See Shank’s post below for the background.

I enjoy different kinds of bars depending on my mood.

Category I

Dive bars. These are places where derelicts abound and anything can happen. I don’t frequent these types of establishments any longer, but when I lived in Los Angeles at least once a month a group of us would drive around and have a drink at maybe six or seven great dives. There was mystery involved and a tolerable degree of danger. In LA a lot of the dives used to be decent places, a lot of them famous at one time or another. Seedy can be fun.

Category II

The standard tavern. I tend to lean towards the standard tavern as my personal favorite. I don’t want fancy decorations and spinning lights. I want a dark cave with semi-articulate banter and frequent buy-backs from the staff. I don’t want to see people drinking fucking umbrella drinks in my tavern.

Category III

I like a small jazz club where people sit in on the bandstand and the place is totally absent of “hip, fashion conscious assholes.”

I shall not talk about “meat markets” as they have their place in society. But the absolute worst, and I mean worst possible drinking establishments, are the fucking “Cookie Cutter Bar” chain places. I cannot abide franchised bars, especially as I see them taking over across America.

How people can drink in a place with no soul is beyond me. I like some history in a bar. I’ve had cocktails in the same place where Jim Morrison got clocked on the head with a Jack Daniel’s bottle by Janis Joplin. I’ve done shots in the same place Sinatra and Errol Flynn had done the same. I’ve spilled beer in the same places as some of the founding fathers of this country.

It need not even be famous history. It just has to have soul. I wouldn’t be caught dead in a Hard Rock Café. I want old beer signs on the wall advertising beer that doesn’t even exist anymore. I want a bartender that buys back after three and doesn’t have to log in with a fucking ID card with the cash register being monitored online from some corporate headquarters in Omaha. If I want food while I’m at a bar, I want the bartender to send a runner to the sandwich place down the street, not read me the fucking specials. There is no mango salsa in a real bar. And it doesn’t hurt if I can get a bet down while I’m there.