CULTURE CLASH (Night Life)
Piano Keys and Spilled Shots A Galveston Love Letter THERE’S A SLIGHT, BEAUTIFUL CHAOS PERCOLATING PAST THE WATERS CRASHING AGAINST THE SEAWALL. It’s out of sight, but it exists. While the tourists parade past Pleasure Pier’s Ferris wheel, stopping for a chicken sandwich down at Chick-a-fil, they’re unaware of what’s happening once the sand stops and the concrete begins. Galveston is a city of dive bars. This is not the place if you’re looking for sexy,
sweaty nights on the dance floor to a thumping Dua Lipa beat. Instead, it’s a beach town where chatting about the mysteries of the human experience is normal bar talk, just the same as smelling the magnolias bloom as you drunk stumble from Island Pier Club to Denny’s for a late-night Moons Over My Hammy. Here, no one cares if you’ve got a BMW or wearing a Rolex, and if you are, the next round is on you. No one is chasing status but trying to find their best chance at a life. That’s why the locals celebrate their
By Robert Dean Born on The Island (BOI) status. Galveston is a place of contrasting big money hotels, and the quiet streets of the east side of the city, which create a specific attitude, something that locals extol, no matter if they arrived last week or twenty years back. Pirates found this place, and a little of their blood is still in the water, making it acrid yet sweet. It takes a certain kind of person to love Galveston, to seek out the lore, to dare to find its best places for a beer at sunset, or where to grab a whiskey with that cute bartender you met from the hotel who just got off their shift. Galveston is a working-class town with a history as rich as any other area lauded for its culture and social identity. Still, the thing about that culture is to lie back and let
6
life happen at its own pace rather than chase the dragon of “LOOK AT US, WE’RE SO FUN.” Galveston should be kept like a bird in the hands of those who love it. It’s a special place that doesn’t puff up its chest, daring visitors to soak it in; instead, it’s a take it or leave it attitude, but if you’d like to have a tall boy along the way, that’s cool, too. My Galveston is drinks at O’Malley’s in the daytime with bartenders chatting up the local gossip, talking a little shit, complaining about this or that over a Ruben as the daywalkers outside depart from the cruise terminals or make their oil and gas deals an hour north up in Houston. My Galveston is wandering the back streets on a sleepy Tuesday night when no one is out but us, looking for a slice of adventure. When I come to town, you’ll find me strumming guitars with Derek
C U LTU R EC L A S H G A LV E STO N . C O M • J U LY/A U G 2 0 2 2
