Bar Tuesdays: Week Eight

Week Eight: The Whalen

Before I get into this week's review, we have a quick Bar Tuesday announcement: Bar Tuesdays are now officially endorsed by the Mayor. Kristin told him about our adventures, and he said he loves going to the dive bars in our town and was interested to hear all about it. Bar Tuesdays: catching on like wildfire (we had 17 people tonight!) and officially endorsed by the Mayor of the City. What more can you ask for?

Anyway, let's get to this week, shall we?

The Whalen!

I have to admit, The Whalen was a pretty good one. It was no Ye Olde Boulevard or Track 84, but it was better than a few of the ones we've been to. I was a little apprehensive at first when we walked by the rusty back door (and are those holes in the wall?) and filthy satellite dish:

But it was all good when we got inside. The bar itself wasn't bad, with leather bar stools and a new hardwood floor under it. However, the rest of the place where the tables and games were was just what we look for in a Bar Tuesday place: old-looking and a little seedy. Rips in some of the chair cushions, water stains on the ceiling, uneven flooring that I tripped on, and a number of secret doors that led God-knows-where. Josh even got a glass with lipstick on the rim. Yum! Oh yeah, and there was also some sort of trap-door thingy in the floor. Kevin said that's where they hold the job interviews so the manager can just press a button and flush out people they don't like, but Frito guessed it was where they "stashed the queers." Randy agreed with Frito, dubbing it the "Queer Dungeon." I suppose that's why Josh, Frito and Randy looked so scared standing above it:

Thankfully, they were not stashed.

Our first indication that this was going to be an interesting place came right when we ordered our first round. I ordered a Fuzzy Navel and the bartender asked, "What's in that?" I thought that was a pretty common and classic drink - it's not like I was asking him to make a Screaming Viking or anything. I told him what was in it and he rummaged around the place and came back about 5 minutes later to announce that they had no orange juice. (What?) I then ordered a Midori Sour, to which he replied, "What's in that?" Seriously, dude? You're a bartender? David ordered a Captain & Coke later and the bartender asked if he wanted any special kind in that, like Bacardi or something. I'm still wondering what he thought the "Captain" pertained to. T told me I should have ordered a Long Island Iced Tea, but I really didn't want to see the bartender's head explode.

In terms of the rest of the place, the locals were very nice and welcoming, and one of them (who was wearing a Mortal Kombat t-shirt) even poured his heart out to Paul about burying his mother previously in the day. He may have also creepily started rubbing Paul's hands. Later, when Paul was outside getting something from his car, another one of the regulars told him that we had picked a good place to hang out that night and that we were "golden." I'm not sure what that means, but I'll take it. Frito tried his "golden" luck out on some scratch tickets from the machine they had in the bar:

Michael was winning up a storm on those things, too. We had to amuse ourselves with lottery tickets since we couldn't use the dartboards. There were 5 of them in the place and no darts. Well, the bartender told Josh that there were no "house darts." When Courtney asked about it later, she pointed out some darts in a bin behind the bar, but was told that they don't loan them out. Apparently, the place hosts a dart league and a card league. Note to self: Bring my own darts next time. Note to self: Buy darts.

But hey, we make our own fun anyway on Bar Tuesdays. Kristin and I even wore our best ruffly shirts in honor of the classiness of our bar tour:

Speaking of Kristin, she and Dan dared to try the beef jerky that was sold out of a jar from behind the bar:

She couldn't finish her piece for fear of gagging, so bites were passed around to a few, but no one would take more than one. I abstained myself. Besides, I was too busy giving ill-received lap dances to Gavin DeGraw songs:

I LOVE David's look of disgust in that picture. Can't he even pretend to be enjoying it?

Here I am with Josh, who called out to me from the men's room door, "Pam, give me your camera!" Apparently, there was a giant medieval-looking lock on the stall door, but people kept coming in so he was unable to get a picture of it for me. I did, however, manage to snag a couple of shots from the ladies room, which was not too nice:

Yes, that's a hole.

Jukebox Report: Fantastic! Digital jukebox with a HUGE selection of songs. It's probably the most I've seen so far. I played 12 songs and went with some pretty standard fare except for one where I crossed the Bar Tuesday Jukebox Line. I played MMMBop. But hey, it was THERE. How can I not? When it started up, a few of the people at my table just automatically hung their heads, but there were 3 locals at the bar who just started laughing and laughing. They were getting a kick out of us the whole night, so I was happy to oblige with the random MMMBop appearance.

Golden Tee Count: 5 out of 8. Oh, The Whalen had The Tee.

All in all, a fun night as always. I would probably rank The Whalen somewhere a little above the middle of our tour so far. It was dive-y, but in the good and non-scary way. It had all of the components of what we look for in a good dive bar, especially the duct-taped and torn-insulation ceiling. Oh, did I forget to mention that? Check it out:

Awesome.

In the infamous words of our crew, "See you next Tuesday!"

Comments

[John]

Hello - I stumbled across your blog whilst searching on the web for tips on how to look like Flavor Flav (no, honestly!), and found your reports on dive bars made oddly fascinating reading.

I like in the UK where we don't exactly have dive bars, but I have been to the US a couple of times, and was lucky enough to visit a couple of these inspiring establishments.

One place had a selection of underwear hanging from the ceiling. When I enquired as to what that was all about, they told me anyone who took off their underwear and left it behind got a free drink. The downside being that you had to do it in the bar room.

Being British, I just paid for my drinks.

[frito]

you look deranged in the golden tee photo and Randy looks like Zoolander "Blue steel" . I love that. That is all.

[Vanessa]

I am increasingly envious of your Bar Tuesdays. What an AWESOME idea!

[Tommy]

"Come on, do a shot...You're at the Whalen!!" - Josh, trying to get me to a SoCo & Lime shot