Asymmetrical Concepts
Irradiated by Stingray
Hanging around the Gunblogger Conspiracy IRC channel one afternoon, Breda mentioned she was off on her way to happy hour at a local pub. LabRat and I don’t normally do bars or pubs. There’s certainly no aversion to alcohol keeping us out, but the presence of Other People puts a serious kibosh on just about any outing for us. We’re just friendly that way.
What got me thinking, though, was the very notion of “happy hour.” Sure, there’s good reason to be happy in presence of alcohol, but a lot of the time the reason for the alcohol in the first place is shit hitting the fan. Or depending on the scale, the middens hitting the windmill. Regardless of scale, sometimes you just need a drink ’cause things fucking sucked. Why isn’t there any time for that? You want to get me into a bar? Let’s talk about Angry Hour. I’ll show up at a bar for Angry Hour.
First off, if you order some frou-frou appletinigarita during Angry Hour you’ll be lucky if all that happens is you get charged triple price. In Angry Hour you can order whiskey or tequila, half price. If your drink comes with an umbrella, that thing is going in your eye. Then getting opened. Then being used to garnish the drink. There’s no karaoke during Angry Hour either. The jukebox will be playing either “Take This Job And Shove It” or death metal. Want to order a drink? Better preface it with some form of the word “fuck” or you’re just getting sprayed in the face with water. Smoking is encouraged. Filterless marlboro are for sale at the bar, and if you bring a cigar it better smell like a roofing company caught fire.
Whiskey, tequila and people already pissed off, sounds like a peaceful combination, right? Damn straight it doesn’t. That’s why all the empty bottles are over there for patron use, and the tables are steel and bolted to the floor. During Angry Hour if the place has a pool table, the only cue sticks out will be the ones too shitty for a regular bar already, and that’s a pretty shitty cue. If you go to a more up-scale Angry Hour they might be cool and have a medic on scene. But the medic will be a pissed off medic, hand chosen from a shift filled with nothing but people scamming for drugs and the adventures of SumDood, and twice the normal level of bullshit bureaucracy. And he’s not gonna bring any anesthetic either.
The only dancing will be to chin music. The bar snacks are habanero peppers.
C’mon, bars! The happy people get their time, when’s the hour for the rest of us?
July 2nd, 2009 at 3:24 pm
Any decent bar with an angry hour will only one unbroken pool cue. And sawdust on the floor with clotted spots from last night.
July 2nd, 2009 at 3:35 pm
“The jukebox will be playing either ‘Take This Job And Shove It’”
Around here it’s usually “I used to love , but I had to kill ” or on sundays the mellower “Love Stinks”
July 2nd, 2009 at 3:36 pm
grr stupid literal html. make that: I used to love [her] , but I had to kill [her]”
July 2nd, 2009 at 3:55 pm
I volunteer to be the medic on duty, there’s just gonna be a wait until I’m done with my drink before I tend any bleeding, broken body.
July 2nd, 2009 at 7:09 pm
Aww, c’mon, I have enough work already. Assholes.
July 2nd, 2009 at 7:12 pm
If you build it we will come…
Like the music. Also serious Johnny Cash, Pogues, Nick Cave, Steve Earle even if he is a commie…
July 2nd, 2009 at 7:42 pm
I used to go to a bar like that when I lived in Salmon, Idaho back in the early 80’s. I saw horses and harleys ridden through the place and cocaine snorted right off the bar. Fights were the regular entertainment – and the cowboys were real.
I miss that place…
July 2nd, 2009 at 7:49 pm
I’m glad you liked my umbrella suggestions!
July 2nd, 2009 at 10:36 pm
“Fuckin’ whiskey! In a dirty glass! And don’t hold the fuckin’ hair!”
Music:
Beatles, “Revolution #9″
If you weren’t pissed off before, you will be by the time the song ends.
July 3rd, 2009 at 10:58 am
Dude, you want angry hour, just go to any REAL punk bar. It’s angry hour all the time.
Plus the skinny little poser fucks are fun to stomp.
I miss Boston, where you actually got real bars, not this shit down here in Phoenix. Or Ireland where the pubs are just the center of the universe.
July 3rd, 2009 at 2:16 pm
I would so go to that bar.
July 4th, 2009 at 12:41 pm
Sounds like the bar in F. Paul Wilson’s Repairman Jack series … where the patrons beat the snot out of the person asking nosy questions about you just on general principles.
And all the hanging ferns are long dead.
July 4th, 2009 at 8:56 pm
I’d suggest throwing in a couple of adjustable wrenches. People can either bash each others’ brains in with them, or try to unbolt the tables. The trick to that is to use left-thread bolts, people never seem to figure those out.
Jim
July 5th, 2009 at 9:43 pm
Jim, make them metric wrenches, and whitworth fasteners.
July 9th, 2009 at 12:34 pm
I’m assuming the only allowed topics of conversation are
a) work
b) exes
c) politics?
July 14th, 2009 at 3:21 am
Nah, Joanna– you could also talk about:
–My f’in’ car.
–My f’in’ old lady.
–These overpriced, watered-down drinks…