Learning the Backdoor Route

How I'm building community in Amador County, one karaoke night at a time

It’s Karaoke Night at Elvis’ Rhythm & Brews in Sutter Creek, CA—the day before I’m hitting the road for Ashland, OR to spend Thanksgiving with Steve. We’re meeting halfway between Portland and Fiddletown at an Airbnb that takes cats because I can’t leave Shadow alone this weekend. I didn’t realize it was so hard to find a short term rental that took cats. Spoiler alert, it is!

I’m standing at the bar waiting. No one is there. I hear a dog bark, the yip of a chihuahua maybe, in the backroom where the stage is. A man yells, “Stop it!” A woman laughs. Otherwise, it’s just silence and me waiting to order one of Elvis’ famous brats with sauerkraut and stone ground mustard before I sit down, scan the QR code for Karafun, and put in my first song.

Crickets.

I walk over and peek into the back room. It’s 6:15pm. Karaoke starts at 6, but no one’s there except Eva and Maverick starting to set up their computer and wipe down the microphones. A man holds a small dog in a Christmas sweater on his lap at the far back corner. Two older women sit next to him—one with a shock of curly grey hair in a sweatshirt and jeans and the other stylishly decked out in a colorful, asymmetric coat, skinny black pants, and high heeled boots. Her cropped silver hair in perfect order.

I hear the backdoor open and Elvis rushes in. He’s wearing what he’s always worn since I started joining these karaoke nights in order to integrate a bit into Amador County culture—a black leather jacket, old-school, late-Elvis sunglasses, and his very thinning hair dyed black and sticking straight up like it’s surprised.

He runs up to the bar.

“Do you have food tonight?” I ask.

“It’ll take an hour to get the ovens heated up. The traffic on La Trobe was bad. Maybe an accident. I just got here.”

“Oh. I was hoping to eat.”

“You could go to the pizza place. Just walk out the back door and go down that alleyway until you hit the dead end. Look left and there it is.”

“So, you’re OK if I just order a pizza and bring it back in here?”

“Sure.”

And he grabs the remote and turns on the two big TV screens above the bar with the lists of beer and wine available.

I walk out the backdoor and run into Jeremy carrying a pizza box.

“You’re back!” He says.

“I am. I gotta go get food.”

“The pizza place is…”

“…just down the alleyway,” I say and I walk out as he walks in.

Past the backdoor is a maze of empty picnic tables lit up by huge Christmas lights. I had no idea this space existed, but apparently this is the route to food tonight.

By contrast, the pizza place is hopping. No seat to be had. I order a small pizza to go—the Yuppie Special, which is basically a Pizza Margherita and I wonder if I’m supposed to be offended. I wait by the soda machine next to a tweaker in a stained green t-shirt and shorts on this cold fall night. He talks about the weather and wonders aloud how long his pizza is going to take as he rocks back and forth in his flip flops. A couple of kids run past him and behind me. We wait.

A young girl with blue hair approaches me with a box.

“Are you Melanie?”

“Yes.”

“Here you go.”

And I walk out into the night. The tweaker is still waiting on his perhaps imagined pizza.

It’s after 7 by the time I get back to Elvis.’ The back room is filling up—and by that I mean, Jeremy and his two buddies, Danni and another woman (I don’t remember her name) are sitting at the small table up front eating their pizza. Ian is behind them sitting alone at a wine barrel table with his beer—he’s got that I’ve-been-to-every-Dead-show-since-1965 look. I grab the wine barrel table behind him and start eating. The crew at the back benches to my left are still there. The Christmas chihuahua checks me out as I sit. Simon is onstage singing something that sounds like it might be Adele—he’s 6 foot plus and huge and he leans into his soprano voice with aplomb.

Eva rushes up to me and gives me a big hug, “You’re back!” Maverick hands me the card with the QR code for Karafun.

And I am back.

Not just tonight, but actually back—choosing to be here, learning the backdoor route to the pizza place, accepting that Elvis runs late and the availability of food is hit or miss, recognizing faces even if I don’t remember all the names yet. I’m practically a local! I scan the QR code and scroll through songs while Simon finishes his Adele moment onstage.

I’m building something here in rural Amador County. It’s not the Portland I left behind, not reminiscent of the communities I’ve been a part of over the years. It’s slower, smaller, stranger—a place where karaoke means a chihuahua in a Christmas sweater and one of the largest men I’ve ever seen singing like Maria Callas. It’s a tweaker waiting for an imagined pizza while the entire restaurant just allows that to be as if it’s another Tuesday. It’s Jeremy always knowing which door leads where and a back room of near strangers remembering my face and offering hugs.

I queue up my favorite Christmas tune, Tim Minchin’s White Wine in the Sun, and take another bite of my Yuppie Special.

This showing up, this claiming a wine barrel table on my own and sitting cross-legged on my stool while Ian takes the stage to sing John Denver just feels good. Navigating the geography of small town life is perfectly imperfect—I can’t have expectations. I have to go with the flow. And right now, on the night before I drive north to meet Steve halfway, the world feels oddly right.

In addition to my Saturday Life Stories Series, I have my Analog Letters Series where I hand make and write a letter to a human that is important to me. The practice has been such an experience of gratitude and connection in my life! Maybe you want to feel that too!

Start 2026 with intention and gratitude—join the Love Lab for six Tuesday evenings of letters, art, and community.

The Analog Letters Journey departs January 13, 2026. Two sessions are available. Seats are limited to 10 participants per session:

SESSION A - 4:30PM PT / 6:30PM ET

SESSION B - 6:30PM PT / 9:30PM ET

The first six registrations get Early Bird pricing ($120). Standard Registration is $150.