5 ms·
Dive bars are the best. They're the last parts on the fringes of society that's accessible to all, but where anything can still happen. You never know who will
by JohnWhigham 5y ago
Dive bars are the best. They're the last parts on the fringes of society that's accessible to all, but where anything can still happen. You never know who will show up, where they'll be from, what may be going on in the bathroom stalls when you walk in, what drugs may be offered in the bathroom, what drugs will be getting consumed in the bathroom. Sadly they're slowly disappearing as real estate prices soar and and most of America's cities/towns slowly homogenize into a never-ending strip mall.
- jrkatz 5y agoYeah, it turns out all the "An X and a Y walked into a bar" jokes are based in reality. Many years ago, my friends and I had a night in our favorite dive. That bar draws college kids, Brazilian immigrants, alcoholic townies, yuppies, punks - everyone. It was packed: there was nowhere to sit and hardly anywhere to stand. When we started pushing through to the open space in back, a literal giant of a man who had a booth to himself invited us to sit with him because he liked my tattoos. As the night wore on we discovered 1. the giant man had a peg leg; 2. he was a proud neonazi (and didn't realize we were Jews and Cubans); 3. he could chug a pitcher of Gansett in a few seconds. He even sold one of us some adderall. I saw the same man a few weeks later at that bar, cheerfully asking a group of Indian grad students shooting pool where they were from, with some level of suggestion they should be sure to return when they finished their degrees. We weren't going to be friends, and I'm sure he's found his way back to jail by now (and that he deserved it), but it was a night I'll not forget soon. None of that happens at Applebees.
- JohnWhigham 5y agoGansett Ahhh, now I miss New England. They don't distribute Gannies in TX.
- tclancy 5y agoHowdy Neighbors!
- voidfunc 5y agoMade on Honor; Sold on merit
- voidfunc 5y agoYea but you guys have LoneStar which is pretty similar.
- dreamcompiler 5y agoODG LoneStar. Smells like skunk when it's fresh brewed and it goes downhill from there.
- intrasight 5y agoYour comment reminded me of an experience from many years ago at a dive bar. A friend and I were speaking to an older African-American gentleman. His breadth of knowledge was something to behold. AND he spoke five languages fluently. Total mind blow.
- bsenftner 5y agoThere is "dive bar life" after the homogenization. Working in Tokyo and Beijing, the anonymous corporate martini bars with no suits in sight have become the new dive bars. At different times of day, almost on shifts with how precise the change over occurs, the same bar will be filled for a half hour as a demographic's time shift transitions. At one point, it's female office staff, then it's delivery services on break, then it's the finance types on break, then the house wives meet socially, then the college kids waking or lunch breaking. Through these transitions there will be 2-3 people nursing their seats, holding them the entire day. I've noticed this type of rotating clientele in Spain too.