The OK Corral?

A couple of First Fridays ago, we were merrily walking around, plastic airline cups of wine in hand, when we stopped short at a provocative sight: In the parking lot across from Zin was a beer-and-wine garden. Orange plastic netting marked off its turf, and a rather large number of people stood around high-topped tables with tablecloths. We stared, aghast.

“What’s up with the beer corral?” asked Kym in an aggrieved tone. “Why can’t they drink in all the other bars that are nearby?”

“Give it up for yuppie love,” said our friend Michael U.

So, when September’s First Friday rolled around, we forced Kym and Michael U. to be our Research Assistants to check out the beer garden. Our findings inspired us to write up the results in a pseudo Lincoln-Douglas debate format:

Resolved: The First Fridays beer garden is like a Bush twins convention speech: It thinks it’s cool, but it’s not.

Con: The beer garden is symbolic of the gentrification of the Crossroads. Artists move into the area because it’s cheap. Good times ensue, and a buzz develops, then gentrification occurs. That’s natural, but the yuppification of the area has reached ridiculous levels. For example, we once spotted an oxygen bar in the street (yes, that’s where you pay to breathe specially scented oxygen), which was heckleworthy at XO and even more so at First Fridays. We’ve also been to new galleries that sell way too much mall art — bronze statues of cowboys on bucking broncos, eagles perching majestically on tree branches. Now, we didn’t go to the Art Institute or anything, so we might not be the most qualified judges of art, but we’ve been to Oak Park Mall plenty of times, and we know mall art when we see it.

Pro: The Crossroads experience is bringing in people who don’t usually go downtown. Plus, a spate of galleries has appeared east of Grand, which has harnessed the grassroots vibe of the old First Fridays. Anyway, the beer garden is operated by local businesses, and with every drink purchase, we got a $10 gift card for Pierpont’s and the Hereford House. Also, it’s located in a great people-watching spot. We saw many interesting outfits, ranging from the patchouli-wearin’ hippies to the androgynous types with garage band hair to the “I’m going to Kona Grill after this” look. A guy on a Segway zoomed by (dork), as did some roller-derby chicks who yelled at the crowd from the bed of a pickup truck in which they were squished. Inside the corral, the people-watching was equally amusing; middle-aged guys with white socks and Birkenstocks mingled with tube tops and older women who were seriously orange with scary, overblushed cheekbones and frosted, spiky hair.

Con: We couldn’t take our beer outside the corral. “The drinks are festival expensive,” Kym added ($4 Boulevard, $4 wine, $3 Coors Light).

“The wine’s pretty crappy, too,” Michael said of his Shiraz.

Pro: Everyone we talked to in die biergarten was really friendly. We chatted with a couple of chickies in halter tops from Johnson County, and we also ran into Zach, 23, formerly of the Gadjits; his girlfriend Caite, 22; and their friend Brian, 26, who was nattily dressed in a dark-gray wool blazer and a striped shirt.

“So are you getting blitzed on some beer-corral beer?” we cheerily asked.

“At four bucks a hit? Fuck, no!” Brian said.

“But it’s booze, so we got our buzz on,” Zach added.

We chatted a bit about the art that we had seen. “I’ve been gone from KC for eight years, so it pleases me to no end that this isn’t a fledgling art community anymore. It’s comparable to major cities,” Brian said.

“Where else did you live?” we asked.

“Providence — I went to RISD [the Rhode Island School of Design] then to the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. Then I was in Champaign-Urbana for eight months, and that was painful.”

“Why?” we wondered.

“It’s a convergence of the assholes of the universe,” he replied. “You know, college towns typically have their own appeal — they’re satellites of other major cities — but Champaign-Urbana is about three hours from Chicago. It’s an oasis among cattle. It’s like frat boys were traveling and said, ‘Let’s stop here and open a bar, and it shall be called Brothers.'”

Conclusion: When bars like that open downtown, we’ll know we’re in trouble. But for now, the garden is still like the Bush twins, in that they’re probably fun to drink with, but we wouldn’t want to hang out with ’em on a regular basis.