I have always wanted to own a bar. I’m not sure it would necessarily be a good idea, given my love of bars. I could easily become one of those barfly type owners, sitting on the end of the bar, shoveling free drinks down and making sure all my new found friends never went hungry.
Still, I love the idea. If I won a gabillion bucks in the Lotto, I would have to own a bar. Now, most of you would think that I would only want a pirate bar, but I saw that episode on Bar Rescue where the idiot owner of a pirate bar had bled something like $900,000. The show’s host fixed the bar as best he could and as soon as he left, the owner turned it back into a money losing bar serving the 200 pirates she knew from Facebook.
Let me start by saying that a pirate bar can work, as long as it is pirate themed and not run by people who think they are pirates. I have to agree with the guy who’s on the show – if it lost money for five years as a pirate bar originally, then it’s going to continue to lose money as a pirate bar now. Why? Because people who like to play pirate don’t have a lot of money.
So, the pirate bar is out. I could conceivably go with a nautically inspired bar if I was in the Caribbean. You know, something tiki or even something that catered to Parrotheads because there are a helluva lot more of them than pirates and unlike pirates, they do have money.
Many years ago, I thought I should open a testosterone/estrogen bar. Part of the reason was selfish. I thought I could use a little more testosterone. At the time, researchers that advances in science would allow you to take a hit of the stuff with a mask, much like an oxygen bar.
Now that sounded like a winner. Why have a bar serving up what really is nothing more than air when you can serve up some extra testosterone or estrogen. Think of the possibilities. Macho men could load up on some estrogen and get in touch with their female side. And wallflower women could take a few hits off the testosterone bottles and finally have the guts to ask a guy if he wanted to dance.
I would have loved having a testosterone bar for my own personal use. I could have really used a hit or two to get some cajones back in the day, especially since I seemed to be hopelessly attracted to women who had more hair on their chest than I did. At least they could protect me if someone really wanted to pick a fight. And yes, the women I’ve known could easily deck most men in a bar, even steel workers and bikers.
Of course, as with any bar there becomes the delicate question of over service. If you have a pretty macho’ed up guy who wants a couple more hits of testosterone, this could become a huge problem. Fights would break out left and right. Chairs would be broken, patrons would have to run for safety. Hardly the kind of bar people will want to frequent. Well I would. I’ve been in those bars, even having a guy ask once if he could use the back quarter of my car to pummel a guy’s face into. I said sure, why not, and afterwards he cleaned all the blood off it. Nice guy(?).
I think we’d have to ID everyone when they come in. You know, size them up. Send the macho jerks to the testosterone bar, sure. But only because they think we’re serving testosterone. Yes, the old switcharoo. We’ll invite them over, run some great specials and get them to suck down a lot of estrogen. Pretty soon they are YMCAing to the Village People and buying roses from the flower seller who always comes into bars in Seattle and gets guys to buy flowers for their girls because they are already drunk. No, not the girls, the guys.
If a girl is a little heavy on the testosterone herself, we can send her there too. She will be thinking she’s in for one beer swilling, pool cue breaking kind of a night with lots of anonymous sex in the bathroom and suddenly feel the need to powder her nose.
Now, this is a to-each-your-own kind of bar. I’m that kind of a guy. As you know, whatever floats your boat is fine with me. I like all walks of life, except assholes. But remember, it is my bar. And I don’t want it busted up each night. I don’t want the cops shutting me down. And I don’t want anything illegal going on in the place, at least until it’s closing time and we’re down to just the regulars.
Then we’ll start hitting the stuff big time. We’ll end up with crazy testosterone filled orgies and drinking binges. We’ll tell each other unbelievable lies, back slap ourselves until we’re black and blue, claim we’ll be friends for life and then hit the sack in one spent pile of humanity.
In the morning, we’ll all wake up with crazy headaches and have plenty of regrets. We’ll wonder what we were thinking the night before and how did we end up with that tattoo on our chest, the pink heart that says “Love you forever, Trixie.”
We’ll stagger to our feet, look around the room and wonder who everyone else is. And then we’ll remember. Damn, it was the testosterone. We’re all hung over from getting all macho’ed out the night before. The guys will have pounding heads and bulging biceps and the girls will have baritone voices and unexpectedly bulging pants.
In short, it will be one for the books. People at the bar will be talking about this night for years. Or at least until the next night when we mistake the estrogen tanks for the testosterone tanks and all end up with manicures, pedicures and Brazilians.
In the Emerald City, loving the red nails but chafing a bit downstairs,
– Robb