10 Observations on the Salt Lake Bar Scene

I'm baaaaaaaack.  Here's something I wrote for a local magazine, but for one reason or another, didn't get the chance to publish it.  Since it's seasonally themed, I figured I better drop this knowledge on you all now.  Ten reasons why I always look sad at bars things I've noticed about the drinkers in downtown Salt Lake:

The Hick From The Crypt

About a month ago, I went to a bar called the Spot to celebrate three of my friends’ birthdays that were all within the same week.  For whatever nostalgic purposes, they pick the Spot every year, and even though I give my computer screen a Katherine Heigl-esque Fart Face every time I open the birthday invitation, I always go because of my friends’ unparalleled magnificence, and the fact that I rarely get to see them since they’re spread all over the valley now.

Oh, Jeezuss!!

One thing that I never can understand about myself is when I grieve for people I’ve never known personally.  There are probably one hundred and fifty degrees of separation between me and Hunter S. Thompson, but I remember the day when a coworker at the bookstore I was working at told me the Doctor of Gonzo died, I actually had to slink into the back room for a minute (or fifteen) to regain my composure. 

So it happened with Richard Pryor.  So it will happen with Bob Dylan.  So it may happen with Richard Lawson, Bill Murray, and Liza Minnelli.  However, I never expected it to happen with someone who I’ve barely been able to tolerate for years:  Christopher Hitchens.

I am what many people would categorize as an atheist, but I rarely talk about it because what’s the point?  I don’t like being affiliated with any sort of “ism”, and with that, I don’t really care for people proclaiming that they do.  I lack a belief in any type of god that’s been invented a millennia ago by a chief of a tribe that figured out the most effective way to have dominion over people.  However, to call myself atheist would be akin to saying, “I don’t believe in God”, which has always seemed counterproductive to the original God/no god argument.

But.  Christopher Hitchens belonged to a dying breed of deep thinkers that will probably be extinct by the end of the next decade.  Don’t get me wrong – I almost walked into a RIVER with pockets full of STONES while the wind chilled my face because it blew so hard against my TEARS after I read Hitchens’ article, “Why Women Aren’t Funny”, but eventually, I forgave all when I saw him sticking his tongue out at and flipping off audience members on Real Time with Bill Maher.  The dude examined his life with gusto, and whether or not I agreed with what he said or wrote, I respected him for mastering my favorite art:  arguing with fucking everybody.  In a world where err'body on Facebook thinks they're a goddamn photographer, losing an annoying philosopher that didn't have a clue when it came to women is ultimately sad.  I almost used the word "saddening", but I'd rather shoot myself.

Anyways, if you haven’t read his latest and last piece in Vanity Fair, I recommend that you do.  If you don’t…well, it’s not like you’re going to hell if you don’t.