The easiest way to ruin a bar scene is to play a bunch of terrible songs on the jukebox. It's like when your drunken cousin throws a punch at his brother during a family BBQ, and then Aunt Aileen faints and then you have to call the motherfucking fire department because the smoke alarm is going off inside because mom burned the potatoes and nobody is paying attention and trying to turn the alarm off because they're all outside wrestling that asshole to the ground and getting grass stains on their khaki shorts. It's pretty much all over after this happens. If the bar is filled with 700 lb. mutants who all seem to have a penchant for murder, and old men wearing no pants and high dress socks, but the music is awesome, you will enjoy another light beer and pretend you like mingling with colossal, sociopaths who smell like Salt and Vinegar potato chips.
But there is always someone lurking in the shadows who will fuck it all up. Some miserable piece-of-shit who just got dumped by his slut girlfriend and now feels the need to wallow in his Becks Light at a bar and ruin your fucking night. You know how it goes - you are five beers deep, you are laughing, you are slapping your pals on the back, and at the same time getting some sort of vibe from that one bartender who doesn't look like she has had sex with every asshole wearing a fedora in Manhattan, when all of a sudden, off go the Stones, and on goes some awful shit that sounds like a whiny sixteen-year-old strumming a sitar and bitching about his tight jeans. It's like getting kicked in the balls and then hammer-punched in the side of the head. When you go over to investigate, to see when this nonsense will be over, you find out that sad little Mr. My Life Sucks So Should Yours has pumped in $40 worth of garbage, and you're left with only two options: 1) stick around and use a broken bottle to slit your wrists, or 2) bail out. But when you bail and relocate, you will never get back the same feeling you had when all things were clicking just moments before. The bad music becomes the hair in the salad, the fart during sex. It's all over. You might as well pack up and go back to someone's apartment and rip bong hits and drink Jack Daniels until you pass out and/or wipe the whole ordeal from your soggy memory.
But in order to understand these people, we must first find out whether or not these people actually know that their taste in music is atrocious. Do they go on first dates, get up to play music, then return to their table shi-bopping and snapping their fingers to John Mayer only to find their date gone and a note left behind suggesting they seek psychiatric help? Probably. I'll be the first to say that I'm not one to judge musical tastes - I haven't listened to the radio since 1997, back when my Bronco II didn't have a cassette or CD player, so I have no idea what the kid's think is "cool" - but if you like awful shit, you like awful shit, it's not rocket-science, and 95% of the bar will recognize your inability to read a crowd and complain to the bartender until she hits the magic Jesus button under the liquor rack and the song is skipped. Oh, you paid money to hear that, you say? Why did she skip it? BECAUSE YOU ARE FUCKING MAKING EVERYONE WANT TO FUCKING WALK INTO ONCOMING TRAFFIC, THAT'S WHY!
But, still, I'm in awe of these people. They come in, they order a fucking vodka cranberry, then cash in a wad of $20 and start pumping the bills into the machine like it's expelling puffs of heroin smoke with each monetary insert. They are not here to drink. Oh no, they are here to listen to music. Ohhh, the dedication! I bet he plays the acoustic guitar at parties even though he sucks at it. The scene is just fucked up - jukebox guy's group of friends is over there, enjoying each others company, and he is over there by himself, flipping through a jukebox for forty minutes. Why? WHO THE FUCK KNOWS? This dude looks like he eats Ramen Noodles three times day, and yet he's blowing $60 to play U2 B-sides. These people are one of humanity's greatest mysteries, right after the construction of pyramids, and aliens. Oh, and the big bang. So, big bang, then pyramids, then aliens, then fucking assholes who live to listen to music at bars.
There is a difference between what's appropriate to listen to on you iPod or in the confines of your own home, and what's appropriate to listen to at a bar. Go ahead and listen to someone screaming as loud as they can over a drum beat for all I care, just do it at home. I like theme music to movies, because theme music makes me feel like I have my own fucking them song, just like the movie. But I do not go to the bar and start playing the theme music from "The Hunt For Red October" because I know that I am fucking weird, and people don't want to watch me put on a Ushanka and sing the Soviet National Anthem while pretending to be Sam Neill.
Look, I get it, you want to push your tastes on other people. You want to prove that you're different and interesting. You want to mouth the words to an obscure songs so you can prove some sort of merit for knowing shit lyrics to a shit song that no one on Earth enjoys, including the assholes who wrote and sang it. And you are waiting for that pretty young lady to walk over to you and say, "Excuse me, are you the one who put on Evanescence? Oh my God, let's go into the bathroom and fuck."
But guess what?
IT'S NEVER GOING TO HAPPEN! Nobody gives a shit if you have an eclectic taste in music. NO ONE. You could be a fucking encyclopedia of musical knowledge, and still, nobody cares at the bar. You could know every song ever, and you would still not impress the girl with the fake boobies. Does she look like she cares about Nickel Back? No, she cares about cash and apartment square footage, so move the fuck along. These people are all here to get drunk or get laid or both. So stop being such a fucking prick and ruining everyone's night and refrain from playing Coldplay or anything else that does not mesh well with the smell of stale beer and raging hormones. Maybe if you started pounding whiskey and grew a set and punched someone in the fucking face, you wouldn't be such a nerd.
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