicide of the cafe’s first bartender, Vincent, who they described as a tall, lanky 31-year old.
Van Kleef speculated it might be money troubles that drove him to take his own life. Another guy thought it might be money and women worries.  I never met him but thought I would mention him here, since he, a bartender, was nearly by definition a night owl.
On the flip side, Van Kleef told me about the chance reunion after 47 years of his sister Gerda with her childhood friend, named Shirley Tankini or something.  I said it sounds like a alcohol-based Shirley Temple. The friends were separated when the Van Kleef clan moved from the area to the suburbs and met up for the first recently time in nearly five decades at the cafe, which to quote a quote, is like a mix of Friends and Cheers on acid.

I stopped in at Cafe Van Kleef the other night on my search for Oakland’s signature cocktail (that’s a story for Friday’s Night Owl) and learned that the bar is now serving food and absinthe. Peter Van Kleef jumped on the “green fairy” bandwagon with La Tourment, a French Absinthe that he said can be drunk straight.
He’s also serving bar food and showed off his convection oven that looks like a safe but that can turn out a pizza with a Sicilian-style crust in minutes. So he claimed. I never know if the rascal is messing with me or not because he’s always got a mischievous look on his face and a tall tale on the tip of his tongue. He looked especially roguish Monday night with his baseball cap worn backwards and a chunky gold chain dangling from his wrist. Anyway, he said the bar is dishing up shrimp and bread, meatballs “like your mother makes” (I hope not MY mother), baked tilapia fish and corn dogs served with mustard and horseradish mustard “so it’s like heaven and hell.”
He removes the stick and cuts the corn dogs up in thirds served with a little paper fan or umbrella. Peter said he also installed a walk-in cooler so he can have enough beer ro supply giant keg taps. His beer prices are still the same although the Chinese, he continued, have cornered the world market on hops, jacking up the price of beer by 50 percent. “I believe students deserve a break,” he added as explanation for his steady prices — $4.
Van Kleef’s just wrapped up a breast cancer awareness event for which a drink called the VanKleevage was concocted. (Three rums with a splash of half-and-half and grenadine syrup. Shake in a cocktail shaker until your hand freezes and the drink looks like breast milk.) What do you expect from the home of the Catholic-Protestant cocktail?