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Celebrating after the ALCS
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Why "Celebrating the ALCS"? Why not "Watching the ALCS"? Because I don't think that Dan's Cafe has a TV.
This is where I was on Friday night when the Red Sox beat the favored Tampa Bay Rays in game 1 of the American League Championship Series. Even if I were really passionate about baseball, a Game 1 is not the kind of event that you remember where you were when it happened. And had I been anywhere else, I wouldn't have. But Dan's Cafe isn't just anywhere else.
DC has a lot of defining characteristics, but does one thing in particular very well: the dive bar. A lot of local bars are all facade - like the politicians in this town, you're never quite sure that everything that they claim is there is there. If you're new here, you will walk down Eighteenth Street (NW) soon enough and see what I mean.
This isn't really all bad. Open windows, balconies, and patio seating give the place an open-air feel that is one of the better parts of going out in DC. You feel as if you were sitting inside of a movie set. It's hollow, but there is a kind of romance in it. The facade feeling is part of the physical buildings as much as the bar's character. Except for Dan's.
On your walk down 18th, keep your eyes open. You'll have to. Dan's Cafe is especially hard to find. It isn't a "secret hideaway" or a speakeasy-kind-of-thing, but it looks like it's abandoned. The windows are boarded, the signs are peeling, and the bouncers at the door look like they're just ducking out of traffic for a cigarette. It may be the only true dive bar I've been in. The place is old - not old-fashioned, just old. The ceiling is old, the tables are old, the barstools are old. The wall paneling is old. I don't want to say that it's dirty, but I've got journalistic integrity, so I have to. Everything seems like it's about to fall apart. The flimsy look is what they are going for, and you almost get the feeling that they could pack up the entire building into a trailer and set it up in another state the next night, and it would look just the same.
But more importantly, Dan's is not a sports bar. Also, Dan's is not a music bar - I dare you to find enough songs in the jukebox to justify spending an entire dollar. It isn't a club, and you probably won't dance. The single pool table will probably be covered in a patched tarp, empty drinks, and, the last time I was there, a passed-out patron. It is just a bar, nothing more. There is a good selection of cheap beer, liquor comes in the little 99¢ bottles that you find by the register in liquor stores, and if you want a mix they give you a Coke can. They'll brew you up an interesting chilled contcoction in a honey bottle, but that's about it. You go there and you hang out. You have conversations, you meet people (everyone there is just plain friendly). Until the game was over, I didn't know that baseball was going on. Enter the Sox fans.
The Red Sox faithful will be passionate after either a win or a loss, so as long as they are in the playoffs count on them to show up and drink. Suddenly, everyone I met was a Boston Fan. Conversations were all about the game. Red hats were being snatched from peoples' heads and passed around the bar. I talked to a girl about JD Drew, and a guy came across the bar to ask her how she could still wear a Manny Ramirez jersey. She explained that she had taped Jason Bay's name over the back, but the tape was coming off. I was pretending to love the sox and talking in a fake (and horrible) Boston accent. People would walk by and squirt honey bottles into friends' mouths, and the bar was ecstatic until closing time. I couldn't think of a better way to celebrate.
Of course, when she told me she had to go find her boyfriend, my true colors came out: "I hope Big Papi goes to the Yankees!"
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