eebmore: Where Black People and White People Drink in Har-Mon-yeeee

Where Black People and White People Drink in Har-Mon-yeeee

September 26, 2005

Last week, the Baltimore City Paper came out with their annual Best People who are Typically Friends with People on the City Paper Staff list. This list is always a good source of entertainment, as you get to make fun of the gazillion people, places and things that make the cut. Best Place to Have Lunch on the Same Block as the City Paper’s Offices. Best Speck of Dust in Mount Vernon. Best Basest of a Local Band that an Editor At The City Paper Hooked Up with After That Party Last Week (no disrespect. I’m proud of you all). A guy at work brought in fifty or so copies so we could all make fun of him for being photographed. “Oh, look. It’s a picture of a hot ass and a dumb ass. Bully for you, dipshit.”

Poor guy.

Anyway, so after we cut out the picture and attached it to cork board of mockery, complete with arrows and appropriate captions, I thumbed through this year’s edition looking for more fodder. And there I saw it, my old living room, the place where I used drink six or twelve scotches before the bartender would wake me up and tell me it was time to close EVERY SINGLE NIGHT; the place where I’ll still go a couple of nights a week to say hello and enjoy a couple of fake beers before I go home to stare at the blank walls and contemplate on my boredom, the only drinking establishment where I feel comfortable because the bartenders wouldn’t serve me... even if I asked them to, was awarded this year with the hallowed distinction of being the Best Bar Where White and Black Baltimore Drink Together. Tru’nuff, I suppose, but what I thought to myself was “Goodness, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity, a one time license to walk into a bar and make very loud, potentially volatile racial jokes to a mixed group of people and totally get away with it!”

Of course, later in the evening, I walked into the bar, and in my loudest voice, asked:

“EXCUSE ME. IS THIS THE BAR WHERE THE BLACK PEOPLE AND THE WHITE PEOPLE DRINK IN PERFECT HARMONY?”

The black people and the white people all spit their beers at the bartender.

“THE FUNNY THING IS, BEFORE I STARTED DRINKING HERE, I TOTALLY HATED BLACK PEOPLE!”

The melaninocytally divergent howled with laughter and slapped me and on another on their backs.

EXCUSE ME, RUSSEL (to the neither white or black person in the photo), BUT THIS BAR IS FOR THE BLACK PEOPLE AND THE WHITE PEOPLE TO COME TOGETHER AND REFLECT ON OUR SHARED AND OFTENTIMES CONTENTIOUS HISTORY. SO WILL YOU PLEASE TAKE YOUR MELANESIAN FILIPINO DINK ASS OUT OF HERE. YOUR KIND ISN’T WELCOME.”

And all the people of the rainbow screamed and hugged, just as God intended.

Okay, so I’m exaggerating everybody's reaction a bit, but for the first time in my life I was slaying everybody. I felt like Don Rickles and Richard Pryor, except not so funny, less jewish, and with a smaller penis.

01:45 PM | Permalink

Comments

werd to your black mother
(is what I posted)
and this is what i got:
Your comment could not be submitted due to questionable content: F**K
ee- WTF man? I thought you were cool, free expression and all that and I cannot utter a simple f**k in a posting that 5 people will read ON A GOOD DAY???
Please correct the error in the form below, then press Post to post your comment.
No Error I saw in that comment, I perfectly stated what I wanted to say.
Hello, oh hi Secertary Gonzales, why yes your boy is here, let me get him for you.
LAME LAME LAME LAME

Posted by: ex-bartender at September 26, 2005 05:28 PM

So, what, was there also a category for "Best Bar Where Whites Drink Together and there's a Designated 'Coloreds' Section in the Back"?

Posted by: Kristine at September 26, 2005 11:12 PM

ex-bar: heh. I have absolutely no control over my comment filters. My administrator put those in place over the entire system back when he was trying different options to combat the spam. And aucontrair moon freer (f**k french spelling) on five people a day. okay, maybe five people a day looking for this site spacifically. But I get about 150+ people looking for nude pictures Heath Ledger every day and that number is climbing. I am nude Heath Ledger central. And real nice way to treat me after I write and post an entry exclusively for your entertianment, mister 20% of my audience. F**ker.

Kristine: I can't exactly explain it, as much as we all made fun of the silly designation, we all acknowledged "tru'nuff." The self segregation of society for some reason doesn’t happen in that place. It’s the bizzarozone of integration. Blacks, whites, homos, heteros, drag queens, fifty year old republicans, twenty one year old art students, junkies, prostitutes, professors, staight out thugs, lawyers, hustlers, you name it, all blend, mix and chat in one big melting pot of odd. the way everyone claims to be all about the content of character, but are, you know... COMPLETELY FULL OF SHIT, for some reason is the reality there. None of that “I don’t judge of others as long as they think exactly like me” which is usually what people mean when they say they aren’t racist or judgmental.

Hell, take ex-bartender, for instance. He was the weirdest looser in that place, and yet we all accepted him. Not that we had much of a choice. If we didn't he would throw dirty glasses at us and spit in our food, but it still brings a tear to my eye when I think of it.

Posted by: eebmore at September 27, 2005 01:10 AM

That BoB struck me as odd as well. I've been there a few times, and (to be honest) it's always been a little weird to see the mixed crowd that you described. Always cool, but always weird.

Posted by: AnonymousCoworker at September 27, 2005 12:46 PM

anon- yeah, it’s the sort of place where you could declare “I’m into necrophelia!” and everyone would look at you and think “yeah, so... are you going to finish those fries?” tough crowd to shock, offend or surprise. ;)

Posted by: eebmore at September 27, 2005 01:59 PM

How COOL. So do they have that BOB category every year? And if so, does that place always win?

Posted by: Kristine at September 27, 2005 03:56 PM

The categories change every year. Next year’s will be:

Best Drummer of a Local Band One of the Editors Hooked Up With After That Party Last Weekend

Best Hangnail In Mount Vernon

and

Best Bar Where You Are Prone To Run Into that Girl Who You Slept With, Never Called Back And Now Have to Have an Uncomfortable Albeit Polite Conversation While Her Girlfriends Sneer and Shoot Darts at you with Their Eyes

That last category will be wide open and it will be anybody’s guess as to which bar will win.

Posted by: eebmore at September 27, 2005 11:59 PM

White hands clasp black hands in friendship at Dougherty's. Des Colores.

Posted by: Cara at September 28, 2005 01:41 AM

long live the AFL-CIO logo. And don't forget the homo hands, hetero hands, drag queen hands, fifty year old republican hands etc. etc. etc. It'll be a great big orgy of clasped hands. That will be SOOOOOOOOO hot!

Posted by: eebmore at September 28, 2005 02:06 AM

"Best Drummer of a Local Band One of the Editors Hooked Up With After That Party Last Weekend"?

Good Lord, if only . . . unfortunately, I think a category that'd be more likely to come from some autobiographical place in the CP hive mind would be "Best Place to Try to Score With the Best Drummer (or Guitarist or Librarian or Whatever) in Baltimore, Realize You Are Too Drunk to Make Reasonable Hook-up Conversation, Then Drink Some More Till It's Last Call." That or "Best Bar to Get Into the Argument That Ultimately Ends Your Relationship."

I'll get working on the drummer thing for you, though. We must have someone willing to sacrifice multiple nights of Lost and Deadwood for the cause. Wouldn't want to disappoint.

Posted by: an editor at September 28, 2005 11:41 AM

heh. I'll be waiting ALL YEAR with baited breath.

Posted by: eebmore at September 28, 2005 12:41 PM

I SO wish I had been there to see that. I would have, in honor of CP, bought you some mixed drink of your choice.

Posted by: Old Hag at October 2, 2005 01:29 PM

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