Downtown Lounge (Revisited) - Portland, ME



Perfect, another stupid line. John yearned for a damn beer and here he was lurking in the entrance to Downtown Lounge, waiting for — what could be up to — twenty minutes to get a spot at the bar. Only then would he be granted the privilege of paying his hard earned money for a beer.

            It had been a ponderously crap day. During the morning commute, rain had brought traffic to a crawl — of course some idiot had crashed and ruined the morning for everyone else. To make matters worse, the ensuing eight hours had been one long fire drill; meeting after rushed meeting had filled up what John had hoped would be a low key Friday.

            For lunch? That was a wonderful trip to the DMV. After waiting for a deadly, bookless (he’d forgotten it at work) hour and a half — for the duration of which two obese men yawped behind him — the lady at the counter informed him he didn’t even have the right documents and would have to come back and no she couldn’t even get him ahead of the line when he came back, he’d just have to wait again. He’d wolfed his crappy turkey sandwich driving back to work.

            Yeah, he’d been waiting for this beer all day. He had needed this beer since about seven o’ clock AM on Monday and here it finally would have been if it wasn’t for all these slack-jawed idiots sitting at the bar ahead of him. Who got out of work before 5:30 anyway? Did they even have jobs?

            Nothing was going John’s way, as per usual. Oh look, a seat just opened up. They’ll probably give it to someone else. Typical.

 

 

            It was nice and air conditioned inside Downtown Lounge. The sun snuck out from behind the clouds as John read his book and waited for a seat. He was in no particular rush, it was Friday after all.

            There had been traffic in the morning — during which John had leisurely listened to the new Alt-J album in its entirety. John had gotten into work expecting a slow day and been surprised by a slew of activity. The day had just flown by.

            Well, almost flown by. The wait at the DMV had felt a bit longer because he’d forgotten his book at work, but John had actually relished a break in the day to sit, reflect, and listen to the hilarious conversations going on around him. Funny enough, John hadn’t even brought the right documents along with him. Now he had another opportunity to break up a busy day in the future. Not bad.

            The drive back to the office had been just enough time for John to enjoy his homemade turkey sandwich.

            Now he was almost at his glorious beer. He’d been savoring the anticipation all day. Life, after all, is almost purely anticipation, and John had been mindful of trying to treasure it.

            There were a surprising amount of people at DTL for 5:30, but John was glad to see that one of his favorite bars was doing so well.

            And all these people! Amazing to think about the statistical improbability, almost impossibility, of all these exact people — John included — existing in DTL at this particular time.

            Every one of them had come from parents who’d randomly met, and been begat from grandparents who had also randomly met and on and on back from humans to apes to swimming mammals all the way to protoplasmic monads in the primordial goop — one long unbroken string of impossible chances leading to this — and only this — conglomeration of people. But you really only have to go back a single generation to be amazed. John thought about the sliver of chance that led from each of their parents to them, meaning, in all the millions of sperm that could have created a person — some person like them, but not them at all — they were the single, one-in-a-million being who’d been given the privilege of existing. Now, after all those millennia of chance upon chance, piling up to the most infinitesimal possibility that everything would turn out exactly this way, here they all were hanging out and enjoying the beginning of a beautiful weekend. Truly, it was a vast gift to be alive.

            And look at that, a seat had opened up for John. It was a good day.

 

 

FOOD: 

3.9 Stars

The Downtownest of Lounges is a delight. Seriously I put this food only one hair behind Shay’s. Again, this is no gourmet restaurant so don’t expect to find anything fancy. However, what is prepared here (burgers, BLTs, Chicken Sandwiches, Wings, &c, &c) is prepared by the hands of an angel. The martinis are on point, generously portioned mixed beverages abound and the beer selection delivers on what one wants — Portland has enough “Maine Craft Brew” bars as it is. Not that they don’t carry those here, their selection is simply a bit less exhaustive.

PRICE: 

Aw right den, bud

A burg (or any other sandwich/salad) and a couple brews will have you at sub $20. Drink High Lives and it will be even less (but substantially more excellent given your taste in beers).

AMBIENCE:

Pluterperfect

These booths are made for scuttlebutt. Seriously, sit down for a drink with some buds and you won’t want to leave. The ambience is cozy, convivial and just damn excellent.

SERVICE: 

Greased Lightning

Good gentlemen work the bar. They notice when the drinks are near empty and suggest a refill at all the right times. Never had a bad service experience. Powerful.

EAT OR SKIP: 

Eat

So why did I revisit Downtown Lounge? Has Downtown Lounge changed? Not drastically. Has my experience in Portland changed the way I look at DTL? Completely. I had been looking a gift Downtown in the mouth. Now that I’ve had the full run of Portland, there really are very few places like it. It is without question one of the best dives in Portland and it’s not even really a dive. The food is great. The seating is some of the most conducive to conversation and straight chilling. The beers bring my stomach much pleasure (and liver much chagrin). DTL is truly a fantastic spot to meet up with friends old and new for great conversation and better times. In short, Downtown has unexpectedly suffused itself throughout the whole of my heart. DTL. The man.

 

 

 

The Downtown Lounge (DTL) - Portland, Maine

 

So tell me bro-lets in training, why the fuck are we packed into a booth in this dark-ass bar with just a shit ton of alcohol in front of us?

 

Don’t know? Drink.

 

It’s because bros: you don’t know fuck-all about the universe. The cosmological cunting constant, the red-ass shift, cosmic cock-gobbling background radiation, this shit is what’s real, bros.  And right now I am going to blow the fucking diarrhea out of your minds. But, before we get to atoms, fucking chug that Sam Adams.

 

Now!

 

Alright, the fucking atom: in the nucleus you have protons – positively charged particles like a lax bro – and neutrons – neutral particles like a burnout stoner. And fucking tear-assing around the nucleus you have goddamn electrons – negatively charged particles like the chick whose roommate you bang.  So here’s the straight truth: we don’t know fuck-all about what happens IN an atom. Everything that’s fucking going down outside the atom? We have that shit on lock.

 

Inside? Fucking who knows; it’s like a microscopically tiny-ass clit, unknowable by fucking man.

 

But we learned a sick-ass truth recently, something that happens with the fucking electrons and we don’t know exactly how or why. You listening? You better be able to repeat this verbatim, pledges, or it’s fucking elephant walks all weekend.

 

So some longdick physicist named Lawrence Kraus just wrote about this new reaction, similar to one spotted by the O.G. of wheelchair-bound brainpower S. Hawking. What Kraus said was that in an atom, two particles can appear out of nothing. No shit, gentlemen. Straight truth. First, you have a normal-ass atom, then bam, an extra electron and a positron.

 

What’s a positron? Great fucking question pledge, drink for it.

 

So, every particle has an antiparticle. An antiparticle has equal and opposite motherfucking mass and charge to its bro-particle. So, in this case, the electron is negative and the positron is positive. And the cunt-proof key is that (in the vast majority of cases) when a particle and antiparticle rub each other’s tits, they disappear. As soon as they collide, poof! Gone like my virginity at age 13.

 

So imagine this wacky shit: you have an electron buzzing around the nucleus of an atom, and all of a cocksucking sudden, ANOTHER electron and a positron pop up next to it. Out of dick-licking nowhere, two particles that, seconds ago, did not fucking even exist. I’m goddamn serious, this new particle and antiparticle pair are like Kappa Nu skeeves, rolling up on a freshmen chick out of fucking nowhere.

 

Bros, don’t fret for the conservations of energy though, because the two particles have equal and opposite mass. And if you fucking don’t know what conservation of energy is, look up Isaac Newton in any shitty physics book and start jerkin’ your gerkin.

 

But, and even fucking crazier, this cocksucking pair exists for such a small amount of time, it’s like they were never even fucking there! They appear from nothing, touch, and fucking bam – back to nothing. The universe doesn’t notice! Shit’s quantum fast (and pardon me if I’m paraphrasing I’m not a dick-ramming quantum physicist and plus fuck you). It’s like a bro giving a cop the finger to his face, but it happens so fast the cop doesn’t notice. So like, no bro goes to jail, nothing un-sweet happens, but the fact remains that the law got fucking owned.


Condiments. Indeed.

Image C/O Portland Daily Photo by Corey Templeton 


Why does that fucking matter? You ask. Drink for even making me say that. Chug like your mom chugs dick.

 

How did Hawking find this shit out? Black holes, bro. So, black holes just suck shit up, right? First, that’s such an easy mom joke I’m not even gonna fucking broach it. Two, shut your fucking herpes mouths because it turns out black holes don’t just suck everything in existence (like your mom) they also shoot out electromagnetic radiation. Yeah, players: black holes bukake the universe with thick-ass radiation.

 

So how the fuck does that work?

  

Remember those positrons and electrons? Well there’s this titty-twisting line of no return in every black hole called the event horizon. It’s like the front door to Phi Omega A.K.A. Gnargoyle Manor: a sweet lax bro puts a big toe past that doorjamb, and those gnar-ass birds will make certain he never gets out. Once you pass the Event Horizon that’s fucking it, you’re sucked into the black hole.

 

So, what happens is, remember those electrons and positrons appearing out of fucking fuck-all? That mamma-jamma happens right on the edge of black holes. And sometimes, a pair will pop into existence in just the perfect fucking spot where one particle is on the event horizon and the other isn’t. So instead of the pair of particles just touching again and disappearing, the antiparticle actually gets sucked into the black hole. Shoop bay-oop, cocksuckers.

 

And what that means is that the particle/antiparticle pair splits like Baloney Pony’s shitty parents at his fifth birthday party and the electron shoots out into space. And since that means the black hole is effectively absorbing antimatter and shooting out energy, it’s actually shrinking. Meaning no sweet-ass energy is lost or destroyed – conservation of fucking energy again. What that means, cum-gaps, is particles that shouldn't even exist are constantly being shot out of fucking black holes in the form of electromagnetic radiation. Isn’t that some brain-melting bullshit?

 

And again, you think there’s no point to me telling you this shit? Drink again bitches. Because mini-bros, this is where it gets ass-cock crazy.

 

So do your infantile peenees remember that titty-licking baus, Einstein? E=mc fuck your dad? Well, one thing E-Bro talked about was relativity. What does that mean? It means if you’re drunk and rimming a gross-ass chick, you might not think it’s disgusting. But if you weren’t drunk and doing the same butt-work to a busted flap you’d be thinking ew and fuck and shit. Meaning: reality is relative. So, what state you’re in/where you are/your velocity/so many other fucking things will change your perception. And perception is reality. 


Fucking relativity. Works for time and space too, cocksuckers.

 

So, and here’s where some fucking conjecture from yours truly comes into play. We’re saying there was a big bang, right? A big sploogy bang where something comes from nothing. Well, what the fuck else is an electron/positron pair appearing from nothing but another big motherfucking bang? Albeit on a smaller scale, but what is scale but a factor of perception you fucking brownie stabbers?

 

So isn’t it fucking possible… tit-cocking totally possible, that our universe could actually exist deep inside the nucleus of a randomly generated particle whose equal and opposite antiparticle got sucked into a black hole? Isn’t that a fucking possibility?

 

You’re goddamn right it is. Bring out the chicken wings.

 

I have never seen this man at DTL.

Image C/O Downtown Lounge


 

Why are we eating diggity-delicious chicken wings, dick-horns? Because fuck particles, fuck antiparticles and fuck the origin of everything. You eat those goddamn wings like you love them. Why? Why?! Because even if all that universe shit I just straight school-house rocked you in is true, those sweet-ass wings are the only thing in the entire universe that matters right now. That's straight truth.

 

 

FOOD: 

3.2 Stars

It may not look like it, but Downtown Lounge has some tasty bar grub. Suffice it to say it’s fine content housed in a rough exterior.

PRICE: 

Dive Time

Cheap beers and sub $10 burgers. Fine grub.

AMBIENCE: 

Urban Rustic Alleyway

Booths with high backs and a distinct lack of TVs make for great, if close, conversation.

SERVICE: 

Round and Round

If your drink is nearly empty, you’ll have company.

EAT OR SKIP: 

Eat

While it’s not the pinnacle of bars in Portland, DTL is a fantastic go-to for a couple beers and some quality snacks.