Three area bars do three totally different things. (Like cabaret, frisbee and midgets.)

There’s an event that doesn’t happen until July 13, but already has Sal Carbone of Carbone’s (643-9169) in New Monterey pumping it up on his outgoing message and posters at local gyms.

“Only at Carbone’s!” he shouts.

Later he explains his enthusiasm.

“Everyone and everything is so typical around here,” he says. “So everybody is tired of bands, trivia and karaoke. It was off the chart last year! We had 300 people! This town loves midget wrestling!”

Carbone doesn’t invest much in politically correct. Maybe that’s implicit in the “Old school new rules” motto, or to be expected from what was previously a biker bar and retains the renegade DNA. Question the way he runs his bar and you might end up on the uncomfortable end of a Facebook slur or a beefy headlock from someone with the email handle ssalmuscles@(redacted).com.

He’s heard some feel the Extreme Midget Wrestling Federation to be midget-sploitation. He finds that invalid.

“Their manager told me, ‘Honestly Sal, all these guys were shunned by society. I asked them if they would like to make money if I trained them to wrestle.’”

Carbone says he was so vehement in his advocacy of appropriate behavior from everyone watching last summer that a woman filming a documentary asked to mic him up.

I tend toward the libertarian, thinking it’s more the wrestlers’ domain than ours to judge whether their participation is virtuous or not.

A piece I found by Omaha World-Herald Staff Writer Josefina Loza spoke to that. “Little Nasty Boy gets into bar fights 150 or more times a year,” she writes. “He smacks guys over the head with trash cans. He hurtles men across casino tables and breaks pool cues across their faces at nightclubs. Yeah, he’s bad.”

Or, as Nasty Boy said, “I eat, sleep and breathe my name.”

He said this: “If it was downgrading myself, I wouldn’t be doing it. I was born a midget. I will always be a midget.”

Strange-but-true food for thought, and one of three of that’s revealed itself in the last few days.

~ ~ ~

Like one advocate says: We live among you, only nobody seems to know.

That advocate is Brad Schade, a member of the local Stinging Jellies disc golf club who’s tight with the CSUMB disc golf team, two groups that have collaborated to host world championships at Ryan Ranch’s course.

He’s talking about disc golfers being a passionate and growing tribe. He’s part of an upstart group bringing them from remote courses to plop them inside one of the biggest bars on Cannery Row.

The spot where he bartends, Blue Fin Cafe & Billiards (717-4280), has long been one of the most active venues in the area, unleashing a field of pool tables, lively salsa nights and its own performance venue for independent local music near the big balcony. They just started Friday night 101.7 The Beach radio parties with lots of drink specials and no cover. But this is far more surprising.

It’s disc golf, indoors, in a bar. Or, as the organizers dub it, Monterey Indoor Putting League. It happens 7:45pm Tuesdays ($5 buy-in) and includes modest payouts for winners of the randomly paired, double-elimination showdown; a free raffle for discs, hats and baskets; and deals on drinks ($2.50 domestic beers and $5 wells for now).

For readers thinking a good disc golfer – i.e. the kind that would be drawn to this – can chuck one of them as far as a football field, fear not. Cannery Row pedestrians won’t be pelted, as they’re using the shorter-distance discs in a horseshoe-style format, first team to 21.

“Disc golf has been around a long time but people are just starting to hear about it,” Schade says. “Everybody asks about disc-golf night, and everybody has a good time. It’s nice to grow the sport.”

~ ~ ~

Give people a little free-association quiz, dive-bar style, and interesting responses come up. I asked folks to hit me with the first word that comes when they hear “Shadow Box.” The responses included “shady,” “early grave” and “gravelly voices.” (My ballot read “great place for a stiff 1:30am – or 8:30am – greyhound.”)

But as new managing partner Alex Ilich teams with timeless (and longtime) owner Ray Ramirez, they’re looking to add character overall but subtract surly characters from the bar.

The biggest move therein: The Shadow Box at 1904 Fremont in Seaside (394-3242) has applied for a cabaret license. No misprint. In other words, a little burlesque with your well whiskey.

His was the first cabaret license a Seaside city planner had seen requested in his 24 years on the job.

“The Shadow Box is the area’s last true dive, apart from Segovia’s,” says Ilich, who grew up in Seaside before moving to San Francisco part-time to pursue legal, graphic arts and punk rock opportunities. “It’s a nice piece of Americana.”

There certainly is something to be said for the classic juke box, matching pool table, antique ashtrays, curling photos of favorite customers wallpapering the hallway and raunchy condom dispensers making restroom trips more interesting – but they can and should coexist with great music and original entertainment.

Ilich wants to do comedy, too. Hit the blog (www.mcweekly.com/edible) for more. And stay strange but true.

~QUICKBITES~

• Introducing The Press Club featuring Perfectly Pressed, next to the Weekly. Visit www.mcweekly.com/edible for more.

• Major (and majorly delicious) changes at Carmel Belle. Get more on blog.

• The 55th gathering of steamed, fried, dipped, sauteed, grilled, marinated, pickled, sculpted, creamed and souped thistle hits with the first Castroville Artichoke Festival; p. 24 for more.

• Guiseppe Panzuto has moved from Cantinetta Luca to Monterey Plaza.

• New menu items have arrived along with a nice patio area at The Market Restaurant (373-2200) on Fremont in North Monterey: pea-mint risotto, speck gnocchi, rock cod chopped salad and blueberry-asparagus salad. Smiley face.

• Next popular BYOB Pizza Night at T&A in Spreckels is 5-8 pm Friday, June 6. RSVP don@contemporarycatering.net

• American Culinary Foundation annual gala dinner (at Portola Hotel June 1, $125) is a blast, and should sell out. This year they honor MEarth eco supercenter, National President of the American Culinary Federation Thomas Macrina key notes and Comedy Central vet David Crowe cracks jokes.

• More MEarth dirt: Relentless-force-for-sustainable-good Tanja Helen Roos becomes its exec director this week. And a cool harvest cooking demo happens Saturday, May 31. See p. 29 for more.

• Todd Fisher of Tarpy’s (647-1444) tried me on oxtail oysters when I stopped by for the ongoing – and awesome – Wine Down Wednesdays. Now he’s introducing brunch menu with things like lobster avocado Benedict on brioche ($23) and chili-crusted chicken and waffles ($20).

• Cheryl Warner is out at McIntyre Vineyards after years of loyal toil.

• Alicia Hahn and Matthew Peterson are freshly hitched. Now to make an honest man out of officiant Aengus Wagner.

• 2014’s MPC Foundation/Robert K. Bullock Journalism Transfer Student Scholarship winner (whew) is the Weekly’s own Elsa Embler. Which is badass. Congrats Emblermatic.

• ”Simplicity,” author Charles Warner said, “is making the journey of this life with just baggage enough.”