Volume 4, Issue 2
January 24, 2002 - February 6, 2002
by Alex Neth
519 18th Street, Denver, Colorado
303-295-9597
So Alice Coopers'town closed. Not to jump on the high horse with everyone else in local media, but nyaaah. Told you so. I predicted, correctly, that our aging shock-rock jock's venture wouldn't last one year. It did not. Let us celebrate the first thing I've gotten right since 1986. They should have cleaned the bathrooms. Seriously. Dick's Last Resort, the reprehensible dive that occupied the space previously, had the same unaddressed problem. Mr. Cooper must not have had bleach in the budget either, because the crapper at 1909 Blake perpetually smelled like my pants after a hard night. Ugh.
Ah, well. On to smaller and better things. On to bars that are worth going to. On, my friends and sycophants, to Shelby's. This is a bar that I haven't reviewed because--well, I have no idea why I haven't reviewed it. I pass by it daily. It is convenient to nearly everything in what passes for my life. It is full of old men and career drinkers as well as shiny suits and tourists. Seems like a natural, eh? What the hell is my problem? That, unfortunately, I don't have the space to explore. But in the interest of correcting what I can of the past, here is an unapologetic plug for a good old dive.
Shelby's has been billed in magazines other than this one as "Denver's Cheers." Such a timid appellation does not do this dark little downtown tavern justice. This is a place where everyone may not know your name, but chances are they know what you'll be having. There may not be any Kirstie Alley, but there's a perfectly serviceable real one close at hand for vomiting. Why must we always compare inexpressible reality to no-dimensional fantasy? Why reach when the branch is within our grasp?
Listen: this bar serves pints of beer and cheap bar food. The typical pretentions of our downtown are not in evidence anywhere--no buffalo meat entrees, no chocolate cake martinis, no Opie Gone Bad. Just booze and meat to sop it up with. Feel the need to show off your stylish new ensemble? Want some light chit-chat with your fellow beautiful people? Can't have fun unless Moby is playing loudly enough to make your teeth rattle? Then by all means, stay away. Your business is neither needed nor wanted here. This is the kind of bar that appeals to people who really enjoy bars. You know who you are. You are the folks in the battered ball caps and jeans and old suit jackets. You are lovers of conversation, milkers of the terrible joke, carbuncles on the hide of hip Denver. You and your dollars are what keep the soul of liquor culture alive in our dusty burgh. Don't let your favors be swayed by the spendy whores of LoDo. Don't compromise what you know to be true, don't find yourself somewhere where they don't appre-ciate you. Instead, find yourself here: In Shelby's, having a pint in the afternoon with some of your people.
This is where those who understand the affliction can get the only treatment they want or need. Here, in the menthol haze, is where you find your drunken self as it should always be-- laughing, choking, forgetting. You don't need to dress up or look like you stepped from the pages of 5280 to come in and have a few drinks.You don't need a shingle at Brownstein & Farber to afford your tab. Just show up as you are, with or without filth. They'll serve you the booze you want and need. And unlike some other establishments that we will never again name, Shelby's isn't going anywhere. The earth's crust may liquefy, the atmosphere may turn to poison gas, Dick Clark may actually die--but Shelby's and its blue-collar kindred will soldier on. Flashes jump into and out of the pan. Clubs spring up and melt away like mountain mushrooms. But bars, true bars, will never disappear. Which is something for which we must be thankful. Our kind need places out of the light, places where we can sit and drink a drink by our own damn selves. Without such places we would wither and die in the darkness of our tiny apartments, half-empty bottles of Wall Street clutched in our pallid fists. So let's all say a silent thank you to the purveyors of comfort. It may be that our priorities are misplaced, it may be that there are--gack--more important things than drinking. It may be that all of the sauce we swill is going to kill us. Maybe. But we'll need a place to sit and think about it.
All Rights Reserved © 2002 Go Go Media, LLC, Denver, Colorado