Hey ‘Tini, Gimme Back My Barstool!
by Phillip Martin on April 17, 2008 in Culture
You may have missed it, but an assault on working-class America somehow snuck into the previous issue of the Citizen. Among our fellow KSG students, there are some who are waging class warfare among their crimson brethren. They probably don’t even think they are KSG students -they probably consider themselves HKS students. Elitists.
What am I talking about, you ask? The last issue of the Citizen included an attack on the drink of the working class - BEER. The authors praised the grandeur of martinis, and had the audacity to close with this bit of “advice”:
“Mingle with the proletariat…Peer through the greasy panes of Whitney’s, Charlie’s or Shays one afternoon, and you just might find us nursing some cold ones. It’s just too droll to sup amongst the plebes, isn’t it, dahling?”
Well here’s my one piece of advice, on behalf of all of the plebes out there: HEY ‘TINI, GIMME BACK MY BARSTOOL!
I’m sorry I don’t have $9.50 to spend on a 4-ounce tiny ‘tini. My parents haven’t sent my share of the dividends from the latest wholesale merger. But allow me the space to explain why, unless you’re drinking beer, you have no business sitting on my barstool.
Imagine this scene: you wake up at 5:00 am to feed the chickens, milk the cows and start up the ‘ole wheat thresher. You work through the long, hard hours of a sun-filled day with only a 10-minute break to eat your usual mustard sandwich lunch. You finish up around 9:00 pm, jump in the lake to clean off and head down to the town bar for a few cold ones…
And who’s there, but some lightweight sitting on your barstool, her pinky finger jaunting to the side as she holds her ‘tini. She finishes her drink and just sits there for thirty minutes…on your barstool.
It’s enough to make your blood boil.
Local bars are one of the only normal parts of this uber-rich corner of America. You all think Shay’s is a dive? Charlie’s? Whitney’s almost counts for a dive, except the jukebox has music from the 1990’s on it. For those who really want to know, here are three signs that you’re in a dive bar:
1. You want to take a shower as soon as you walk out.
2. The only liquor on the shelves is tequila and whiskey, and both are served straight.
3. The back room has a chalk outline on the floor.
Trust me - there is no dive bar in Cambridge. And that’s fine, because there are still bars, where you can sit back and drink pitcher after pitcher of sweet release until the cold hours of a New England night tuck you into bed in the warm confines of the Harvard subway station. And at the end of the day, that’s all we want from beer. No social status. No correct ways to order or drink. No expectations that you need to engage in conversation.
Beer strips away the confines of every social construction. Beer equalizes the rich, poor and everyone in between with its simple, unpretentious flavors. Beer, quite simply, embraces the very idea of what America can and should be. So put down your martinis and raise a pint of your favorite brew to the spirit of independence, the working class heroes that keep this country running and the very idea of freedom itself.
Barkeep, pour me another. And, is there any Springsteen on this jukebox?
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Try Razzy’s in Somerville. As close to a dive as you’ll get around here. Molson from a keg in a bucket, fried food under a heat lamp and a jukebox that hasn’t been updated since 1987.
Razzy’s is definitely close, though after standing atop a table to sing “Bohemian Rhapsody” at 1am to close karaoke night, its still questionable as to whether or not I can return to that establishment.