tender

September 6, 2018

Oregon Tavern Age: Dive Bar Disquisition

Let me take a break from chronicling Oregon Age Tavern life and dive into a disquisition on the phrase “dive bar” that I hope will offer some clarity on the subject as crystal clear as a shot of well vodka from the gun or making out with someone under a mountain waterfall.

Many OTA joints embrace dive bar status with pride. A few take considerable umbrage. Some are utterly indifferent to the semantics of it all.

What defines a dive bar? Perhaps it’s like US Supreme Court Justice’s Potter Stewart’s famous non-definition of pornography: “I don’t know what it is, but I know it when I see it.” Who decides a definition of a dive bar? Surely not a magazine writer visiting for the first time and writing up fluff. Is there a difference between an urban dive bar, say in Portland (if there are any left) and a coastal one, say in Coos Bay?

These are important questions for dive bar scholars to ponder, if there is such an academic field. (I think there is.)

I think about my forthcoming Oregon Tavern Age book, now over 45,000 words in length, scheduled for a winter release, but I keep adding to it, and I wonder has anyone ever written a book about a region’s dive bar culture. Doubtful. There is no money in this editorial venture, but many rich rewards in storytelling, and occasionally, free beer and fresh crab at Super Bowl parties or wakes.

I occasionally spot tourists in OTA country and I don’t begrudge their presence. On the contrary, I welcome their presence. One visit to OTA country can change a person’s entire perspective on many matters of American cultural life. One merely has to listen and observe and perhaps even participate in conversation.

I have a few rules of thumb for recognizing OTA country. There will be a framed and faded photograph of a dead dog or dead human behind the bar. There will be a typo on the food menu or drink special board. Someone will know who Roy Orbison is. There will be at least one jar of pickled grotesqueries. It opens at 9:00 in the morning.

One last thing; if you here a protracted conversation about stouts or IPAs, you are not in OTA country. If you hear a conversation about putting on a roof with a crushing hangover, you are.

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The Old Crow

Book Club

$11.99 + $3 Shipping

In December of 2020, author Matt Love moved to Portland to care for his elderly father.

Returning to the Rose City jolted Love after 23 years residing on the Oregon Coast. In the Sellwood neighborhood where he lived, Love met a homeless man named Mark. They formed a friendship over literature and the unforeseen magical discoveries in street libraries. They created The Old Crow Book Club, and yes, sometimes that involved drinking Old Crow on a sidewalk.

The club also included several other Sellwood homeless men and women cut from John Steinbeck's Cannery Row cloth.

In due course, Love learned the members' stories of homelessness and how they survived. He wondered what happened to his beloved state of Oregon and attempted to help Mark get off the streets only to run up against the seemingly futile policies to address the crisis.

Along the way, he had the best conversations about books in his life and wrote The Old Crow Book Club, where he recounts his interactions with the homeless people in his neighborhood and offers some suggestions how to alleviate what he considers the greatest man-made American humanitarian disaster of his adult life.

The Old Crow Book Club is available for purchase here and select independent bookstores in Oregon.

Choice Cuts

of Oregon Fiction

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Choice Cuts of Oregon Fiction by Matt Love contains 20 stories, all set in Oregon. The cast of characters includes a depressed Santa Claus, Steve Prefontaine, Jack Ramsay's fast break offense, socialist squirrels, a clearcut, a dead deer, a junior high football team, a high school tennis player, a dissipated teacher, a man who evolves into a beaver, a homeless vet, a jilted preacher, a double date to a prom, rural degenerates, a wily caterer, and much more.

The publication of the collection culminates a quarter century of the author's writing about Oregon and rambling around the state.

Choice Cuts is available for purchase here, through Amazon, or select independent bookstores in Oregon.

The Savage

of State Street

Nestucca Spit Press is proud to present The Savage of State Street: The Thieving and Literary Lives of Smoky Epley. He is the greatest unheralded writer in Oregon history and also one of its more mediocre, colorful and persistent thieves.

$19.99 + $3 Shipping

In 1973, Oregon State University Press published Men in Exile: An Anthology of Creative Writing by Inmates of the Oregon State Penitentiary. Twenty-two of Smoky Epley's pieces appeared in the book.

Smoky spent most of his adult life in state and federal prisons for robbery. In 2008, during one of his brief stints of freedom, Smoky became friends with Matt Love, an Oregon author and publisher. They met after Love discovered Men in Exile and wrote a newspaper column about the landmark book. Smoky read the column and reached out.

He returned to prison in 2009 after forging a check. Upon his release in 2011, Love encouraged Smoky to write a memoir. He completed half of Auto before dying in February of 2013.