barred

dive bars are underrated places.

at least to me.

especially when they're almost underground, down a covered slope, past a foyer bar stool with free apple sours shots on entry, and through a wooden door.

and surrounded by high walls and overhanging faux-rock wall plastering, which i'm sure is supposed to create a cave-like feel, but in contrast to the fluorescent bar lights and flick-flash-flicker christmas lights looks more like sloppy, slathered, dried up crap.

which is maybe the operative word when it comes to dives bars, for most people i know.

a perceived haven for miscreants, druggies and outsiders.

like the more than obviously titled "dive bar" in raleigh, north carolina, where i remember watching a bass-heavy band called viva la venus in 2006, and enjoying it so much that they gave me a free cd.

even though none of my other exchange student friends enjoyed it, expressing surprise and blunt hilarity when i proudly showed-off my square plastic trophy, the titled inked in lipstick red.

the most common reply, post oblivious solo head banging: "jenna, that lesbian band was shit".

and maybe they were, especially for those of us whose aesthetic preferences were a dramatic dissimilarity to the swinging, heavily-weighted metal-ball pierced lobes of the bald, muscled and heavy-set bar tender.

a bar tender whose excessive spacers had stretched his lobes to the extent that his flabby ear-skin was fling-flanging like silent side-head cow bells as he took my beer order.

illegally.

another advantage of said "dive bar".

a noticeable lack of miserable, hawk-eyed bouncers watching for sneaky underage black-koki-crossed hands on beer glasses.

as well as a general couldn't-give-a-shit attitude to my patronage, considering my three-months-shy of 21 age limitation.

something that has endeared me to dive bars forever.

because it reminded that it was possible not to be treated like a teenager at the age of 20, places besides the student butt-grinding rap/pop clubs on the raleigh student strip that let us in with our attempts at legitimate ID.

without question.

unlike my local south african version, shiva's rock in lynnwood, which insisted on ID.

a conveniently nearby venue where i went to see some bands play last friday in an over-lit and oversized pool-room, while dodging probing cues and ongoing click-clack ball sinking.

bands like make-overs, an offshoot of the appreciated but now defunct sticky antlers.

(barefoot drumming, distortion and messy noise)

plus the instrumental, drum beats of tale of the son.

(solid drum beats, rhythmical guitar riffs and post-gig drummer sweatiness)

and three other bands that i missed because of late arrival, car-barring and i-don't-like-this brain mash respectively.

but, in contrast to my ID-free dive bar experiences in north carolina, here i could drink as much beer as i wanted, ironically.

paranoia-about-deportation-free, i felt content though as i watched other girls jam, jack-knife and head-bang in the small stage-front space.

some in electric blue lycra and lace.

it reminded me that sometimes i like to be places where people don't care about having looks-like-poo decor or obsessive cleanliness, where the pink, sponge painted bathrooms have wall-mounted ashtrays, the occasional twitching cockroach and toilet signs that say "gals (bitches)" and "guys (dicks)".

there might have been technical difficulties, a creepy-looking bearded man, and a police bust after we left, but unlike some of the other big-deal live gigs i've attended before, i actually felt like i wanted to be there.

for once.