January 28th - Chris

I lived in High Point, NC for a little over 5 years. It was my first place after I graduate from college, and it was an interesting place to begin my adult life.  It's a city built around the furniture industry, which means that for much of the year, it's a ghost town (the furniture market really only takes place a couple of weeks out of the year).

Since I've moved, some cool shops and restaurants have opened up in an effort to make High Point more lively throughout the year.  One of those places is the Brown Truck Brewery on Main Street.  I stopped there on Saturday after I finished a work event, and got a chance to talk with Chris, the bartender.

Chris

Chris has worked at Brown Truck for about nine months.  The brewery itself has been open for eleven months, so he was an early adopter of the place.

Lars: What's your favorite beer that they have on tap here?

Chris: I gotta go with the tart apricot blonde (Brown Truck specializes in a wide variety of brews, but I've found their Belgian inspired offerings to be the best).

As we started talking, the bar got really quiet.  Aside from myself, there were two couples and a single guy there, and when I described my project to Chris, the others at the bar couldn't help over hearing it and chiming in.  The bar was initially silent when I got in, but it quickly turned into a lively conversation.

What's your favorite joke? 

Chris: Well, this one is kinda bad, but this old guy that came in told it to me the other day and I thought it was pretty funny.  It's a little long, but here it goes.

This guy guy walks into bar and asks the bartender for nine shots of Jack Daniels.  The bartender starts pouring them in a row, and says, "What are we celebrating?"

The guy says, "Nothing, I don't want to talk about it."

"Come on," the bartender says, "a man comes in here and orders nine shots of Jack Daniels, he's gotta be celebrating something.  What is it?"

Begrudgingly, the man says, "My first blowjob."

The bartender cheers.  "Hey, that's great! Tell ya what, I'll buy you a tenth shot."

"That's ok," the guy replies, "if the first nine won't get the taste out of my mouth, the tenth won't do it either."

The bar laughed a lot at this one, I told a similarly dirty one that got a lot more groans.  Know your audience...

What's the most significant thing that happened last year?

Chris: For me, it was quitting my job.  I was working as an insurance agent, and I did that for about five years or so.

Lars: Just wasn't for you?

Chris: Yeah, I was looking for a change.  I got really burned out from sales.  It felt like I was on a hamster wheel, just wasn't for me.

Chris has now created a brand called "NC Beer Pride."  He wants to turn it into something like "Salt Life," a lifestyle brand that promotes local breweries and local beers.  His five year plan is to open up his own beer shop or brewery.

Will the world be be better in 20 years?

Chris: I hope. It'll better for some that's for sure.

Couple to my left: No, it's not going to be better.  Well, let me say this, it'll be better for rich people.

Couple to my right: When you get rid of the middle class it hurts everyone, they are the people that drive the bus.

If you could bring back one musician, who would it be?

Chris: I gotta go with Jeff Buckley (I told him that was an excellent choice!)

I can't remember exactly who said it, but people around the bar all shouted out their answers to this one as well.  One person said Janis Joplin, another said he was a Jimi Hendrix man through and through.  A lady at the other end of the bar said Freddy Mercury, and that got the biggest murmur of agreement. Someone else said that they would go with Johnny Cash.

Chris: See, Johnny Cash had a full life.  That's why I went with Buckley.  One album, then out!

The conversation opened up at that point.

Guy to my left: I read somewhere recently that social media is actually rewiring our brains.  Like the part of the brain that used to be able to read maps, that's being shut down for some peopl.

Lady to my right; I heard that too, and it's a shame.  I used to love looking at maps.

Guy to my left: The government paid a lot of money to train me to use one (he was in the military) but now I just press a button and it gets me there.

This lead to a discussion about roads...

Guy to my right: It's interesting to see how roads came about.  I read a really cool book about how a lot of them were just game trails and that's what the roads were started from.

Guy to my left: And then you cruise down the highway and you see these old houses just right on the road.  You know that way back when, before the highway was even thought of, that was a great spot for a house.  Now if you live there you have to look at interstate all day.

Chris and the people in the bar talked about military academies and their kids and their random lives. How certain children take after certain parents.  How the world has been changing, and not necessarily in great ways, but how there's still hope it can be better.

A group of strangers just talking and interacting, instead of staring up a TV or staring down into their beer glasses.  I was happy to have been a part of that, if even for a little bit, and I was glad to have started that conversation going.  That's what this project was about, and as we come into the home stretch, I look forward to see what other conversations are out there.