Martini Malaise

Went to “The St. Louis Tap Room” for dinner and to meet some of Julie’s sister’s friends to plot her upcoming bachelorette party. I kept my nose in the goat-cheese rarebit and only partially listened into their scheming which involved a trip to New Orleans, gag lingerie and transvestites.

I couldn’t help but start tickling myself with the farce of what would MY bachelor party would entail. My friends, including the ones that can’t stand each other, all stuffed into a rented school bus, forced to drink too much and be nice to one another. Hopping endlessly from one dark, smoky bar to another. Our group’s collective stupidity increasing geometrically until winding up in a hotel suite adorned with cheap crepe paper, bowls of stale popcorn and a plywood, suspiciously smoldering, oversized birthday cake. Obviously, from the cigar stench, my friends had paid “Steve Hurleyâ„¢” to jump out and give me one last prenuptial, 70’-Style, glory-fuck before I resign myself to housework and Martha Stewart Livingâ„¢ subscriptions.

Alas, I digress.

Rarebit-full and raring to go, the girls wanted to take in a bit of St. Louis’ crippled night-life so it was off to the “warehouse district” to run with St. Louis’ uber-elite (all 12 of them).

The beau was exhausted… Julie giddy to be reunited and having fun.. Her sister’s friends, unexpectedly precocious and fun.

The bars were pretentious, the staff rude.

I found myself yet again being in a young hipster bar feeling like an old guy trying to fit in. (I unintentionally was wearing a MOBY concert t-shirt).

They grew bored, agitated at the $8.00 cocktails and bad service and pleaded for an alternative.

“Don’t you have any blue-collar, low maintenance bars?”

We warned that the only place we knew with that description was “the dark and spooky man bar” we haunt regularly. Surprisingly, the girls (or perhaps it was their 3 martinis a piece), agreed and declared a field trip.

They went nuts – and before we were ready to leave some were back in the leather shop buying t-shirts and “novelties” for their boy friends while others were singing along to ABBA with the veteran bar-flies by the juke-box.

Surreality like this doesn’t come on a canvas.

I’m not blogging.