culture

Dive bars have been a fascination of mine ever since I’ve been of drinking age. The kind of bars that are hard to find and so local to an area they are almost intimidating to enter. A conversation a few weeks back with a friend at a local bar got me thinking about going on a true dive bar tour around the Orlando area. The bar we were at was a local hipster enclave frequented by many in my inner circle. My friend began the conversation bemoaning how everyone always comes to this same bar, on the same nights, orders the same thing, and has the same small talk with the same people.

Dive bars have been a fascination of mine ever since I’ve been of drinking age. The kind of bars that are hard to find and so local to an area they are almost intimidating to enter. A conversation a few weeks back with a friend at a local bar got me thinking about going on a true dive bar tour around the Orlando area. The bar we were at was a local hipster enclave frequented by many in my inner circle. My friend began the conversation bemoaning how everyone always comes to this same bar, on the same nights, orders the same thing, and has the same small talk with the same people.

“On sex sites now, men advertise themselves as ‘drug-and-disease-free.’ They could start saying ‘D-and-D-free, and willing to prove it.’ ”

“On sex sites now, men advertise themselves as ‘drug-and-disease-free.’ They could start saying ‘D-and-D-free, and willing to prove it.’ ”

"We have people playing each other face to face in our bar, they're high fiving, they're congratulatory, they're respectful, they're having a good time. When you play online, you just want to scream sometimes. [The arcade] is just a better experience."

“To have a positive effect on the way our city is perceived by tourists would be a fantastic thing to be a part of,” he told me. “If I can get tourists to see the food truck scene and try the trucks I work with, their minds will be changed.” And some of that is already happening. Baratelli said a couple had told one of his Bazaar volunteers that they planned their Disney Vacation Club visits to coincide with the food truck events. “They get to do the Disney stuff, which is awesome, and they make time for this local event,” he said. “Both couldn’t be more different.

Today’s ideal social form is not the commune or the movement or even the individual creator as such; it’s the small business. Every artistic or moral aspiration — music, food, good works, what have you — is expressed in those terms. Call it Generation Sell. Bands are still bands, but now they’re little businesses, as well: self-produced, self-published, self-managed. When I hear from young people who want to get off the careerist treadmill and do something meaningful, they talk, most often, about opening a restaurant.