August 24, 2004
new york bartender allegory
A strange thing happens to New York bartenders when they hit the age of thirty: They suddenly realize they’re never going to be famous.
Right up to the point where they were 29 years, 364 days, 23 hours, 59 minutes and 59 seconds old they are all absolutely, positively certain that their screenplay will be sold, their face will be discovered by a big stage producer, their paintings will be hanging at The MoMA, their photographs will be gracing the pages of Vogue etc. etc.
Then Boom! Within nanoseconds of the clock chiming Midnight on the morning of the Big Three-Oh, the dream is suddenly over. Crash. Burn. Dead. No more magic famemachine to lift their souls out of the lowly depths of bohemian hand-to-mouth living and into the higher realms of A-List parties and Central Park South apartments.
Of course, the first thing they do is panic. Holy Shit! I’m old! Despair! Despair! Utter Despair!
Then once the initial rush of fear and dread starts to wane, they decide it’s finally time to grow up and do something serious. Goodbye, Dream. Hello, Sensible Adulthood. Time to stop working for The Man. Time to strike out on their own. Time to be a grownup.
They look around for ideas to start their own business. But like everybody else alive, their search is limited by what they know. Besides their art thing (auditions, gallery schmoozing etc), they’ve only really been in one business since dropping out of college a decade previously– pouring drinks.
Bartending is the only job they know. The drinks trade is all they know.
So late one night, Bartender One (who just turned thirty) is having an after-hours beer with a friend, Bartender Two (who also just turned thirty). They�re both in mourning for their recently-lost youth. They are commiserating, trying to keep it in perspective, trying to focus on the positive. But now they�re also talking intently, talking passionately, thinking seriously, they�re figuring it all out, they’ve got to come up with an idea. They need a business idea. They need a plan. Suddenly…
Bartender One: I know! Let’s open our own bar!
Bartender Two: Yeah! Cool! Let’s open our own bar!
So they whoop and holler and dance around and hug each other, glowing radiantly in the sheer excitement of their new business plan.
Good thing nobody else in New York has thought of it yet.
Heh. We seem to be shopping at the same tailor. Same in London, exactly the same. Working in a bar is worse than crack. It sucks you in, never to let go.
makes me glad i was a bartender in texas.
Not all that certain about the “hand to mouth” part of the story.
Back in the early 1980’s, in DC, I was pulling down $1,000 a week after tax (yes, you do pay tax on tips in the US) for a 37 hour week bartending. Add back in tax and inflation and that’s $100,000 p.a. or so. Even in NYC that’s not poverty is it?
There have been times since when I wish I was still earning that much.
pathetic. life is pathetic.
Nah, it isn’t “let’s open a bar!” in that bright Disney or Kids from Fame kind of way.
It’s “Letchzz ofhen a baahrr. Hic”
“Thachczzz a ghrret ideahhh.”
Drunks. The environment we play in.
so, what, we’re supposed to go work at an ad agency instead?
(ugh, the mere prospect makes me ill — pour me another drink so i can stop thinking about it).
LOL! dori, you’re right on. I guess we’re all supposed to sell chimneys and make card-toons in our spare time. See you around the watercooler…
We need to insert a new decade between 29 and 30. A period of grace for suckers and dreamers.
Oh …
This is the most depressing thing I have ever read.…