Assignment One: Braving the Bar Alone

As a mission to explore the highly sought-after profession as a travel writer, I began taking Matador U’s 12-week course online. My first assignment was to use my hometown as a setting in a narrative. The idea is that your familiarity with a place allows you to present local knowledge using specific details as supposed to an outsider who is unable to convey these details simply drawing from observations. Ricky Gervais did an interview for Co.Create which supported a similar lesson in storytelling to write what you know. Describing the familiar, even the details that may seem mundane can breathe life to your story or in the case of travel writing - to the place. 


THE ASSIGNMENT: BRAVING THE BAR ALONE 


I STAND ALONE outside of the Horseshoe Tavern on a warm Tuesday night. I’m a wallflower checking for texts as I covertly eavesdrop into the conversations set among the bar's street side patio. Laid-back, music snobs chat intimately together, chain smoking and unfazed by the busy Queen St. West backdrop.

With no texts received, I delay my entrance. There’s something about braving a Toronto bar alone that rattles my nerves.

I’ve grown up in this big city and my best nights were spent with friends stepping out into the cool night air after hours of dancing elbow to elbow in some sweat-infused night club on Richmond St.  There were our drunken quests for a hot dog, aka Street Meat, before awaiting the Vomit Comet, the night bus that operates along Bloor St., Its rocking and rolling challenging the intoxicated not to vomit. Regular nights at the  Madison Avenue Pub better known as the Maddy, a Victorian house gone college bar with six floors, the patio overlooking a parking lot, or the first floor, where we’d arrive early to claim the front row booth and sing-along to the Piano Man hammering out our repeated Beatles requests. 

St. Patty's Day at the Maddy

These days we often end up in Koreatown, butchering karaoke in a not-so soundproof private room under the influence of soju, or in the Ossington strip also known as hipster hell to listen to live folk at Dakota Tavern.

Rockin' it out at Korean Karaoke.

I hear the muffled sound of pop rock coming from inside the bar as Groenland, an indie band from Montreal begins their set. At the door is a heavily bearded dude in his early twenties slouched forward on a stool, chatting with the cute girl standing next to him. Before I enter I pause, allowing him the opportunity to ask for my I.D or at least say hello. Instead he glances over for a mere second and mumbles “Go ahead”.

The crowd hangs away from the stage in the dimly lit backroom, groups of friends huddled around tables, casually bobbing their heads. I stand alone on the sidelines. I’m approached by a female server and I order a pint of Tankhouse, a dark local brew by Mill St., made blocks away in the Distillery District. It costs $6.75 and like a jackass I forget to tip. Soon I’m absorbed by the five musicians jammed together on the cozy stage, the rest of my surroundings are quickly forgotten. I feel my phone vibrate, “I’m the Asian hanging in the back,” Wayne texts me. He’s a fellow Toronto native who responded when I posted the event on Couchsurfers. I spot him and we exchange a hug, a rare gesture for two Torontonian strangers. Our attempt to make conversation is overpowered by the music and I suggest we head closer to the stage where some livelier newcomers have filled the void. As we join them, I’m relieved to have company. No one in this classic Toronto scene is out braving the bar alone.

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Hey Readers, I'd love to see your feedback to help me master this course! What's your sense of Toronto after reading this piece? Would you brave a bar here alone?