What is a "dive"?

I was having a disagreement with a friend of mine. What do you consider to be a "dive" bar? It seems like everyone has their own perception.

with dirty floors, filthy restrooms, and no one at the bar but the serious power-drinkers.

My kind of place....

yassir!

You know dive bars.
I was taught to call those power drinkers the people "holding up the bar" because they were part of the fixtures.

good country music on the jukebox, low fake factor, CHEEP booze, easy women, and access to underworld activities.

happening on the premises, or are being arranged there, is an important element of a good dive.

The best example I am familiar with is a place called the Star Bar in downtown San Diego.

http://entertainment.signonsandiego.com/profile/91026

Totally seedy, the clientele seems composed entirely of hardcore alcoholics, women of questionable repute, and grifters and roustabouts of various types. When I was still in the service, a friend liked this place and we used to go once in a while. One regular had the obvious pot belly on a thin alcoholic guy that comes with advanced cirrhosis (from fluid accumulation, called ascites, due to liver failure). Occasionally we'd see the pot belly was gone, presumably because the guy had recently had a paracentesis (a medical procedure where the ascitic belly is "tapped" with a large gauge needle to remove much of the ascites, which of course invariably reaccumulates over time).

There was a mean pimp looking guy who'd always sit at the same seat near the door, he seemed to be the pope or king of this joint. We definitely felt something was going on in the back rooms of the place, as the pimp dude would always be VERY attentive if you headed that direction (where the bathroom also was). One time when my friend went to use the john there, he came across one of the young bar patrons we'd seen playing pool shooting up in there. He pointed the guy out to me afterwards, and he was definitely "on the nod".

I didn't feel entirely comfortable hanging out in the place...

and the place clams up and turns around to look at you.

then a sound reminiscent of a record player needle ripping across vinyl lets you know you came into the wrong place at the wrong time.

naturally, the shaven headed thugs are all sniffing and hacking to beat the band.

Redstone

You, sir, are a gentleman! Sheesh......

:loveya: :hug:

Redstone

You'll have to tell me.....privately if you wish.....

Sounds most interesting.....

:hug:

your toes with the stories, if you wish. I doubt many people have led such an unlikely life.

For now, though, it's off to the rack for me. The holidays are close, but I still have to work.

Redstone

And then take a step up in class.

A place where you have to stand in line to get in and if you aren't one of the beautiful people you will never get in. They water their drinks down and charge $12.95 for a rum and Coke and $7.00 for a bottle of beer. The dance music is so loud that you shit your pants and if you are over 27 you are considered over the hill.

That's a dive to me.

please drop by... I'll show you a dive

also known as a 'meat market.'

because of hygiene issues

that used to let me have a tab.

so are the walls.

Even if they're wood, the floors are sticky.

A pervasive stale-beer funk permeates the place like a barleywine musk.

It is a desperate place, dark and smoky, the brightest light coming from the neon beer signs.

The music is either too loud or non-existent.

At least one guy sits in a soporific slouch at the bar. Others harangue the bartender at arms' distance through the crowd.

And, at 3 a.m., the place is full of angels.

One I remember while on the road was in Butte, MT, where I was staying through Christmas in the early 90's.

I don't remember the name, but it was in Downtown by the bus station; I walked in and it was dark, smoky, and silent. There was a TV on to a local station w/ the sound down; 2 other people in the bar, both wearing cowboy hats and smashed out of their minds, chain-smoking and arguing w/ each other...

I think I drank 4 beers and stayed there about 90 minutes writing and drinking, then went along my way.

This is a dive I used to hang out at...

Tune Inn

Capitol Hill
3331 1/2 Pennsylvania Ave., NW
Washington, DC
202-543-2725
Sunday - Thursday 8 AM to 2 AM, Friday - Saturday 8 AM to 3 AM.

Slide into one of the timeworn booths and prepare to have ice water served in frosted beer mugs--at breakfast. The Tune Inn, which gets packed late-night, looks like a hunting lodge: Deer heads and bear skins cover the walls. Specials are scribbled on a piece of paper and left on the table with the one-page menus. It's the kind of place where truckers and Hill staffers might mix.

If you love pancakes, don't pass up the stack of three plump buttery ones ($3.50). The tastiest kind of grease clings to the Western omelet ($5.50), served with a large helping of home fries that we kept eating long after we were full. Really short on cash? Two dollars buys you an egg sandwich; two quarters gets you a hardboiled egg.

with Freebird playing on the jukebox at least twice each night

and a twisting one and a half summersault and then there is the cannonball, the Geronimo and of course we can't forget the ever graceful belly flop

1. The waitress is the prettiest woman in the bar, and that is not a compliment.
2. Only 4 beers on tap, Bud light, Bud, Miller, and Miller Light.
3. Beer is served with no head to ensure maximum drunkedness..
4. Slacks is being over dressed for the place.


Any others?

only with more neon

also, any glass lighting is stained horrifically yellow from the years of smoke. Chinese cocktail loungers are often dives.

It was time for the quick crowd, the one's who came in after the steel workers had fortified themselves for either a day in the inferno or a day spent trying to catch some sleep while the rest of the world went about the business of living a normal life. This was the "calm the nerves" shot drinking crowd. The ones who took the short cut threw the valley and made a stop at Zelly's for a pick me up on the way to work somewhere else. No one they knew would see them stop in. It was a safe bet. A little anasyth and no one was any of the wiser.
At this time of day, it was all well liquor, the cheap stuff. At night, that's a different story, that's a different crowd. Drinking well liquor at night was a coming out of sorts, a declaration that the downward spiral had begun and was dangerously close to the point of no return. None of these customers gave a shit about appearances when they entered the morning of perpetual twilight. This was all about wanting to stop the shakes. This was all about desperately seeking a semblance of normality, at least enough to make it one more day on the job. Tomorrow. That's an entirely different story. Worry about that latter. All that mattered now was today.
The morning bartender never had a chance to let go of a bottle. He poured quick relief, chatter was saved for the afternoon crowd. These guys would come in waves. As soon as one man felt ready for the day another would take his place. It was just another Cleveland assembly line. Zelly was tapped, he couldn't take it any more. Hadn't been able to now for almost ten years. As soon as the steel workers left he would retreat into the kitchen, peering out at the human wreckage from a safe perch off to the side of the serving window so no one could see in. He felt no guilt, no complacency what so ever. But he had to watch. To look at what was playing out in the bar he owned, the bar his father had left him holding suddenly twelve years before, the bar that sucked down all of his plans.
If nothing else Zelly was a realist. He knew these guys would drink rubbing alcohol if they had too. He tried to just stay out of the way and give them a safe haven, a place where no one would pass judgment. By the time a man showed up here, it was a done deal. All that was left was how much time they had.

Looks like part of a story to me...Is it?

Glad you're no longer part of that world!

:hug:

that is taken from bar to bar here in Cleveland....

Dark wood bars, dingy lighting, wobbly barstools, 'Wheel of Fortune' on the tee-vee.
No women.