Pioneer Newsletter #3

Monday, October 2nd

Introduction Paragraph

Balence. Never heard of her.

Who’s got it?

Who knows.

Karl Wallenda? Mark Wahlberg? I couldn’t tell you. I’m just certain the tidier my room is, the less time I spend L-I-V-I-N livin. The more time I spend livin? The more my room resembles a pitstop. At the moment, I’m confronted with an unmade bed, two bins of unfolded laundry, and a pot in the sink cemented with last night’s marinara sauce. It’s the product of a couple weeks spent at comedy shows, baseball games, and a psychedelic rave where tattoos were being inked just off the dance floor. A little too much birthday nowhere near my birthday. I criss-crossed around this city like a Starline tour bus. I socialized with the people like I was up for re-election. Last Sunday afternoon, as my Pioneer deadline approached, I sat down at this keyboard completely unable to pause. It happened once again. Another deadline missed. Stories? I surely had them. Perspective? Nowhere to be found. I leaned into the good times and slowly started to feel the gravity from above. Time to adjust my weight, make my bed, and find stable footing once again. Not to get all deep and shit…but if life is on the wire and the rest is just waiting, then I’m surely up there shaking like a wet dog. For Karl Wallenda, that wire was a literal wire suspended over a hundred feet in the air. For myself? I guess it’s a tidy household, good times, and this blog. Karl Walenda fell off that wire and died. But I’m still here, accomplishing tasks far more dangerous.

Greenlight.

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The Greatest Bar in L.A. - Part 1

Los Angeles, California. Fall, 2017. Year of the dog. It had been a month into school, in the city I now reluctantly call home. The sight of a palm tree or the scent of urine on Lincoln Boulevard felt incredibly novel and new. I had driven 3,000 miles from where I was certain was nowhere, to a new zip code I believed to be the Mecca. A wonderfully sprawling city that would surely welcome my creative gift from God with open arms and eager check books. Every chance encounter with a clever classmate could soon be a future collaborator. Every lady vaguely resembling Allison Brie could soon be fodder for a future Conan appearance. Dumbass.

Hypotheticals. We’d all prefer to live in a world full of them. But eventually, time starts to pass and the piss on Lincoln Boulevard starts smelling a lot more like piss. Will we accept it or find a new zip code where new hypotheticals are born and the urine smells more like hope once again?

My fourth Saturday night of the semester began similarly to the first three. My dorm-mate and I anxiously paced around our bunkbed, drinking warm Corona Lights, and fretted over the lack of available plans for the evening. But this Saturday would be different. Thanks to the People’s Republic of China and the local Western Union, we processed fake I.D.’s. The time had finally come to check in after the first free throw. To charge San Juan Hill. To grab destiny by the nuts and not let go until it screamed for mercy. We planned to find whichever bouncer was high enough to squint real hard at those pieces of plastic and waive us right through the door. We decided on a crosstown spot called The 901. It was a USC bar, frequented by plenty of underclassmen, so we were sure it wouldn’t be the first flimsy Oregon license they’d be seeing that night. We stepped out of the Uber and up to a large gentlemen in front of the door. With ample minor league experience at the grocery store, we were ready to look the criminal justice system right in the eyes. The verdict? Come on in. That night was one of magic. We imbibed, danced, and made friends we would never see again. We stepped into The 901 as children and exited as well, far drunker children, absolutely certain they’d just visited the greatest bar in Los Angeles.

Recently, I drove by The 901. It looked like any other sports bar. There was nothing special about it. I’m certain anyone with prior knowledge of this joint is either rolling their eyes, laughing at our naive stupidity, or has already stopped reading. The 18 year old Pioneer was certain The 901 was the greatest bar in L.A, but it wasn’t even close. Because the following ragtag bars that allowed my entry, maybe Prince of Whales in Playa Del Rey, Circle Bar in Santa Monica, or Foo’s Palace (not even a bar) in Hollywood would then become the greatest. Simply put, before turning 21, the greatest bar in L.A. is really any place that lets you in. The worst are ones where some rent-a-cop tells you to kick rocks and punch sand. The music, crowd, or drinks really can’t make too much of a difference. You and your friends are at a place and that’s because this place let you in.

In March of 2020, I turn 21, and spent the first weekend of legal consumption walking through any door I pleased. But then Tom Hanks collectively gave us a heart attack, and every door slammed shut. Two years of open-and-then-closed-again-parking-lot-outdoor-bars became the norm. Food must be ordered to drink in this establishment. There is limited capacity in this room due to new restrictions. Put a mask over your chin while you’re in the shitter.. In a global pandemic that killed millions and seemed to piss off a few million more, the bar became a purgatorial destination - marred by guilt and uncertainty. Upon entry, I’d ponder, people are in line for ventilators and food stamps, should I be in line for a Gin and Tonic? Then, the first suds of the cocktail would hit my lips, I’d see a few folks I know from that one place that one time, and all I’d want, is for this feeling to not be novel - for the supposedly promised normalcy of post-graduate nightlife in Los Angeles to return. But as a new variant came, so would the closures of each destination, and we’d all start from square one. Hoping soon to return, to whichever parking lot served Gin and Tonics. The greatest bar in Los Angeles became, quite simply, whichever bar was open.

Finally, regulations became suggestions, and then faded stickers barely stuck to the walls. But now, at 24 years old, I exist in a Los Angeles nightlife reality that seems anything but normal.

The beautiful and diverse population of young adults in this city, collected from every corner of this green earth (but mostly Seattle), seems dead set on spending their social lives in bars absent of any opportunity for social interaction. Bars that are divided and conquered by status rather than conversation. Pitch dark, overcrowded, and thumping with a bass line - communication is an afterthought. It’s cyclical. Depressingly so. We wait in line and participate in this clown and pony show while down the street, there’s a joint with pool table, cheap drinks, and any song you wanna hear on TouchTunes. I’d love to head over there. Sometimes I do. I just wish I wasn’t the youngest patron by a couple decades. That’s what keeps me crawling back into line. But I don’t head out on the weekends to chase some high and I’m not at the bar to forget who or where I am. I’m there to enjoy the company I entered with and make a few new friends along the way. I step out of my apartment to exist in the world. To look someone in the eye, I’ve never met before, and say hello.

In The Social Network (Fincher, 2009), Sean Parker ascends from a gator tail of cocaine, absolutely spracked out of his mind, and proclaims “We lived on farms, then we lived in cities, and now we're going to live on the internet!” If you want to see this in action, come visit an L.A. bar on a Saturday night. Accomplished and intelligent young adults are forced to begin and sustain their relationships online - whether it be swiping up on a story or hunting for mutuals - and as a result spend their night out only solidifying the digital footprints that brought them there. It’s why our bars are no longer an environment for bravery, spontaneity, or any form of extended communication. It’s why the music is so loud, the room is quite dark, and anyone not 7 drinks in, tends to hang out on the sideline - wondering just what the hell they’re supposed to do in the drunken zoo they’ve entered.

We’ve all accepted a raw deal. I know it. You know it. And that someone across the room you’d like to talk to knows it as well. With jobs, ambitions, and errands, our time to let loose is finite. Why we choose to spend it in overpriced sensory deprivation tanks is beyond me. But the urine on Lincoln Boulevard is starting to smell a lot more like urine and I have no idea where the greatest bar in Los Angeles is hiding.

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Crisis Thoughts Before A 7:00 PM Hinge Date

6:50 PM

I shouldn’t have Ubered. Now she’s gonna think I’m an alcoholic. Completely unable to have a couple drinks and call it quits. But what if this goes somewhere…else? Then I won’t want my car. What if we hit another bar after and THEN I DROVE. She’ll think the court just removed my ankle monitor. It’s good I Ubered. I’ll just explain that I didn’t wanna pay for parking…Shit. Now I’m cheap?

6:55 PM

I shouldn’t be here. A Hinge date? What am I, unable to meet women without the internet?  I might as well have met her on Craigslist. And who the hell is this sad lonely incel? She agreed to meet a strange man that liked her photos on the internet? She must be doctoring those photos. Not that I care so much about the photos. I mean, I’m looking to meet the person behind the photos. BUT THAT ONE PHOTO? The one at Waterfront, where a froze covers half of her face? It’s questionable to say the least. She could be irredeemably ugly.

6:58 PM

You’re a piece of shit. You know that? That’s all you care about, isn’t it? Is she “hot”? Disgusting. You used to have depth. Now you’re on internet, zooming in on strange women’s photos, and hoping they meet your completely unattainable beauty standards. Shame on you. Might as well turn around and go home.

6:59 PM

She’s walking up to me. Too late. Pretend you're Gosling. Believe you are Gosling.

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Recs

Unironically listening to Linkin Park

Lately I’ve been blasting Numb/Encore with the windows down and NOT caring about onlookers at red lights. Fight me.

MacGyver (TV SHOW, 1985)

We used to make television programs in this great nation. Programs in which a handsome guy with quaffed hair, named something like Richard Dean Anderson, adventures, loves, and catches the bad guy all within 42 minutes. MacGyver is my favorite example at the moment, mainly because I love that chase scene in The Bourne Identity (Limen, 2002) where Damon rips an evacuation map off the wall to flank US Embassy security. MacGyver pulls this shit 15 times an episode.

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Conclusion Paragraph

I’ve been thinking a whole lot about Zach Wilson - my hero this Monday morning. He almost beat the Chiefs last night. He even did that thing where the QB keeps his pads on for the press conference. Wow, he must have unfinished business out on that field. The man can’t even take the jersey off. I’m not a Jets fan. Not in the slightest. So last week, when his own teammates, Joe Namath, and just about everyone else rolled down their window and took drive by shots at the man, I sat back and watched in horror. I felt bad for Zach. We as a society collectively agreed to forgo our sensitivity training and go after Zach with absolutely no mercy. Personal attacks. Nothing was off the table. Not really because he’s bad at football. But simply, because Zach Wilson has a really stupid face. Listen, it takes an incredibly stupid face to create such a double standard. Usually, a bad QB is hit with “I hope he finds peace somewhere else but it does’t seem to be working on the football field” or some apologetic excuse about how he’s still a “family man” at the end of the day. Instead, we all took one look at Zach Wilson, remembered his foofy upbringing, saw his stupid face, and promptly decided to stone him in the town square. But Zach Wilson, my hero of the week, prevailed. He only lost to the Chiefs by 3. He kept his pads on for the interview. Zach will now get to put those pads back on next week. So good for you Zach Wilson. You overcame your your silver spoon, dismal career start, and of course your really stupid face, if just for one more week of NFL football. Readers, now it’s our turn. Having a rough go of it lately? Did you fall short last week? Get out there and write your newsletter. Do your job. Overcome YOUR stupid face or whatever hand your dealt. Take the goddamn snap for as long as you’re under center.