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At this point in 2017, I think most of you would agree with me when I say that human beings the world over have lost it.
I don’t need to mention current events because 1. I don’t want to turn this into a political discussion, and 2. You have a Twitter. Look that shit up for yourself.
I hate when people say that they were born in the wrong generation because it’s overused and definitely not true. I do think life would be a lot of easier for many of us if we lived in an era where social media didn’t exist, though.
I don’t know if my generation is a product of social media or vice versa, but what I do know is that we as a collective group are incredibly judgmental. We see the world through Instagram filters and you’re nobody if you’re not getting pictures snapped in swanky clubs, on rooftop bars, or inside fancy restaurants with names your friends can’t pronounce properly.
I imbibe on the weekends. Friday and Saturday are my nights to let loose and throw back a couple of adult beverages with friends in a place where there is no judgement or backlash. I can do and say what I want with relative freedom as long as it’s not really hurting anyone, and for that I am thankful.
Chicago is a great city and for the most part I am happy with where I live. I don’t have many complaints. Other than not having access to a lot of municipal golf courses in the city, I’m content. Why, though? Why am I content here in Chicago, Illinois?
The answer, to be completely honest with you, is because Chicago has a lot of good bars to drink alcohol in. It is embarrassing to admit this, but I decide how much I like cities by looking at how easy it is to get a drink at any given moment.
As many of you are aware, I visited New York City last weekend. The large apple, if you will. It’s a place where you can really let your freak flag fly and just about anything goes. But a trend I picked up on within two hours of landing at Laguardia was this: everyone I met was exactly like me.
“You live in Chicago? Nice, man. I got absolutely shithoused last time I was there.”
“Oh, yeah I love Chicago. Lot of great dive bars there, eh?”
I had conversation after conversation just like those two above.
The barometer for what we deem a “cool city” is predicated upon us finding a drink. I don’t know that the drinking culture has changed in America so much as the way in which we capture the drinking culture in America.
People have always drank and yes, that is a completely acceptable thing to judge a city on. But it shouldn’t be the one and only factor in deciding whether you’re going to heap praise onto it or completely trash it. I know that you’re thinking I’m pointing out something that is totally obvious. Like, of course cities are judged on how fun they are. I’m just saying that our criteria for fun is fueled entirely by booze.
When I ask someone my age for their opinion on a city I plan on visiting their response is almost always entirely centered around drinking.
“What kind of bars are you into?”
“These particular bars in these pockets of the city have good drink specials.”
“Here and here are good spots to get brunch and most importantly consume alcohol.”
Are the bars in the city you live in comparable to something you’d find in Los Angeles, New York City, or some other metropolis of equal size? Because if not then the consensus from anyone in their 20s is that it sucks.
I don’t know about your friends, but most of mine are fucking degenerates. There’s nothing wrong with that, of course, but I’m starting to think that judging a city solely on it’s nightlife is a little sad. Like why is it that what city you’re drinking in is why someone thinks you’re cool or not?
Time and time again whenever someone e-mails me or shoots me a text asking for things to do in Chicago my top five responses are always places to get drinks.
We make every city feel the exact same as the last one we visited because what do we do? It’s drinks in a bar Friday and Saturday and then we fly back to wherever we came from on Sunday. We’re visiting because we maybe want to see the sights but we inevitably always just go out drinking.
The scenery might have changed, but the activities you’re doing at home and while on vacation in a foreign city are absolutely the same.
Traveling and visiting new cities is always going to be something I love doing. Trips like the one I just took to New York City for the weekend, at least for now, come few and far between. That’s because I’m basically broke all of the time and leaving the city you live in every weekend to visit somewhere else gets old after awhile.
But what I would really like to do is stop this seemingly collective idea that a ranking for a city be based entirely upon bars. It’s ridiculous. Maybe I need to put the bottle down. Perhaps I should stop getting on Instagram so much.
I don’t know what the answer is. But what I do know is that if you ask a twenty-something for their opinion on some city they’ve been to or lived in, their response is going to be based upon how lively the bar scene is. We’re big drinkers. I guess maybe I just wish I could find another activity that is as fun as drinking, but I’m not getting my hopes up. .
Image via Unsplash
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jduda@grandex.co
HOW ELSE AM I SUPPOSED TO JUDGE THEM?!
Username checks out.
Everyone loves to rag on Indianapolis, but I can’t hear them whilst walking with my open container anywhere I want in the city. Checkmate.
I’d rather go to NOLA and enjoy my open container there.
Indianapolis is a pretty chill place, it’s not NOLA, mostly because it doesn’t smell like shit. But its a pretty good time.
People mostly complain there’s nothing to do. But being among the most affordable cities to live in the country and having arguably the best airport as well, it’s not a bad place to live and use all that $ saved to travel to other places.
I would need to have an open container on me at all times in order to be anywhere in the city, so touche I guess.
So happy to see another Indy PGPer on here! And yes, my friends in other cities always give me shit about living here and then following it up by asking how I can afford to travel so much and always be doing something. Also great to have my own apartment within walking distance to the bars while they’re sharing a two bedroom between three or four people.
This is very true. I also like to go to cities based on places to take good photos. For example, New Orleans is the only place where you can walk through a drive-thru daquerie (I not know how to spell it and I’m not gonna google it) place during the day, get shit housed and then go to the 9th ward to take eerie photos and possibly get murdered in an abandoned elementary school with Masonic voodoo hieroglyphics spray painted on the wall.
Gonna be in Boston this weekend if you’re gonna be around. Shot you an email a few days ago
Hell yeah, I’ll check my emails and respond, dude!
Definitely a bar-cost-fun ratio that goes on when visiting a new city. NYC is great but the cost of everything there sucks
That’s why people there are either grinding trying to carve out a living or are flush with cash. Not a lot in between.
Most of my memorable experiences since college have been of the various places I’ve been able to get hammered at. Be it a campsite, new city, or a buddy’s lakehouse.
Getting fucked up at a campsite is wildly underrated
Until one of your dumbass buddies decides to jump over the fire after forgetting he accidentally soaked his foot in gas. But still… good times
If you don’t leave the wilderness with an injury, you didn’t really go camping
The bars are a proxy measurement. If you go to a town with exactly one (1) bar, you know there’s going to be 1 or fewer of everything else that’s even moderately interesting. If there are lots of bar choices there are going to be lots of choices for everything else too. Also the most fun way to see a city is to bar hop and stop at the sights on the way, and that’s often the only thing that can make tourist traps bearable.
Well, yeah…
I mean, there’s only so much that you can do at night. Sure, maybe you can explore the theatre/music scene, but that will inevitably lead you back to a bar post-10 pm. How fun bars effectively weighs into half of your time in a location if you’re visiting.
Genius.
I was actually just having a discussion with my dad the other day about whether X city was on par with Y city, and he started rattling off about restaurants and this and that – to which my only reply was “The bars are shit dad, this city sucks”.
I thought this was going to be an article rating cities based on how fun they are to get drunk in, was left disappointed. You should do that series though, a bar scene rundown for every major/majorish city.
That used to exist. It was called “Insomiac” and it starred Dave Attell.
This is spot on. I have a list of dream cities I want to live in, with the only criteria being how awesome is their bar scene: Nola, Miami, NYC, Chicago, Denver, San Juan. Also, a body of water nearby to get drunk in comes in at a close second.