SeedyBars

     Tonights RunLoading Zone, 4037 N.E. Cully Blvd., 503-284-4667I believe that is 57th....6:15 ish....Welcome to the Loading Zone tavern, which sits on the crest of Cully Boulevard in Northeast Portland. Before it, in all its ragged glory, sprawls a working-class neighborhood that extends almost to the Columbia Slough. Inside, patrons are having a beer and a laugh. "What's real bad is when your uncle goes to prison so he can see his sons," jokes an upbeat, long-haired fellow at the bar. Chuckles all around."I had to get in trouble," adds the bartender, a woman with a nasty scar on her right forearm. "I went to school, I got married, I had kids, I got divorced. What else was there to do?" A slightly disheveled, 50ish guy ambles in through the back door. "They eighty-sixed me from the liquor store," he offers, pained but defiant. It doesn't matter, he says. There are other stores. "I know all their names. I know their hours." You could almost throw a rock from Cully Boulevard to Fremont Street, which bisects some of the city's most prestigious real estate.Nearby Beaumont-Wilshire is a land of coffee culture, jogging strollers and gleaming SUVs. Cully is trailer parks, taquerias and long-haul drivers who park their rigs out in front of the house. Careful on the side streets — some pose an obstacle course of deep craters that could swallow a subcompact.The place, in other words, is not particularly glamorous. But that doesn't mean it isn't welcoming.A normal night at the Loading Zone might be fairly quiet. A couple play video poker. Guys shoot pool in the garish light of neon beer signs. No one bothers to claw a stuffed toy out of the arcade game inside the front door. But there's upbeat energy on a karaoke Saturday. A twentysomething brunette does a serviceable job on a Jewel song, followed by a stocky guy with tattoos that start at his wrists and disappear into the short sleeves of a white T-shirt. He covers Digital Underground's "Humpty Dance" without even looking at the monitor. You've got pool, poker, keno, a jukebox, TV, beer. What else is there?Perhaps another Cully nightspot. There's the Dreams & Memories Public House, a low, cinder block redoubt across the street from the Loading Zone. But you may have missed out. It closes at 10 every night. So head north down the hill, past the Albertson's, past the brain-stretching five-way intersection, past the two topless clubs, one of them shuttered.If it's getting late, no need to bother seeking the isolated, industrial-district charm of the Cracker Box Tavern on Northeast Portland Highway. It closes at midnight. So take a left at Killingsworth Street and travel three blocks to the Red Apple Tavern. Don't be put off by first impressions: the underpowered electric sign or the weathered cedar shake siding.A guy with a baseball cap heads up the concrete stairs toward the front door, carefully stashing a plastic grocery bag alongside the entrance. What would you leave outside a bar that's worth keeping but not valuable enough to steal? An unnaturally animated women many months into a pregnancy strides across the parking lot, a cigarette in her hand.But hey, don't be so quick to judge. Steering a careful course, the Apple makes room for a lively cross section of blue-collar cultures: unreconstructed '70s butt-rockers, guys with their names stitched onto work shirts whose company vans sit outside, Hispanics who mostly congregate around the pool tables in the back of the room. It's a mix that's reflected on the jukebox, which features equal parts Foreigner, Kenny Chesney and Vicente Fernandez at six plays for $1. Like the neighborhood's bars themselves, the machine is designed to welcome all comers, and inexpensively at that.

I had the pleasure last night to hang out with my friends.  And for once it was all guys. We are all around the same ages with a lot of the same things going on. So it was nice to just let the miles just peel away and just talk about stuff.  And one thing we did was to glance at all the houses we went past and talked briefly about the histories of the houses, the people seen coming and going and just taking the time out to watch the angle of the sun at a great time of the day. And to run; that simple little endeavor of putting one foot in front of the other and breathing, watching and listening.


     After the run we had the pleasure of hanging out for an hour and just taking in a slice of America. That slice I am talking about is the seedy bar. The seedy bar is just a sensory over load for some body whom has not been in one for awhile.


The first essential ingredient is smoke. I am not a smoke but some of the charm of a seedy bar is the smoke.  Its like going into battle and emerging out the other side victorious.

I guess the second essential item is cheap beer. I love macro beers, but somehow when sampling seediness it is part of the experience to have a 1.20 big glass of Miller High life.  And dite Pepsi’s over ice taste great in a seedy bar.

Once again I will have to finish this later as I need to earn a paycheck