Kontextmaschine

2nd October 2017

Post with 16 notes

Now that I’m thinking of cocktail bars, I wonder if their decline tracks with the rise of the “singles bar”, going from a model where the house paid employees to provide access to young women with the patrons supplying their own

(something something neoliberalism)

the “singles bar” (or “fern bar”, after the low-maintenance plants used to brighten up the facilities), where unattached professional-class patrons came to meet same as potential mates, was a new thing in the ‘60s, the pioneer was, wait for this… T.G.I. Friday’s, in Manhattan

(this adds depth to Office Space’s “flair” bit – by then you’ve cycled back to young women employees performing availability and emotional labor for executives and wearing ridiculous outfits, but now they aren’t even sexy)

A lot of stuff in the 70s and 80s was arranged to pair up yuppies (for varying durations) - singles bars, computer and taped-cassette dating services, I mentioned skiing resorts and “snow bunnies” the other day, there was that in spa and other sport/health variants

Eventually the answer the yuppies settled on in this role was “cocaine”, but hey

OH, there’s a good one people forget, and it’s the all-inclusive resorts in the Caribbean - Club Med, Sandals, etc. Their growth in the 70s represented postcolonial attempts to shift to a tourist service economy, but that’s boring, not dirty!

The dirty part is they used to be a lot more spring-breaky, they’d organize you into mixed-sex groups and have sexy counselors lead you through fun activities to get you loosened up and mingling. And by activities we’re talking like, they’d fill you up with margaritas until you were dizzy and then the guys would have to hold the girls up while they squatted and leaned back for the perfect angle to compete on who could project the longest stream of piss out onto the sand