My old college buddy Chuck spent a few years in Washington DC before landing in Chicago, where he has been for the last few.
In big, cosmopolitan cities populated with over-educated people, Chuck is always complaining about the “blue bubble.” He’s not a right-wing nut or anything, but he says the political correctness in those cities is obnoxious. He recently wrote me this in an email:
Half of the girls I meet are political extremists and rabid feminists who use words like “triggered.” They say they are oppressed. They brag about protesting against whatever is MSNBC’s issue of the day.
A couple of weeks ago at a barbecue, some woman when off on the host because he showed everyone a photo of himself, a dark-skinned Puerto Rican, as a four-year-old in a school play wearing an Indian head dress. “Cultural appropriation!” All of that annoying shit you thought only existed on the internet is real.
My reply, toward the end of my two weeks in St. Louis:
That’s just so far from my world in the States. Everybody I know is either lifelong Republican drunk on the right-wing Kool-Aid or they’re union Democrats who did or did not fall for the MAGA shit. But suffice to say in my world it’s perfectly fine to make fun of Peruvians and other minorities.
St. Louis is just an inherently provincial place, filled with provincial people. You have to deal with country-ass people all the time, you can’t avoid them at all. Even the hipster radio station, KDHX, devotes half of its programming to bluegrass and shit like that. It fits the scenery and all, but I just don’t like to be around so many rednecks.
I always wanted to live in a city like New York or Chicago, but things didn’t turn out that way. It did for Chuck, but it didn’t for me. Not yet anyway (now my dream is to move with the wife to New York after the children finish school to live as empty nesters).
Knowing all that, you can understand why I would occasionally hang out at hipster bars. Don’t get me wrong, I can go wild on buckets of Busch at the tavern. But sometimes I’m in the mood to be around people with good taste in music and art and stuff like that.
So I’m drinking at the top hipster bar in St. Louis. I’m several beers deep and I’ve made my rounds, laughing and drinking with people. I go back to my seat at the bar when, what do I see? A lady, all prettied up in a dress with her hair done up, has parked herself just two seats down. Unaccompanied.
Not that an unaccompanied, prettied-up lady matters to me, being a happily married man. Casao y capao if you know what I mean. No fooling around for this gringo, but you still notice that kind of thing.
Just then one of the bartenders, the one who I had taken to be the senior bartender, comes out from behind the bar and gives the woman a big hug. Not a normal hug, but an affectionate hug and there may have been a kiss on the cheek. I wasn’t really looking.
That led me to conclude what anybody would. She is the bartender’s newish girlfriend, and he’s coming out from around the bar to mark his territory in front of all the other males. Some dudes are like that. You know how dogs take a piss on the tree? Some male humans take a piss on their females.
Again, balls in my wife’s purse, I don’t care.
However, the meathead redneck friend who came with me is seated with his girlfriend on the other side of this woman. I had returned to the bar to check on them. So I glanced in their direction – NOT to check out the prettied-up, hair-done girlfriend of the bartender.
And that’s when I saw her hands. Big, strong, veiny hands. This lady clearly was no lady. I immediately turned my glance back to my beer, desperate not to see her face or, God forbid, make eye contact.
I know that’s not the politically correct way to feel around trannies, but I’m turning 40 next year. I’m old school. And I just used “her,” which I believe is the preferred nomenclature for trannies in 2018.
That despite my being very tempted to use words like “him” given those hands, and to say things like “this dude’s packing nine inches under that dress.”
If I were the type of dude who gets so drunk that he lets a convincing tranny give it a suck – “Alright, make it quick” – those hands would make for a phenomenal blow job. But I’m not one of those guys. Nothing against you guys who are. It’s just that I’m not.
Then I start thinking about this bartender coming out to give the tranny a hug. What the fuck was that about?
Perhaps the bartender is dating her despite her not being a bona fide “her.” But the guy didn’t seem gay. And even if he were dating her, you don’t really need to mark your territory when you date chicks with dicks.
Maybe he’s showing off his liberal bona fides and how tolerant he is, how down with the LGBTQ (did you know they added a Q?) scene he is. Kinda like when Republicans make the explicit effort to get black people into the pictures at Trump rallies.
There might have been a little bit of that, but I think it was something else. In the age of same-sex marriage, gender-fluid rappers and that chick in Billions, I think this bartender gave the tranny a hug to make her feel welcome. Showing the other hipsters how progressive he is was maybe a bonus, but he sincerely wants trannies to feel welcome at his bar.
That’s my theory.
Then I thought, what the fuck? Where’s my hug, bro? Do I have to dress like a woman to get a hug?
I’m just as much of an outsider in this bar as the tranny. As much as I like hanging around hipsters every once in a while, I’m no fool. I’m fully aware they’ve never accepted me.
I always assumed having the build of a tight end is a nonstarter. It reminds them of the jocks who picked on them in school, before they grew up and flocked to the gritty part of the city to be around each other and enjoy their own music, food and drinks … and to get away from people like us.
I can overcome hipster wariness by being overly friendly and flexing my intellectual muscles, and it usually works, if only for the moment. However on this particular night I showed up with a beer bong (long story), which added a frat-boy vibe to the build and bald head. And then I was accompanied by my meathead redneck friend who is dressed like Paul Wall. That didn’t cut a good figure for hugs at the moment of arrival.
Then I thought, even if I wanted to have a laugh and ask the dude for my hug, it wouldn’t end well. Either (A) none of the hipsters would laugh or (B) the bartender would come around to give me a hug. And I definitely didn’t want that.
Not that I’m against hugging dudes, either in an abrazo kind of way or a gringo way. It’s just that it would be forced. Not spontaneous and real.
So I just tripped on that for a while … free hugs for trannies.
That was supposed to be the title of this post, but that would’ve given away the surprise! A little taste of the social-justice-conscious, blue bubble. TIA!
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