College Candy

There’s not too much about this bar that is different from any other midtown hangout. The lights are dimmed, the music is eclipsed by the steady drone of polite chatter, there is a distinct smell of polo sport and a single yawn dances contageously around the room. In any other bar, I wouldn’t have even stayed for a first drink…except that in the middle of this southern-style dive there is a mechanical bull.

Yes, a bull… as in, the land-faring version of a shark… so unpredictable and deadly that has generated sensational cinematic classics. When is Speilberg gonna make a “Western” version of “Jaws”? The time is now.

The place? Johnny Utahs.

It appears that until this moment, only a few guys had dared to take on this mechanical snorting monster. Self-induced humiliation can certainly be appreciated, but the crowd starts losing interest after realizing the predictability of how this battle of man versus beast will end.

Until… UNTIL!… the crowd parts. Laughter preceeds her entrace into the ring as a girl in a short skirt giggles sloppily toward the bull. As she makes an attempt to mount this robot-beast, something remarkable happens to the crowd.

It’s as if every y-chromosome in the room is switched into zombie-mode — in a sea of synchrony, the male population reaches to his back pocket for his phone. And just as she boosts herself atop the bull, the camera phones start rolling. So do my eyes. Where are this girl’s friends? Alas, the bull operator has no heart either and flips her wildly around for just long enough to make a YouTube video. Moments later, she hits the floor… neck first (or so it seems).

I don’t know what insurance policy this place has, but I am genuinely concerned. When it comes to bar violence, it may seem amusing to people beat themselves to a pulp (via mechanical bull), that is, until it’s you who has had one too many PBRs.

Sure drinking is fun. Bull riding isn’t… ever, really. And this bar does not seem to attract the most good-looking crowd (but then again, this is midtown). However, if “Jackass” is a show you aspire to one day be a part of, then this is the place for you. For the rest of us, I’m happy partaking beerlarious behavior without worrying I might be BLEEDING FROM THE HEAD!