I Hate You, Bar D-Bags

I used to love bars. Imagine how much you love Blair from "The Facts of Life," but multiply it by ten. Yeah, that much. If given the opportunity, I would have lived in one. Oh, wow, this bar has a tent! No, no, that's just my home, where I can be awesome, and rip it at my leisure. Does this make me an alcoholic? Meh, I think I was always more drawn to the scene. You see, I hate bright lights, old surly people, rich people, not sitting in booth seating all the time, and annoying kids crying and wiping their dirty hands on all the door handles. Now where can I find a place that accommodates all of this? That's right, a bar. Plus, there is a lot of whiskey.

Recently, I have slowly began to wane off my bar fixation. Maybe it's because I'm getting old and fucking cranky and 90% of the time would rather be home wearing stained Yankees t-shirts that are softer than the Shroud of Turin and watching HGTV, or because I'm married, or because I'm no longer one of the people who can afford to be a complete fucking dick every time I step from the sidewalk onto some stained-oak flooring. I don't know, but being leery of bar night makes me observe things that never would have bothered me before, probably because I was too busy vomiting on a car hood in the alley.

First off, who the fuck is actually friends with the guy who is so drunk he can't even string together a sentence? I don't mean, I know him from work, I mean, who fucking calls him on the phone and is like, Hey Jimmy, let's go have some drinks at O'Fuckyou's tonight. And please promise you wont pull your pants down and crap into the garbage can again, okay? I don't get this guy. I know that on certain nights I have drank a 500 beers and forty shots of Jameson (no), and I have still NEVER been as fucking bombed as this guy. This guy is not awesome. He is not funny. Spitting in stranger's faces as he tries to retell his life story in fucking Pig Latin is not awesome. It ruins everyone's buzz. Sweating and rubbing up against people trying to pound a couple of beers and mind their own fucking business is not awesome. This guy is a bigger liability than a homeless man walking through a unsupervised liquor/canned food store. At day-drinking festivals, at concerts, at Preakness, St. Patrick's Day, Halloween, etc, this guy is fine, because awful, unruly behavior is expected. If you are not blacked-out by 11am at one of these events, then you are a NARC. But, 9pm on a Wednesday at fucking Public House? Get this guy out of here so I can stop envisioning myself hitting him in the throat with a chair leg and accidentally killing him. Now I'm doing a 25-to-life bid upstate even though I'm a hero, and I'll have to become a skinhead and get Nazi tattoos and hope nobody attacks me while I'm naked in the shower. GODDAMMIT WHY ARE YOU STILL HERE, AWFUL DRUNK GUY???

And now let me rant about the ladies for a moment. In college, I was a bartender...

(waits for applause)

I know who the good tippers are, and who the bad tippers are. And women, nay, girls, are fucking HORRIBLE tippers. Not all of them, but the vast majority. Oh, you want twelve Mai-Tai's, and nineteen buttery nipples shots? THIS IS NOT "SEX AND THE CITY," IT'S A COLLEGE BAR - WE HAVE POPOV VODKA AND EVAN WILLIAMS. But seriously, I would be forced to make elaborate drinks for a group of ten girls and then watch as they walked away without leaving a dollar because they were too busy screaming and dancing along with the newest awful piece-of-shit song playing on the tattered DJ speakers sung by whatever retard had OD'd last or dropped her kid on their fucking head. But I'd usually get them back later on in the night when they would stumble to the bar hammered, and I would overcharge them as they stared through me with glazed eyes, their teeth stained red and their hair all messed up from making out on the dance floor with the Mexican bar-back. I win.

Also, why do NYC bartenders insist on serving the dummy holding the American Express out like he's trying to feed crackers to the fucking Canadian Geese in Central Park?. Hey, serve me, the transaction will only take twenty minutes! Who cares about that doe-eyed drunk holding a wad of $20's over there. Look at him and his Hanes t-shirt, he looks POOR! And normally these douchebags who use cards like cash will then do the whole, do you mind if I run it now? Oh bro, thanks bro, you're the man, bro, I'm gonna hook you up FO SHO! Then they wait for the bartender to walk away so they can round up to the dollar and then run back to their stupid table of nerds in blazers and creased khakis, and then I'll watch with my handful of cash as they do it all over again in fifteen minutes. Nice clothes do not make nice tippers. I find it to be the opposite, actually. So: DIE.

One of the worst things about NYC are bar lingerers. The place is packed, there is not a square inch of free real estate for me to squeeze in and order a drink, because the actual bar is lined with old nerds trying to kick game to hot young girls who want NOTHING to do with them, aside from skimming off the top of their cash pile and getting drunk for free. The guy has half-a-bottle of Amstel Lite in front of him and the bartender is content to let him sit there and smirk and take up as much room as he likes so he can try and take the girl home who will immediately realize said guy is fat and old and resembles Wallace Shawn, and then he can her unravel even more, crying and eventually running home to her estranged, dead-beat, musician boyfriend. Where the fuck was I going with this...Ah, right: DON'T YOU SEE I WILL OVER-TIP YOU FOR JUST ONE FUCKING COORS LIGHT?? I AM UNREASONABLE WITH MONEY WHEN I'M DRUNK, SO SERVE ME!

There are obviously still things that I like about bars. Like the alcohol. And the TVs. I love being surrounded by TVs so when you start talking to me about your job, I can nod my head and look over your shoulder to watch the ticker and see whether or not Jason Heyward went yard again. I'll probably never lose the itch to post up at a nice, glossy, mahogany bar like a gentleman and order thirty two drinks and then go home with the spins and puke, but it's still disconcerting to realize that I'm now the shithead I used to mock when I wore a Wayne Chrebet jersey out at night because I thought the ladies would LOVE it. But I guess that's just the way it goes sometimes.