On being unfashionable

Everyone is trying to get to the bar.
The name of the bar, the bar is called Heaven.
The band in Heaven plays my favourite song,
They play it once again, they play it all night long.
Talking Heads, "Heaven"

I went out for a beer after work with my former colleague Ageing Yuppie yesterday evening, and had a crash-course reacquaintance with Stuttgart nightlife. It's been many years since I last went to a truly fashionable In-Crowd bar (what the Germans would call Schicki-Micki), and the visit reminded me of why I stopped going to such places.

It's clear that opinions vary, but I think that an evening with friends should be about the friends: I expect that we will sit together and talk to each other about things that are of interest and/or importance to us. This has several enabling preconditions: comfortable chairs to encourage lingering, and tables large enough that there is room for all; there should be adequate ventilation (all Germans smoke, a non-smoking section would be meaningless here); the comestibles should be tasty and reasonably priced. It should be quiet enough that one can converse without shouting: what entertainment there is should know its place, and the service should be prompt and discreet. Lastly, of course, the friends should also expect this and be willing to join in. Ay, there's the rub.

The bar last night, which shall be nameless, was the opposite of all those criteria. It had been one of my favourites back in the days when I too tried to follow the fashionable crowd (mea culpa), and hasn't changed at all. It's still crowded, noisy and poorly ventilated; the chairs are still few and uncomfortable; the tiny tables are still so close to the standing area that anything you put on them is immediately brushed to the floor; the beer (admittedly quite tasty) is still expensive. It was so loud that I couldn't make myself heard, but that didn't matter since there was no conversation as such anyway. Women and men came and went, and spoke not of Michelangelo but of cellphone ringtones, reality tv and other bars just like this one.

Bar owners must despair of fashion. It's like a rollercoaster ride at a walking pace: boring as hell but it still turns your stomach. You open a nice little bar in a pleasant neighbourhood, hoping to do a nice little business, and through no fault of your own it becomes fashionable. For a time, all is golden: you have a full house of lovely people who pretend to be your friends, and can charge them what you like. Then suddenly something changes, and your bar is no longer fashionable. Don't ask why, there is no reason other than that it was fashionable. The place is now empty every evening, the lovely people are elsewhere, and you have to pray that your neighbours will keep you in business. If you are lucky, and if your pockets are deep enough, the bar will become fashionable again, the lovely people who ignored you will return and take up being your friend as though they'd never been away. The bar last night has ridden out at least two such cycles; I like the owner and wish her well for the next cycle which is surely coming.

At ten p.m. I excused myself and went home to shower off the cigarette smoke, thinking as I did so of Matthew 10:14. I'm too old for fashion now, thank God, and truth be told it doesn't want me either.

Heaven is a place where nothing ever happens.