Forums and Tap Rooms

I hang at a local Fridays several evenings per week. It's a good place to edit and to check ideas for their alignment with audiences. That is, am I still "real" or in one of my dreams?

I realized the other nite that my role here often resembles that of a bartender. I put out nibbles and maybe start a conversation but I rarely butt into whatever inspired or strange things the customers utter.

You see things here that are very much tap room. That is, guys make a statement, other guys poke holes, or sometimes emit "atta boy!" Few use their real names and almost no one uses a last name. Friday nites are the busiest, Mondays and Tuesdays are for cleaning glasses. There are a couple of ladies of the evening here: And like most careful, successful, women (if they ARE women...I HAVE been fooled!), they are more discerning with their comments, ask more questions, and evaluate us chest thumpers.

There's a scanning aspect that also resembles a taproom. Virgil Partch (noted taproom cartoonist) once did a beauty of a guy and a dragon separated by 8 barstools. One drink later, they're a stool closer and the dragon no longer breaths fire. So it goes for another 6 drinks and the dragon morphs into a babe.

In this forum, ideas replace gin. Agreement or admiration replace the shot that sometimes goes with a beer but elicits the same warm glow, the same addictive kick. Of course, there is no danger here of the 20/40 phenomenon...that a partner at 40 feet looks great until she gets within 20! (Happens all the time when my glasses need to be adjusted.) Sorta like the guy switching to coffee when halfway down the bar to the dragon.

There's an entertainment function: the bartenders at Fridays juggle bottles and drop them. Sorta like NASCAR...no one would watch if they never broke a bottle or mug with a missed throw over their shoulder. Perhaps Geoff Miller would find the bartender to be the ultimate display maker...it seems a little silly and a male weakness, but juggling words and ideas, pretending to understand them, keeps me going!

There's a small enforcement role...erase the profane, the banal, and rarely, the just plain wrong. As in a typical Pottstown, depleted mill town, tradition, the tips are few but appreciated.

And sometimes I get to mop up.

Jim

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