As a bartender I hear a lot of stories. My favorites are the funny ones but a good fucked up story about human nature is always good too. It’s tough to get a full story out in the course of bar conversation. Most of the time, it’s just a lot of shooting the breeze and small talk. Some people try to force a story into a conversation where it just doesn’t fit.
This is a hypothetical, based on a conversation at the Brazen Head bar in Brooklyn.
Backstory: Through casual conversation, it has already been established that everybody likes the Dead Weather and would like to see them in concert.
Patron 1: I’ve never seen them in concert but my cousin did sound for them in studio and said they were mindblowing
Patron 2: I heard Jack White started that band as an excuse to hang out with the girl from the Kills.
Me: They’re playing at Bonarroo. I kinda wanna go but I’m not great with camping.
Offender: How can you not like camping? You know, Alex Minnow
( made up name) was born on a campsite in 1932. One of the first campsites on the Eastern seaboard to permit long term camp sites. Alex Minnow went on to become a great classical musician. His mother was deaf, dumb and blind and his father was a statue of man …………………………………………………
This is the worst kind of story not only because it was forced by way of flimsy segue but because it is uninteresting and virtually unrelated to the topic at hand. The conversation was about the Dead Weather not about historical things that happened in campsites. Bar conversations are not an opportunity to show off how much detailed historical information your brain holds. They are just not. You can’t make them be. It’s not fair.
As the bartender, I can’t say “ Buddy, nobody gives a SHIT about the poetically detailed lifestory of Alex …Whatchamacallit or anybody else right now. Do you not know the Dead Weather? You can sit out. Sit out of the conversation. That’s ok. Don’t try to manipulate the subject. It’s forced and unnatural and makes you look more like a FREAK than the big smarty pants image I think you’re going for.”
I’m not old enough to be the curmudgeon bartender. I look forward to being one someday. When your over 50 years old and a bartender, you can pretty much say whatever you want to whoever you want whenever you want because everybody knows, just from looking at you, that you have been bartending too long and at any moment you might just snap. It’s understood and accepted by everybody. That’s a pretty good position to be in.
I’m definitely getting sensitive about my age. The subject comes up and I act like someone just picked a fight with me.
Inquisitive type How old are you now?
Me: ( squaring off) What the fuck did you just say to me? No no no not nuthin. You said something, what? Yeah you better walk away.
( yelling after them) You walk like an imbecile!
When random people ask me how old I am, I always want to fake smile and say “ Put it this way, I’m old enough that in a court of law, I am considered to have a lifetime of law abiding behavior. So if I was to do anything illegal, like harass you and your family or steal your credit card or just simply beat the living daylights out of you, I’d probably get away with it. Being my first offense and all. “ end smile.
So yeah, I’m in a weird place of scaring the daylights out of people who are simply trying to get to know me better.
Even cute guys.
I’m not gonna overthink it.
It’s kinda funny.
This guy asked me my age recently.
Thanks for listening!
Kisses-
Kendra
Kendra is a stand up comic living in Brooklyn where she owns a super comfortable bed. She spends most of her time wondering where the hell her sugar daddy is and hoping he didn’t settle.
www.kendracunningham.com
