May I Drink with Danger?
Let’s hear about the scariest dives in Portland—and elsewhere.
Posted by: John Chandler on Jun 19, 2009 at 09:00AM
6 Comments
As I was hiking down W Burnside Street on my way to work yesterday, I had to pause for a moment at the former entrance to Dugo’s, a seedy little dive that shut its doors more than a year ago. I popped in once in the early part of the century to check the place out after hearing so many tall tales. “If there’s a woman in there, she’s either a prostitute or a crackhead,” one of my long-lost drinking buddies said.
“Most likely both,” someone else told me. “And the clientele is 100 percent parolees. You better watch your step. And for God’s sake, don’t use the bathroom. You’ll never be seen again.”
I must have picked an off-day because it was pretty sleepy when I arrived, just after 5 p.m. A lot of old-timers were sucking on cheap beers, and the bartender was arguing with a bleached-blonde woman who looked like she’d come in for a drink after her weekly electroshock therapy. In other words, it could have been any bar, anywhere, at any time.
I’ve had drinks in some scary joints, mostly in the vicinity of my hometown of Coos Bay (and a few in Kodiak, Alaska). Word to the wise: It’s not a good idea to visit Red’s Tavern in Charleston, Oregon, and ask to see a wine list. (I managed to duck out while the two biker gangs present rumbled over who was going to have the privilege of stomping me.) I once cracked my head on the floor in the men’s room at the Nugget (located in the lobby of the Greyhound station in Coos Bay) after slipping in a pool of blood left over from a tryst between a prostitute and a dissatisfied customer who felt entitled to a refund.
I say this not because I’m trying to firm up my Charles Bukowski drinking credentials (well, maybe a little), but because I want to make a point about the difference between a bar with a nasty reputation and a bar with a well-deserved nasty reputation.
Let’s have some dangerous bar stories, drinking buddies. And if you know of any legitimately scary bars around these parts, please share.
Tags: Bar Culture
Yeah, where can a lubber go to get shanghaied any more? Time was, a fellow could pass out drunk in a pub, have one’s boots stolen, and be dropped unceremoniously through a trap door to a maze of underground passageways lined with broken glass. Upon waking, one would find oneself en route to exotic destinations aboard a merchant schooner, pressed into service as a sailor. Now that’s what I call job security. Why can’t our bars be that dangerous any more? Where’s the thrill in running a tab where it’s so loud and crowded that you won’t notice when perfect strangers claim to be your friend and charge their drinks to you? Where’s the excitement in flirting with people who might have HIV? Who gets a rise out of wearing an Earth First t-shirt into a logger bar any more? We’re so jaded these days, we need more action, more adventure! Let’s bring back the crimps, the practice of impressment, and those exciting shanghai taverns!
when i first moved here in 2002 i went to satyricon for the first time. i believe it was an exploding hearts (rip)/ epoxies gig and the crowd was drunk and rowdy. then , i look about 5 feet to my left, and this skinhead smashes a beer bottle on the floor and then socks this dude in the face, knocking him down (and maybe out). bouncers converged and it was over.
The Jockey Club, RIP. I met my first landlord in Portland when he was drinking alone in the Jockey Club on a Tuesday night (a new friend walked me over from the Paragon to introduce us), which should have told me everything I needed to know about him. What I remember best about the Jockey is the way the front door never quite shut, like it was the door to a kids’ tree house. On a rainy night, you’d step in and the carpet of the threshold would always be sopping wet.
I heard horror stories (sort of one aggregate horror rumor) that the Jockey kept a trough of run-off beer (spills, leftovers) at the end of the bar; a crusty punk – or any variety of crazy, self-loathing lush – could drink the whole scuzzy trough at the end of the night, for the courtesy fee of $2. I never witnessed this myself, and the most ludicrous part of the story to me now is that the barkeep would actually CHARGE someone for this dubious privilege.
Best marquee the Jockey ever posted? “Where fresh air goes to die.”
There used to be a strip joint way, way, out Division where there was a dancer with an eyepatch and a wooden foot. She was actually pretty graceful.
Ah Dugos, went there a couple times with some other local writers, before they put up the ‘Stabbings nightly’ sign. Didn’t they have a tunnel door to some Shanghai tunnels on the floor too? I think I recall a bartender opening it for us to check out.
And the Jockey – it was only my second HOME until it’s demise, the ground still salted, now only sodden, unfertile and poisoned, RIP. Many many, tales of those dark and hilarious days. Get me an agent Chandler – I’ll write you a bookfull.
Anyone remember Patty’s Retreat? Where the Morrison-Yamhill MAX turnaround is now, I believe.
Taught me early about how fine drinking in the day is, and with the true lifers, toothless, Bukowski skids and comic former whores.
I dimly recall getting myself into a bit of a pickle at Whiskey a Go-Go in the late ’80s. I had drunk far too much to fully appreciate the implications of the situation I was in, but was saved by the bell when some college acquaintances happened to walk in and insist I leave with them, and not the friendly Gypsy Jokers that had been buying me lots & lots of shots.
Does anyone else have better recall of the Whiskey a Go-Go? All I can dredge up is that it was a strip joint in some sort of double-wide type trailer. Can that be right? Was it anywhere near Quality Pie?