Who the f - - k is Deslee?
And other thoughts about dive bars
NOTE: A version of this story appears in that’s Shanghai magazine’s bar guide, due out later this month.
by DAN WASHBURN
meet the winners in the dives,
where the people are the real stars,
all the rest of their lives.
— Neil Young, “Sail Away”
It was one of those bar bathrooms where you make sure to breathe through your mouth. I didn’t want to find out if it smelled as bad as it looked. The entire night was a game of bladder roulette: Can I hold it until I get home? The answer was no — 10 kuai beers tend to go right through me. And after they all did, I went to wash my hands, but quickly thought better of it. The puke in the sink was piled too high. (It made me feel better about the beer I would spill later in the night.). As I walked to where I could breath through my nose again, I came upon a well-dressed man sitting on the floor, using the wall as a pillow. He was mumbling something, but I couldn’t understand him. Not sure if he was speaking Chinese or Chivas Regal.
Dive bars are full of stories. Most of them, I’ve learned, are better kept to yourself. But in the two Shanghai watering holes I’ve found to be worth returning to, these stories are often written all over the walls. At Goodfellas on Ju Lu Lu, for example, someone reached to the ceiling and posed the question that burns inside all of us: “Who the f - - k is Deslee?” Nearby is the more self-serving slogan: “Buy Sally a beer.” Don’t know Sally? Well, you can settle for Carrie, Miranda, Samantha and Charlotte. There’s a good chance that “Sex and the City” will be playing on the TV … with subtitles, of course — because the DJ at Goodfellas spins the best music in Shanghai. And she does right next to a wall where photos of Mick Jagger, the Sex Pistols, Bob Segar and Rage Against the Machine share space with Marlene Deitrich and provocative French troubadour Serge Gainsbourg. Conversation-starters are all over the place. But the folks at Goodfellas care, too. You’ll find this typed at the bottom of the drink menu: “Warning: alcoholism is hereditary.”
Such a reminder would probably be more appropriate at C’s, the dive bar of choice if your gang likes to do its bangin’ on the city’s west side. Like Goodfellas, it’s got the graffiti. Most of it seems to be below-the-belt humor directed at a poor chap named Shaun, who evidently doesn’t have much to brag about below the belt. Good for Shaun, though, that by the time last call rolls around, most C’s patrons can’t see straight enough to read what’s on the walls. “This place sucks,” one patron recently slurred. “But I mean that the good way.” Um, OK. Simply put, this place is perfect for getting plastered. Drinks are RMB 10. And if you like to drink alone, you’ll probably find a place to do it somewhere in this labyrinthine basement bar. Either that, or you’ll stumble upon a roomful of British lads getting properly drunk from drinking games. Depending on how far along they are, they might just invite you to join them. A night at C’s has the feel of a house party … when the homeowners are out of town. Rules of etiquette are broken. Sometimes even the people behind the bar seem a bit blitzed, which brings to mind a favorite line from a favorite movie: “I like a bartender who drinks. Otherwise I feel like I’m being poisoned.”
In my dictionary, the seventh definition of the word “dive” reads as follows: “A disreputable or run-down bar or nightclub.” That describes half the places I’ve visited in Shanghai. True dives aren’t just crappy, they’re quirky, too. Unfortunately, most Shanghai bars deliver on only one part of the dive bar equation. So, to find your way to the right hole in the wall, you must first sift through a big pile of crap. (Good thing we now have those handy SARS posters to remind us to wash our hands.) A dive bar is like a mistress: you never admit to it, but you keep coming back. And by writing this story, I am breaking an unspoken saloon secrecy of sorts: The first rule of dive bars is you do not talk about dive bars. When a place becomes too popular, it loses all of its indie-cred. Dive bars aren’t out to win any awards. They are what they are. No apologies.
In a city packed with pretense, it’s nice to stumble upon a place where the patrons don’t wear sunglasses, where the management doesn’t try to sell any piece of Eurotrash with a turntable as an “International Superstar DJ.” I don’t ask for much: just good music, good people, a dartboard and a beer that wouldn’t pass a paper-bag test. If you require mood lighting, Monet prints and middle-aged men in mock turtlenecks, head on over to a hotel bar and pay extra for the attitude. But you can’t buy ambience. You can’t attain atmosphere overnight. Such things take time, like fraying the bottoms of your favorite blue jeans. A good dive bar is worn in and welcoming. It’s full of stories. You can feel it. You can smell it. The floor may be sticky, the bathroom may stink. It’s not for everyone, and that’s fine with me. I need room to stretch out my legs.
05.22.2003, 11:03 PM · Stories