WORLD OF AWESOME experiment in progress! Travelogue video embedded! Multimedia Experience!
(I shot this on my phone. Please forgive the quality.)
SHADES OF GREEN is a bar that Joe and I drank at frequently and independently of each other, for years, before we actually met. It's proximity to both New York University and the School of Visual Arts made it easy to get to, and the total lack of pretense or affectation made it easy to deal with. A goodly chunk of my life is tied up in this place; birthdays, graduation parties, and at least one bachelorette party where I attended in drag.
This is the first place where I was such a regular that I would help out by busing tables and taking orders, if it got overwhelmingly busy. Friends of mine flew to Ireland to go to the wedding of one of the waitresses. My girlfriend and I had Thanksgiving dinner there, with the staff and a few other regulars. It was a nice home-away-from-home (pardon the cliche) for a bunch on 19 year olds just-arrived in New York City. In recent years, I have been there much less, going months at a time (years?) without crossing the threshold. It's still a good spot to meet with friends for a marathon SETTLERS OF CATAN game night, and I've spent more than one holiday at the door checking IDs, when I needed a little extra cash and they were desperate for the world's worst doorman.
But ultimately, this isn't about a particular bar being awesome. I've certainly had (after fifteen years hanging out there) some dud nights at the bar in question, and it has had stretches of being entirely overrun with Greeks (the college variety, not the nationality/ethnicity). This entry isn't about one bar. It's about that First Bar, where you are part of a community of regulars. Since then I have been a regular at several bars, as has Joe. Places where you will always see someone you know, aside from the staff. Places where you will help the bartender close to go get another drink with them after hours. Not the center of your social life, but certainly heavily in the orbit. Those places are great, and the First one always stands out.
Like the first serious girlfriend or boyfriend; you never forget them and you always still have a bit of a crush. It's a hormonal thing, apparently. In your late teens and early twenties your body is pumping the mandate "DO SEX" into every cel, trying to make the most of it while you are still in your sexual peak. Evolution is giving you a need to spread your DNA while it is still potent, and chemicals are in your brain that are getting you over that hump from "growing" into "dying". Life at this time is vibrant and colorful, like Super Mario after he grabs the Star.
Everything you do during this stretch is pretty awesome. Thanks to our biology, we go through a post-puberty Rumspringa that turns even something so mundane as going to a bar too often into a memorable escapade that you will someday romanticize, going so far as making a web video and writing rambling blog entries about it.
Be that as it may, your first regular bar is always awesome.
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