Bar gods. A manifesto.

What a shitty time to be alive.

Cancer might soon be cured but tiny bats can start global pandemics. 

Knowledge flows freely but Nazis are making a comeback.

A Tesla’s orbiting space but Kobe’s helicopter fell from the sky anyway.

We may actually be in hell. Just ask the parents of young batsh*t kids right now. Or hot to trot college freshmen who were promised a dizzying year of keg stands, sports ball, and pregnancy scares.

And now The Sheep want us to stay away from bars. The only places to thrive in this fiery douche canoe of a year. 

You’ve got to be shit*ing me. Bars are sacred. Like Midnight Mass or Taco Tuesday. Bruce Spingsteen’s torso, glistening in fever-y American sweat.

Bars. They’re where we laugh. Dance. Gossip. Flirt. Yell. Where we make watery eyes at other Americans and feel alive. Where we loosen up after tortured months under the ‘rona’s brutal reign. 

Yet The Sheep expect us to hibernate for god knows how long, like bears with nothing better to do than count more sheep. You know what I wanna do? Earn a deep slumber with several Irish Car Bombs and a one-night stand that sizzles my brain for as long as it takes to binge every season of Cheers. 

But here we are. Christ. What do we do?

I’ll tell you. Train like a motherfu*ker. 

Before long, our bars will be safe again and we need to be ready. Not for business-as-usual drinking and Karen-a*s foolishness. Hell nah. It’s time to become the legends we fantasize about in Magic Mike and Hustlers. Good Will Hunting and Cocktail. Coyote Ugly. Goodfellas. Pulp Fiction. Star Wars: A New Fuc*in’ Hope.

Wanna hit the floor like a stripper when the pandemic’s over? Start grinding on a pole at home now. It’s safer, less embarrassing, and fewer grannies will die from COVID. Wanna rap like ‘Pac when we’re cleared for karaoke? Step up to the mirror while your mom’s outside making eyes at the pool boy. 

Card tricks, bull-riding, ax-throwing. Line-dancin’, song-singin’, guitar-slingin’. Karate. Free throws. One-liners. Record-spinnin’, smooth-talkin’, ball-bustin’ icons of the motherfuc*in’ night. 

Who do you want to be? Find your essence in quarantine.         

Hell, maybe you wanna be mysterious when bars are safe again, brooding like Casablanca Rick. Or maybe it’s creepy as hell, devil-haired Jack Nicholson, sippin’ bourbon, talking to ghosts and whistling haunted ballroom jazz as if The Great Gatsby were as current as a damn Tik Tok meme. You do you. 

But you ain’t gonna get there overnight. It takes home-work. We’re talkin’ white-knucklin’, teeth-grittn’, killing Osama Bin Laden-level tenacity. The Karate Kid painting fences for months until Zen kicked in and he manifested the crane kick heard ‘round Reseda.

The Beatles played more than 1200 gigs before getting famous. Do you think Will Hunting’s grasp on the capital-forming effects of apples arrived overnight on the Hangover Express? Get your damn head right. You gotta stay home to get high. For a while anyway.      

Here’s a test. If you look in the mirror and see anyone less incredible than the Michael Jordan of your fantasy bar self, slap yourself in the face, call 1-800-Be-Less-Pathetic, chug three raw eggs, run four laps around the block, listen to metalcore, call your mom, write your Peepaw, wash your car, wash your neighbors’ car, read poetry, grow plants, meditate, call your congressman, fight systemic racism, subscribe to newspapers, grow hair like Reba, wear hats like Garth, make records like Taylor, drink water, take naps, worry less, hope more, look at the trees, feel the breeze, smile, sing, dance, cry, play, paint, rest, vote, and train train train train train train train. Train like Prince is watching you from heaven. Because he is. And Prince has zero patience for Natty Light-smellin’ sloths who waste a good pandemic on staying exactly the f*cking same.

Nah. Bar gods aren’t built in bars. Bar gods are built in quarantine.

Stay home and get ready. Let’s send COVID’s drunk a*s home.