for 26 February 2001. Updated every WEEKDAY.

Tim Cavanaugh
Special Guest Editor

Terry Colon
Art Director

Heather Havrilesky
Senior Editor

Joey Anuff
Publisher

Tavern Turnover

Subject: Bar Hopping Bastards

Let Me Tell You Something,

I can't really say that I bemoan changed status of my favorite dive bar. The Satire Lounge on Colfax Ave. had long been a very scary dive where you could get a drink that would knock you on your ass or just get knocked on you ass. No more. There is a distinct lack of ruffians in the place. Now it's just raver / snowboarder type kids. Oh well. At least they aren't going to shiv you in the back. When you buy that summer cottage in Aspen I'll take you there sometime. They've chased of the junkies that user to shoot up in the alley so you'll have some place to park your Hummer*.

*P.S. — My estimates of your financial standing are based on the fact that your "Goon on the Moon" trade paperback fetches about $3890.00 on Ebay.

Cisco
<ciscov@avaya.com>

Cisco,

A dive bar in Aspen? I wish I knew where it was the few times I was there. MacDanals was the only restaurant I could afford in that town, and THAT ought to tell you what my income is REALLY like!

Peter Bagge

Nice piece in suck today. Same thing is going on in Austin too, of course, as it is everywhere. Places like Austin seem to be getting it worse than the rest, what with all the yuppie high-tech migration here. I moved out of Austin to a little run-down town 9 miles east of Austin called Manor a couple years ago to escape the yuppification of my old neighborhood, and the increase in property taxes that has reamed out my friends that stayed (8 yrs ago my property taxes were 950$ a year, and this last year my brother had to pay over $4000!!). Manor is one of the sleaziest most forgotten little towns near austin- pretty much ALL the rest have all been sucked into suburbs or yuppified. We still have dirt roads and hillbillies, yee haw! All the dot-bomb layoffs etc going down lately hopefully will slow the process in austin. Bah, humbug! Of course, all the old-timers here in Manor seeing out-of-place weirdos like me from austin move here into the old shambling wrecked victorian houses are saying the same thing about us, I know, irony at it's best I suppose. I figure I have about 5 or 6 yrs here til this little town gets sucked dry too.

See ya!

Roy Tompkins
<roy@royt.com>

Roy,

Your problem is that you're neither a yuppie OR a hillbilly — or a little of both! So enjoy the "town" of Manor while you can.

Your fellow hybrid,

Peter Bagge

Amen and I love you. But no honorable mention for the Copper Gate Tavern? Ok, so it's way up on 24th Ave and 63rd and not on Ballard Ave. Still, it's the friendliest, homiest derelict bar in all of Ballard! I highly recommend.

Angie Ordway
<angieo@wsba.org>

Angie, you're the second person to say "What about the Copper Gate?" I know that place, though not well, as well as the one down the street from it, "Epps" I think it's called. And did you know "The Viking" is the oldest Ballard bar under the same name? But yeah, I zeros in on the Ave just for coziness' sake. There are places near my end of the hood (near 15th Ave) that I still haven't worked up the nerve to even enter.

Peter Bagge

Tavern Turnover

Yeah, I live in Allston, once a blue collar ghetto, now home to yuppies and rich college kids. There are still a couple hangers on from the old days here.Every Sunday in the Model Cafe a group of ex-allstonians come from the AA meeting for a late dinner. I'm not kidding, they don't drink, but they can't leave the Model behind, even though its full of 20 somethings drinking $3.75 Tremonts. Right across from the Model is the Silohette, which serves a much more hard drinking crowd of mixed generations and national origin in a tradition, drink to get drunk sort of way.

On the other hand, what was once Bunraddlies is now Wonderbar, where you can't wear sneakers or a T shirt.

Fuck that shit.

Ciao,

Ben Schwabe
<bschwabe@mit.edu>

No T-shirts? The Wonderbar sounds alright to me!

Thanks.

Peter Bagge

I moved to Seattle in 1990, to the Lake City neighborhood. There used to be quite a number of dives, like the Back Door Tavern. I remember three or four of these taverns had signs that the police required them to post. The gist of the signs was that this tavern was frequently the site of drug deals, and that would not be tolerated anymore.

I had moved to town to attend college, with a couple of friends from Spokane. We were checking out the local bars and we ended up at the Back Door. We hadn't been there all that long when an old barfly came over to us and said, "You know, this isn't really your kinda place. You might be happier hanging out somewhere in the U district or something."

Fortunately, my friend had grown up in a dysfunctional family with alcoholic parents. During his childhood, he had spent many nights fighting with his siblings in the car in a tavern parking lot, while his father was inside getting drunk and occasionally stepping out to check on the children and give them some peanuts to snack It had prepared him well for this situation. We began playing darts, and got into an argument about scoring, when my friend promptly threw a dart at me, hitting me in the face. As I was in the bathroom, washing up the blood, I heard my friend having a conversation with another woman at the bar. Apparently, she was chastising him for throwing the dart at me. I heard him yell "Why don't you just shut up, you fucking cunt!"

When I came out of the bathroom, the old woman who first told us to go elsewhere approached me. She said, "I guess I was wrong. You guys'll fit in here just fine."

I only went back to the Back Door once or twice after that. It really wasn't "my kind of place". But is one of the best bar stories I have.

Matthew Hawk
<mhawk@gowebway.com>

I just hope your friend doesn't do any drug deals at The Back Door, since that won't be tolerated.

Peter Bagge

Hey,

If you are interested in extending your 'winning' streak of moving into divy, blue-collar hell holes just a few years before the yuppies discover them, then consider moving to Chicopee, MA. Or Chicopig, as locals call it. Oodles of old factories, most empty and decaying, lots of old world eastern European immigrant dives, tons of white trash atmosphere. Plus, just across the river is Holyoke, mostly the same but with a 30% latino population you can get yourself socked in the eye by Olaf OR Juan! Nothing adds a certain zest to a night of drinking no-name beer like a big steaming plate of tostones or arroz con pollo.

If your ability to pick 'em is as good as you say, the mayors of these respective snot holes will thank you profusely for bringing their cities out of their deindustrialized stupor, staggering into the bright light of the information age!

Mark
<markl@buylocalfood.com>

If the town of Chicopee will offer me a tax break I'll relocate in a heartbeat!

Peter

I love your columns and illos for SUCK. I loved today's column about Ballard, WA, and I'm not even a dot-com-yuppie or a Microsoft Millionaire! (I live in IBM's hometown. Does that count?).

Do you plan to sell books of your on-line words and pictures?

Keep 'em flying,

Paul Goldschmidt
<bartle@clarityconnect.com>

Paul,

Thanks for the kind words. And my old comics publisher collected a few of my Suck stories in the new HATE ANNUAL, which you can order from www.Fantagraphics.com.

I would love to have a book of just my Suck stuff, but I have to go look for someone to publish it first.

Peter Bagge