The Douchiest Bars in America

Douche-bags are hygienic products; I take that as a compliment. Thank you.

Typically I like Complex Magazine. Their “content for men” is pretty cool and I often find myself stumbling across one of their articles when I get tangled up in the interwebs. That said, it is well known that Complex is a cheater. When you make top 10, top 25 lists, it is blatant pandering to the classic middle American who doesn’t have the desire/time to read 1000 words of heated opinion. No fuck that, give me a scrolling slide show with 25 pictures and 25 sentences. I suppose that’s fine. They blog for a living, for money, and those 25 slides, which will generate 25 hits and close to a dollar from Google Ad sense for each reader to go through the show…well that adds up to a winning combination.

But the content can be and often is shit. Bored idiots at work blindly scroll through the article that takes them 2 minutes. Then these fools run around reporting this ill conceived article as gospel to anyone who will listen.

“We must NEVER go to John Barleycorn ever again, Complex rated it the douchiest bar in AMERICA!!!!”

Kind of like how I will never order merlot again after seeing Sideways.

“If she orders Merlot, I’m fucking leaving.”

(Fun fact: the merlot market crashed in 2004 after the release of that movie, sales in 2005 were down 40% it is just now returning to form, never underestimate the power of an Alexander Payne flick)

 It’s whatever. I make lists sometimes too because I know that my conceited dribble must grow tiresome after a while and also because I want to attract more readers that don’t have a full 10 minutes to listen to my ranting.  Lots of blogs impose this format, it’s like quick cuts in a movie trailer, it just looks good.

Ok, now that I have given you a little peak into the blogging world I want to take issue with some of the content in a series of lists Complex has coined “The Douchiest Bars in America.” Certainly you have seen these posted on Facebook with “haha, can’t disagree” or “bro we are totally douchebags!” I personally have read the lists for New York, Los Angeles and Chicago and I have spent significant time in about 90% of the listed bars. Now, I’m not arguing that I am not a douche, because I think most people would agree that I certainly am. What I want to know is how did this one person (girl in this instance) measure said douchiness of the aforementioned bars? Let’s take a deeper dive and find out.

After reading the meager explanations for each bar listed, it becomes pretty clear that Lizzy D (the author) really hates bros and immediately associates them with douchiness. In the Chicago edition she really phones it in by listing about half of the Wrigleyville bars and complaining about finding drunken bros acting obnoxiously after skipping work and going to a Cubs day game. Well, what the fuck did you expect Lizzy? The people that go to Cubs games are notorious for a sense of entitlement and obscene wealth. Yet you blame the bars for pandering to this crowd? They’re just trying to make a dime…and there is nothing douche about live band karaoke at the Cubby Bear after a Wednesday night game.

So whatever, they missed the mark on Chicago. They really couldn’t figure out what was their standard for bar douchiness so they seemingly listed the city’s most popular watering holes taking a spattering of the best of river north, Lincoln park and Wicker park. At least I’ll probably agree with them on L.A. god knows there are enough pretentious Hollywood clubs around here to make a top 50 list…but instead they pick on the UCLA bars? Don’t go here unless you are a drunken frat guy trying to plow a catatonic sorority girl before she vomits on you? Who the fuck do you think goes to college bars? Frat guys that want to fuck sorority girls (and me…but it’s a “work” thing) Like are you that pathetic that you couldn’t find enough “bro” bars in LA that you had to pick on college bars for being too full of youthful shenanigans? She even picked on 3 of my Venice/Santa Monica bars, her overarching argument is that they are “too crowded and too loud” aka too fun.

I now have a working theory that all female writers are vapid whores. I don’t know if the whole “Sex and the City” thing gave them an empowerment trip or if they have been watching too many promos for Lena Dunham’s new show “Girls,” but I just think that female scribes (especially those living in New York) now think it is socially acceptable to get down with any swinging dick and then chalk it up to a life experience that will make their writing more “real and edgy.” But then comes the inevitable slut’s guilt in which you blame the entity of “bro” for all of your problems, hence the list “The 25 douchiest bars in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles” should more likely be called, 25 bars where you are going to find the type of guy who will fuck you and not call in the morning.”

It may come as a cop out that I play the “scorned woman card” on all three of these authors. Sure it is very possible that they had bad experiences with frat guys or they think they are too mature and over that scene, but I guess that all leads to one fundamental question: What do you define as fun? It may be immature but I still go to the bar to get fucking lit. I have even more fun when everyone else is as drunk as me. I have even more fun when I bring a girl home and can’t hear her telling me her name again in the morning because my ears are still ringing because the music in the bar was so fucking loud. That’s fun for me. That is why I go out. If I wanted to have interesting conversation with some intriguing people I would host a dinner party and make fun cocktails. But that’s not what I consider fun, I’m 25 I like to rage.

So next time I’m in Chicago, I’ll probably be at McFadden’s (making me a double douche, because the NYC location made the list too.) When I’m here in LA, I’ll be drinking at Cabo Cantina because they literally put 12 shots in those giant margaritas and that’s the kind of thing that I like, and when I’m in New York I will be drinking at Bro J’s acting like a big old “douche” while you sit in a dark ultralounge across the street and talk about how mainstream and lame it is to have fun.