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My five worst bar experiences

I'm pretty posi when it comes to Baltimore, usually promoting the good and ignoring the bad unless it be particularly grievous. Even when something isn't to my liking, I usually downplay its importance. For instance, I hate giant televisions in otherwise genteel bars, but some people like them. Everyone has their opinions, and when I write a review I go for descriptive, not opinionated.

But I've dealt with some crap while running around this town. My worst experiences don't involve being mugged. Luckily for me, they only involve annoying, incompetent idiots. Here are my five worst bar experiences in Baltimore, in no particular order:

1) J.A. Murphy's. As detailed here, our bartender ruined my friend's drink so absolutely it almost seemed deliberate. I could make a better Manhattan blindfolded. And I will. I'll even post my attempt on youtube, if anyone has a video recorder and wants to record me doing it.

2) The hunt for Taste International. What this club actually is and does is hard to determine, though one thing Taste International does for sure is criminally abuse the term "globe-trotting" on their Myspace page. In an effort to get a better look, I went there on assignment. Because it looked like they were only open on the weekends, I gave up a weekend night and made the trip and found...a dark building. A sign. An empty parking lot. It is now my belief that this is some kind of front.

3) The Depot. The human behind the bar here looked like a member of a band failing to live up to the low standards set by Fallout Boy. He couldn't even do unoriginal well. It was evident by his complete disregard for our presence at his bar that he'd spent more time on his hair that day than he had learning how to do his job. He could not be bothered to walk six seats down the bar and give me and my brother a drink until my brother actually yelled at him. One assumes that his friends were so engaging he simply couldn't pull himself away from their discussion of which eyeliner they all used. Hipsters make horrible bartenders. We would have left if I hadn't been there on assignment.

4) Luckies Tavern. I took two trips to Luckies, again on assignment. During the first I was forced to listen to The Amish Outlaws mangle various otherwise innocent songs. Bruce Springsteen never did anything to you. Not to mention they looked stupid. On the second trip I asked the owner why the under bar area was decorated with red x's. He didn't know. What did he do, lock his eight-year-old brother in the bar for two days with a stencil? A picture of Sinatra on the wall does not a Vegas theme make. Oh, I almost forgot: their happy hour chalk board sign outside completely lied about the prices we'd be paying in doors, unless for some reason beer brewed in Baltimore doesn't count as "domestic."

5) Rams Head Tavern. This has nothing to do with the venue. I love Rams Head Tavern. I also love John Legend, who I was seeing there when this happened. My friends and I, all three of us under 5' 7", saw an open spot in the standing-room area and slid into it. From behind us a big guy, probably 6' tall, tapped us on the shoulder and said "Did you ask me if you could stand there?"

"Uh, no, do we need to?"

"Yes."

"Ok, may we stand here?"

"No."

We tried to argue politely with the guy, all the while wondering how this was happening at a John Legend concert. Even his girlfriend tried to stop him. When your own date thinks you suck, you really suck. Eventually we just moved and luckily, Legend was good enough that we forgot about the personal-space addict for the time. But not forever. I still remember him and think he deserves to have the definition of "general admission" written on his forehead. With a branding iron.