Goodbye Yellow Brick Road

As anyone reading this will know, This weekend the bar that I’ve worked at since 2006 will be closing its doors.

I wish I could tell you when it opened, how much money it’s made, (or lost lol) and fill this page with all these amazing stories of humanatarian causes that it’s helped. How much support it’s had over the years.

I can’t do that.

See, I’ve worked at a place that more often than not, has been frowned upon by the very community in which it serves. Unfairly, I’ll add. But, I’ll admit to being biased on that.

I wish I could tell you that it was all good times, that it was nothing but love and hard work.

I can’t do that either.

But, what I will tell you, is what this place has meant to me. Because, surely I could fill in some paragraphs about what it’s meant to others, and what it should mean, or could’ve meant. Blah blah blah. All I can really do is speak for me. And that’s what this is.

I started working at The Ripcord the last week of April in 2006. Exactly one week week before I turned 24 years old. I’d worked the five years prior to that at another gay bar right around the corner, called Caesars Showbar. And after my friendship with the manager deteriorated, I gathered the courage one night to say, “Enough”. And I quit. A week later the owner of Ripcord offered me a job. But, he didn’t have room for me. So, he decided to start opening on the morning shift. From 9 am, to 1pm. And since I needed a job, I agreed to work every single morning.

I did that for 5 weeks. And it was miserable. I hated getting up early, I hated being nice in the morning. I hated that the bar had rats, and with not enough people in at 9 am, the rats were like Girls Gone Wild in that piece. But, I did it. And I was ….popular. Especially at first.

I was younger than everyone else that worked there. I was decently attractive, made a good drink, knew how to have a good time, and didn’t take shit from anyone. And after those five weeks, I eventually got afternoon shifts. And those turned into night shifts. And that turned into more popularity.

I was good at my job. But, I had a sharp ass tongue. So people either loved me or hated me. A sentiment that’s always kind of stuck with me, and always will.

Everyone saw my hardwork at the bar. Everyone saw me happy. Or whatever my version of that was. But I wasn’t happy.

I was in turmoil. I battled with my self worth, my self respect. I was lonely, and empty. I felt weak, and not good enough.

I had zero relationships with anyone in my family. I had few friends. (But made up for quantity with quality) and, I didn’t have alot to really give a shit about.

Somewhere, along the way, I grew into someone that wasn’t that way.

The place gave me firm ground to stand on. A support system of customers who often became my closest friends. People that I loved dearly. People that I couldn’t understand how I lived without.

Sure, it also gave me alot of enemies, alot of haters, and a whole different set of issues and complexes. But, it gave me a place in the world. As miniscule as that may seem now, at the time…it was everything. The place gave me an adventure to escape to. A home to belong to. A family to be a part of.

And I absolutely fell in love with that.

A few years into it, the space next door that used to be Hooterville (another bar I worked at while working at Caesars) got turned into The Warehouse. Then it changed identities to a drag bar, and I picked the name.

Blush.

Blush became my bar. It was only open on the weekends. And I was the only bartender. Sometimes someone filled in for me, but it was pretty much me. IT was mine. It was a bar that featured drag, and I became a very prominent figure. But it struggled. It always struggled.

It had to fight the owners alcoholism and general lack of a business sense, a bad manager,(a string of them, if I’m being honest, but, most of them were people I cared about..)

It had to fight the community. Always looking at it as a dirty bar, a sleazy bar. A shithole. An old men’s bar. A place that never got support of the younger crowd, and while it sucked that it didn’t, I understood why.

Eventually, Blush and Ripcord were purchased by some guys. And Legends Showclub and Mojos was born.

The owners were gonna fix it up, turn it into a bar to be proud of. And they did. They tried.

But, it didn’t matter. I didnt need a palce to be proud of. I was already proud of the place. I just needed other people to be proud of it too.

And so, I set out to make sure that everyone that worked at Legends Showclub cared for it as much as I did. Or close. If someone didn’t, I used whatever I could to get rid of them. A tactic I have used since. Because, it isn’t just a bar for me. It was my baby. It was my Home.

And so it became that to everyone. We fought the communities opinions of it, we fought our own manager and the staff of Mojos too, whom always seem to want to close it, or sabotage it. Not because it wasn’t a good place, but because it was the busy side. Because we were taking the people from their side, and piling them in ours. We became like family too. But a much stronger connection.

And while it always had it’s share of drama, I always made sure it survived it.

I attacked anyone who tried to come for it. And shut that shit down. I worked to make it’s reputation something that people hated to love. Sure, not all people…and as the years went by, the struggles mounted. My frustration and anger with the bad rap it always got, and the drama that encircles it got the better of me. And my attitude got worse and worse.

The years added up. My roles changed. My position turned into not just a bartender. But a show director, and a confidant. Someone the owner could trust, because he knew that I would *ALWAYS* do my best to make sure it was taken care of. To make sure that we were making the right moves, the right decisions, the right hires. I gained a position of respect from how long I’d been there, and the lengths in which I’d go to keep it going as best I could.

And I did. I did everything I could. Everything I had to.

And it wasn’t always easy. It meant breaking the hearts of people I cared about. It meant lashing out at friends, or non friends. It meant drinking when I didnt want to, just to make it more money. It meant taking on the community favorites. It meant alienating my coworkers becasue they weren’t right for it. They weren’t good for it.

It meant I was the bad guy. Maybe I didn’t need to be, but its kind of what happened. And I sacrificed the better parts of myself, unrealizingly, to make the decisions that needed to be made. Sometimes I had a personal agenda behind it too, but most of the time, everything I did, ws to help it. To make it bigger, better, more successful, more reputable. More…everything. More than it was. More than it should have been.

And noone did that like I did. Noone could have. And noone would have. It was never as important to others as it was to me. And maybe part of that reason is because I grasped onto it so tightly that noone else COULD.

My good hearted, caring and sarcastically playful personality turned bitchier and bitchier, and part of that was me, part of that was the place and the situations it always found tiself in. The poor decisions. The, everything.

In December, the owner that I’d built a pretty solid relationship with, went to jail. And since then, the dominoes have fallen one by one.

A few weeks ago, I learned that the bar will be closing. A slew of bad situations and unfortunate events meant not only was one side getting the boot, but the other side was sold from underneath our nose.

Our owner swears to me; to all of us, that he’s going to relocate it. And I hope that is true. I think that is true, but…I also know the history of the place. The bad luck it’s always carried, the bad juju that’s always followed it. The part of me that knows how much it’s always struggled wonders why anyone would want to invest money into a place, or an idea, or a family such as our little dysfunctional one. And, to most, it doesn’t make sense.

Why would anyone want the struggle of it all?

But, it does make sense to me. Because it means something to me. And I know it means something to most of the amazing team that works there now. A team I can’t take full credit for, but one I can take alot of credit for. A team I’ve been so honored to get to know, and enjoy, and love.

But, that’s easy for me to say. I mean, it isn’t my hundreds of thousands of dollars. It isn’t my families fortune at risk.

I see the potential in it, just like I always have. But, I can’t pretend to guess what potential someone else sees in it, and if they’d be willing to put their life on the line for it like I have. I can only hope.

I hope for a future for what this bar could have been. For what it can still be, just somewhere else.

I see what it means to some of the people that come there, some of the people that work there. What it means to me.

I see hope in that. I see love in that. I feel love, in…that.

But, my heart also breaks that after this weekend, the 14 years of memories I have there….are over.

But, what gives me solace is that, while it may be over it’s not gone.

For so long I’ve held onto the place. I’ve held onto the dreams I’ve had, to run it. The dreams I’ve had, to see it succeed. The dreams Iv’e had, to finally see a community embrace it, like it embraced me.

For so long I said, that place needs me. What will it do without me?

The year I left was honestly, the worst year the bar had had. But, im smart enough to know that that was much more than just me. Much, much more.

The bar can survive without me, cuz it has an amazing team of people that care about it like I did. Not like I do, because…theres just no way they can compare to the time and tears I’ve put into the place. But, like I did, while I was getting to this place.

For so long I said that place needs me. But I learned, that I needed it.

I needed it for myself. For my ego, for my lonliness, for my depression, for my alcoholism. For my personality. For my social awkwardness.

I needed it, for me.

And, as I told a friend….I don’t need it anymore.

It was literally my own little Yellow Brick Road. And I followed it, all the way to my own little Emerald city. And my own little wizard that bestowed upon me the gifts that I so desperately needed.

A brain. To teach me that isn’t about being the smartest, but using the intellect and street smarts that you posses, combined… to make the wisest, most logical and intelligent decisions in whatever scenario you find yourself in.

Courage. To embolden me to not only speak up for myself, but others too. To stand up for what’s right, even when it’s not popular. And to be the person that people can come to, to get what needs to be done, done. No matter how difficult or unpopular it might be.

A heart. To give me the ability to love myself, and to love others. To love a place and a group of people that would probably not even speak to me,if it weren’t for the place. And to not be afraid of or ashamed to express those feelings. Not to friends, not to my partner, and not to myself.

A home. A home to remember. To cherish. To treasure. To literally, go back to at any time. Whether in a new location, or just in my memories.

It has literally changed me. It’s made me a better person, a stronger person. A smarter person.

A fucking kinder person.

And I’m so eternally grateful for all the time Ive spent there. All the friends I’ve made. All the enemies too! (lol) All the moments I’ve shared. All the burdens I’ve buried.

It has sculpted my life. It has made me more than I was before. And I certainly wasn’t expecting that when I first started.

I say goodbye this weekend with love in my heart, hope for the future, and contentment. Contentment that I did everything I could.

And I’d do it again, and again, and again.

Whether it was called Hooterville, or Ripcord. The Warehouse or Blush. Mojos or Legends….it has left me a better person for reasons that even I cant exactly understand. And my heart is so full of love, respect, and fond memories in those buildings… that can never be taken away, erased or replaced.

And if it made anyone else feel remotely close to any of that….I’m so honored to have played a role in it for them.
And, if I played a role in a negative feeling that you have or had about it, I’m honored to have been the villain that you needed to be angry with too.

I hope that my legacy in the community doesn’t end here. I hope that I can continue to show a different side of me. A better side of me. The real..side of me.

The side that isn’t wrapped up in the drama and the competitiveness. The hate, and the divisiveness. The shade and the tea.

(but I also wont fail to acknowledge that some of that IS me.)

The side that the bar helped nurture, but that I chose to withhold because I just didn’t know how to be anything else.

I, along with a slew of very important people to me, will say goodbye this weekend. We say goodbye, not truly knowing if its for now, for good, or just for this part of things.

But we will say goodbye the best way we know how.

By being. Fucking. Legendary.