Dive bars are an inherent part of any city, but in Boston, they are practically our lifeblood. After the shops and restaurants close down, the neon signs of local dives detail the nighttime cityscape just as much as street lights and yellow cabs. They are where worlds collide; a convergence of “college-age kids getting their first taste of the drinking world as well as the old-timers who’ve spent fifty years in the same stool”. Now, with the help of our good friend, Dig alumnus and writer Luke O’Neil, we have an informed collection of this intriguing aspect of the greater Boston area. His new book, Boston’s Best Dive Bars: Drinking and Diving in Beantown, compiles 90 of the Hub’s prime dives complete with interviews and colorful insights to these characteristic bars.

BUY IT HERE.

Last week, TC’s Lounge hosted a book release party and we have the photos to prove it! Sponsored by the Weekly Dig and Narragansett, it was an eventful night highlighted by book signings, creepy puppets, and good times had by all.

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Below is a chapter from Boston’s Best Dive Bars spotlighting the famed TC’s Lounge in Back Bay.

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TC’S LOUNGE

BY LUKE O’NEIL

If you were watching a ridiculous teen movie where the characters needed to make a stop in a dive bar – maybe they end up encountering some colorful characters that teach them a valuable life lesson, maybe it turns into a wacky drinking montage where one of the kids ends up with his pants off in the dumpster (haha, good one Hollywood!) – it would probably look a lot like TC’s. The only problem with that is you wouldn’t buy it.

Your bullshit detector would be working over time. You’d think “Alright dude, we get it, this is a ‘dive bar’, you can tone it down with the kitschy décor and fluorescent bar signs and esoteric posters.” It would look like they put together a collection of dive cliches to choose from, then just said “Screw it, put ‘em all in. We need this place to read as ‘dive’ to the clueless rubes in flyover country.” And yet

TC’s is very real. A little too real, actually.

Still, this is a classic dive, and its legions of fans, young and old, probably wouldn’t have it any other way. They’ve got smokes and Cheezits for sale behind the bar, which you just don’t see anywhere else, as well as baby jumpers emblazoned with “Future Customer” on the front. Shot specials like the Oxycontin shot and Liquid Cocaine are tempting, but you might want to stick with a bottle of beer. Wall after wall of Polaroids of decades of drinkers in various states of inebriation attest to its popularity across a wide swath of Boston bar culture.

Here you’ve got your young professionals getting shitty after work, nearby Berklee musicians wasting away an evening that they should be practicing, and long-time regulars who might be vaguely perturbed by the gnat-like swarm of kids.

Following the trail of photos is sort of difficult, because this spot has a truly odd layout. There are three levels, and staircases that seem to come out of nowhere.

It’s like M.C. Escher’s version of a dive.

Booths along the bar side and in the back room give space to hang out, but the main section is dominated by an arcade. It’s like a roadside carnival in here. Some of the customers look like they might have done well as carnies themselves.

Aside from photos, the walls and ceilings are papered with a truly awe-inspiring collection of old posters that give new meaning to the word random. Rebecca Romijn ass shot, DMX looking hard, a Mondale/Ferraro campaign flyer. (!?) Some of the older ones are completely burnt out as well. That’s probably from years of smoke. If you just stared at the ceiling you might think there had been a fire in this place at some point and they just built it back up around the damage because they couldn’t bring themselves to throw out their beloved old decorations.

I’ve been here when it was absolutely mobbed with kids on a Thursday. Tonight, on a Monday, it’s just me and four regulars watching Seinfeld. Against my better instincts I start laughing along with them.