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Go Fish and Chips Cafe, that long-dead restaurant on Waterfront Drive, has finally bleached into oblivion. That is, it's been painted all over in white. Which means the feverishly bright mural on its face, of fishes and birds and other creatures, painted by Eureka artist Augustus Clark about five years ago, is gone. Gone, also, the debate -- is it good art? Is it appetizing?

Oval signs announce a new identity: Bar-Fly Pub & Grub. Country music lilted from the building Monday afternoon as workers hammered away inside, readying it for an anticipated Jan. 27 opening. Yeah, said one guy, they've heard some comments about the whiting-out of the mural -- quite a few folks saying "whew, it's about time," others saying they missed it.

On the phone from Michigan, the new owner, Sheila Turbett, said she thought the mural was really cool. "But it didn't coincide with our theme, so it had to go. We did take a lot of pictures of it, and I'm going to put pictures of what it used to be like, a little history, in the bar."

The pub's theme will be "down-home," with pool tables, a juke box, antiques and country-western motifs, and will serve cocktails, beer and pub grub.

And the artist, how is he taking it?

"I'm happy to have had it out in the public for a while," said Clark over the phone Monday afternoon, in his ever-easy-going way that brings to mind the lyric never was heard a discouraging word ... . "I'm a little sorry that it's gone. But if it's going to go, let it go quickly. It's gone now. And I'm all right."

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