The lady is out of town tonight, so I had a hall pass to do whatever I wanted… So I went to the Paramount Theatre and watched one of my favorite writers/npr personalities speak! Super exciting! But before and after the show, I stopped at the best gosh darn bar in downtown Denver, WIDE RIGHT.
It’s a magical place of cheap drinks, great bar food that doesn’t feel hoity toity, and just a great vibe. When I’m there it reminds me of the clubhouse feel that the Triple Nickel Tavern in Colorado Springs had when I worked there…. and that was just the daytime.
I came back after standing in line for two hours to meet David Sedaris. (more on that tomorrow, probably?) I was debating going home, but instead I flipped the Toys for Tots coin that was sent to me in the mail to entice me to donate money.
It has a teddy bear on one side and the United State Marine Corps logo on the other. It seems as good a coin as any to flip and help you decide fate. Obviously the Teddy bear is the HEADS and with HEADS I would go home, and tails, I go into the clubhouse for adventures and open mic night.
I had never been so damned happy to see a Marine in my life as I opened my palm to the USMC logo staring back at me.
I went in and found chaos. It was open mic night, just after a huge show at Ratio just down the street. It was open mic night alright, but tonight in the full moon it felt oh so much more like a party. It felt anarchic. It felt alive.
Wide Right might be the most punk rock bar in all of Denver right now. They didn’t need to have bands playing here or people dressed a certain way! Wide Right is a divey, welcoming, performance arts space.
It’s full of crazy drugged out artists just looking to make strange, weird art. I sat in the back and watched open micer after open micer eat shit. I watched a kid meltdown on stage, and I watched a bunch of really crazy, excited and scared people try to make art in a room full of people who don’t much give a shit.
It was wonderful. It was electric. It was home.
You could feel this creative desperation in the air and it was almost as intoxicating as the house made cocktails ($3 everyday during happy hour)!
Maybe it’s the David Sedaris stories running around in my head, but I came home and felt compelled to write about this magic that I witnessed tonight in “downtown Denver.” It may not look the same, or feel the same… but there are places in this city where magic still happens. There are places here where people can still go chase those dreams, and not be judged. There are places still here in Denver, where you can go and feel like you’re still in your small hometown.
Wide Right is a magical place. It’s a place I want to go to and visit when I have the almighty Hall Pass from the GF. It’s the place I want to try eating shit at stand up again (the few times I tried stand up in the past I was just thrown on shows by a guy with initials for a name who just used me for connections, but that’s a whole other story as well…), and it makes me want to surround myself with people who just want to fucking MAKE STUFF.
I promise, I only had like 3 of those “Spicy” shots. They were good. Meghan makes some mean fucking drink recipes. ($3 during happy hour. 4-6pm every day. That spicy Mango marg was soooo fucking gooooood.)
Congratulations to Meghan and Jeremy. You’re magical people and You’ve made a magical place.
Thank you for sharing that magic with us all.
xoxo
