It's a tribute to how uneventful this night that I took only one photo all evening (and that I'm just getting to writing this in mid-July). Sure, there's an entire microcosm within that photo—which I'll get to in a moment—but this night will not go down as a DNO of legend.

The problems began at Croxley Ale House. This place is cursed! This was the second time DNO started off here, and like the last time, I was here alone. I really, really, want to like this place: it has a good selection of drafts. It's a chain, although I think there there are only three, with one uptown and the other somewhere on Lawn-Guy Land. I nursed a couple of hefeweissen—I think it was a Brooklyner, or maybe a Wurzburger or Hoegarden. Whatever it was, it was good.

There's something weird about this place. You'd think it was a sports bar with all of the TVs. The crowd is post-work/East Village hipster: young, trendy, attractive and upwardly mobile. Neither of which matches the beer menu.

After about an hour, Jim showed up, and David came soon after our food arrived. The usual beer drinking and bullshitting ensued. >>>>

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Home

Jimmy's #43

Spank Me's

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Jim caught an early train, so David and I walked over to the Holiday Cocktail Lounge, which I think fairly owns the category "East Village Dive" [see photo, above]. What can I say about this place that hasn't been said already? New York Magazine: "A spacious dive serving dirt-cheap beer to aspiring drunks of all ages." AOL CityGuide: "Commemorate East Village squalor." Citysearch: "A holdover from the down-and-dirty East Village heyday." And those are the positive reviews!

When David and I got there, the place was basically empty. There was this old geezer sitting sitting at the bar with a bottle of whisky, chatting up a younger (50-ish) broad. He looked about one drink and one smoke away from the coffin. He looked like about 90 miles of bad road (one for each year, perhaps?). Anyway, we sat at the bar and he ducked around to the inside of the bar and served our beers. I'm still not sure whether he worked there or not. I probably had a Bud (there's "NO DRAFT—BOTTLED BEER ONLY") and it was cheap. There was something interesting on TV: some PBS special (was it Phillip Glass, something about the Holocaust, maybe both, if that's even possible?). Two guys and a girl came in and put some loud crap on the jukebox while they played pool.

If you look at the picture above, you see the usual kitch: the Michelob clock, the jalapeno Xma$ lights, the cheap booze. Looking closer, there's some incomprehensible details that speak volumes about the joint. There's stains on the mirror behind the Tanq bottle. Come to think of it, they're all over the damn thing. Mr. Boston Blackberry Flavored Brandy...mmmmn...I haven't had that since I was twelve—do people actually DRINK that stuff?. A Cosmos bumper sticker (Pele's NYC soccer team that folded in 1984). A bunny??? with a fig leaf??? And what's that under the bar? The geezer's private stash? Extra bitters?? The GOOD stuff??? You know with the dust down there, this bottle dates from at least the last century...maybe longer.

Glad to have had the experience—no need to repeat it anytime soon, though.