Get out of our dreams, and into our bar
Submitted by stephen clover on Fri, 2008-08-01 14:07.
El Horno on Courtenay Place might suck the big kumara as far as a bar experience might go...
... but... (more after the jump)...
... anywhere that quotes from relatively-obscure 19th century American humourist Ambrose Bierce on their street signage...
... can't be all bad. (Despite the unfortunate and bizarre misspelling of his name.) Can they?
In case you can't read it, it is an entry from his (in)famous satirical work The Devil's Dictionary:
Abstainer: a weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure.
Also: there's been some debate about whether or not El Horno is a gay bar, and/or perhaps a 'gay-friendly' bar:
1. It's long been an asinine little joke how "El Horno" looks like "El Homo" if you squint a bit
2. The rainbow component of their logo
3. El Horno is a famous gay bar in Barcelona^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^HSitges
Anyone know? I'm not sure what the difference is but I guess a self-proclaimed "gay-friendly" bar is not a bad thing.
However, I can't think of any jokes to make about the quality of their music without succumbing to awful, out-of-date stereotypes.
Their sign looks like someone threw up a rainbow.
As a self-respecting gay man, I would certainly never go there.
The bar is a stain on Courtenay Place and an embarassment.
Why does it matter if it's gay-friendly? I wouldn't have thought they were thinking about that, based on their music ...
Wellingtonista, can you please do a report on which bars have coat checks?
I hate going out in the cold and not being able to leave my coat in a safe place when I'm at the bar ...
Why does it matter if it's gay-friendly? I wouldn't have thought they were thinking about that, based on their music ...
That's true actually, all gay people do like the same music.
Why does it matter if it's gay-friendly?
You know how some people don't like gay people? Well, because of that, knowing whether a bar is gay friendly matters a lot to some gay people. If they feel safe and welcome in a bar, they'll be more likely to go there than risk getting abused by a drunken munter at some other place.
One of the longest-surviving gay venues on the Sitges scene, El Horno ("The Oven" in English) is a cosy and friendly taverna-style bar. ...
and if EL Horno IS a gay Bar-who cares?
Why, everybody does darling. Another new bar to cruise is.. well.. another new bar to cruise.
I actually quite like the new bar, and all the ~gay people that don't like the music can go elsewhere.
Makes sense, I guess.
I don't know whether you'd really have gay-friendly bars here. Wellington seems to small for anonymity - everyone behaves themselves as a consequence, unfortunately (.... well fortunately in some cases, it does cut down on theft and muggings ...)
Regarding music, I guess there's that stereotype of gay disco music from New York in the 70s and early 80s, from the time of Stonewall onwards (which was pretty much the opposite to what they play in El Horno)
It does sound weird that a culture would only be into one kind of music, but then you could say hip-hop comes from black America, so it's not so rare.
In both cases though, people from that culture wouldn't only be into that kind of music, and obviously it's a music that speaks about their experiences foremost.
Anyway, that was probably way too much of a tangent ...
... I wasn't meaning that gay-friendly bars shouldn't be inspired to; more that they might be limited by Wellington's small size which is both a blessing and curse ...
aspired to, oops!
Hi there Mr Clover and friends. Just for the record the "Little bar that could" aka "El Horno" is actually going off!! Picking it as one of the bars of summer. Gay bar or not gay bar it'a neither. It is just a place to party for anyone who loves to party.... All the breast and enjoy the bar.
Mr and Mrs El Horno
"All the breast"?!? That does indeed sound like a place to check out.
Post new comment