1. A debate on any subject which takes place in a bar or tavern and is primarily caused by just the right amount of booze.
"We got into a bargument over who is more doable: Nicole Ritchie or Skeletor."
2. An argument at a bar over a question with no right or wrong answer. Often involves sports, television, sex and work realated issues.
"We had a bargument last night for two hours over whether a lion could beat a bear in a fight."
Have you ever been in a situation at a bar where you find yourself in a heated debate over nonsense? Well these debates are dubiously referred to as barguments, and rightfully so.
Over the years, I have experienced and been a part of countless barguments and it wasn't until this past weekend that I heard the term 'bargument.' What a great name!
I began to immediately think of some of the better barguments I have been a part of. Several came to mind, but then it hit me. The king of the bargument was Cliff Clavin from Cheers. His character revolved around the bargument. He was the guy who always had some pointless fact to point out to assist him in proving his point. Generally about nothing relevant, here is a short list of some Cliff Clavin quotes.
- It's a little known fact that cows were domesticated in Mesopotamia and were also used in China as guard animals for the forbidden city.
- It's a little known fact that smartest animal is a pig. Scientists say if pigs had thumbs and a language, they could be trained to do simple manual labor. They give you 20-30 years of loyal service and then at their retirement dinner you can eat them.
- I wonder if you know that the harp is a predecessor of the modern day guitar. Early minstrels were much larger people. In fact, they had hands the size of small dogs.
- Everyone is the Swiss Army owns a Swiss Army Knife. That's why no one messes with Switzerland.
- If you were to go back in history and take every president, you'll find that the numerical value of each letter in their name was equally divisible into the year in which they were elected. By my calculations, our next president has to be named Yellnick McWawa.
- If memory serves, the umbilical chord is 90% postassium.
- They did a study between postal workers and chimpanzees. They proved chimps were 32% slower. Of course, they were better with public relations.
- There's no rule against postal workers not dating women. It just works out that way.
- It's a little known fact that the tan became popular in what is known as the Bronze Age.
The reason the bargument was brought to light because my girlfriend and I were lucky enough to blindly walk into one on Saturday night... sober.
It was about 1am in the morning and after a birthday outing for a mutual friend involving dessert at the Cheese Cake Factory followed by some bowling, we headed to Cozumel on Elmwood in downtown Buffalo.
We met up with some coworkers of her from the BAC. They hangout there often as a fellow personal trainer bartends there. So we showed up and met all the people on the patio, and stumbled face first into a heated bargument over the best management practices.
The complaint was the individual in charge was too much of stickler. That they were not loose enough, and because of that made everyone on edge. Which made people concentrate too much on not making a mistake, as opposed to doing their job well.
In contrast they all felt that it is a better management practice to be friendly with everyone and be lenient. Because having fun is more important than being constantly productive. And that in this environment people work better. (This concept is questionable at best)
Now, I feel I may have over simplified and tried to make their arguments clear. Most likely because that is how I deciphered them through loud and sometimes incoherent proclamations that I heard. Remember, I was sober when I showed up, the rest of them were not.
Really what it boiled down to is each person in the circle arguing with each other, but essentially reiterating what the other person said to them. That is the beauty of the bargument, you don't have to actually listen to what the other person is saying, you just have to wait until there is a break in their sentence so that you can start talking again. Either that or just talk louder than the other people in the bargument. This allows for many of the participants in the bargument to be arguing the same point, but not even know it because they are not listening to the other person.
Alcohol is a beautiful thing.
So, as the night progressed I eventually managed to catch up with the group of people I was with. However by this time the heated bargument was long over. Which is unfortunate.
But I was fortunate enough though to see Michael Jackson... kinda.
Apparently there is a dishwasher at Cozumel who thinks he is the second coming of Michael Jackson, literally, complete with jerry curls and all. At the end of the night, he comes out into the main bar room and patiently waits for MJ to be played on the jukebox. Ofcourse people are aware of this, so the promptly play some of Michael Jackson's greatest hits.
Now picture this, you are sitting in a bar at 3am, feeling pretty good, casually talking with people when the song 'Thriller' comes on. Normally, thriller gets a good chuckle as everyone knows the song, and it gets played often for kicks, especially late at knight when people have a good buzz on. But in this particular occassion, Thriller comes on and suddenly some dude in jerry curls starts moonwalking across the floor, flipping his legs up in the air, spinning around in circles and grabbing his crotch ala Michael Jackson. Believe me, it is a surreal experience.
Below are a few pictures I took with my camera phone. The quality is not good, and the guy was moving around too much to get any good ones. But you can get the general idea from them.
ps. There was an old drunk guy that showed up at 3:30am, blabbering nonsense to the bartenders... I'm pretty he was George Carlins twin. I don't have a picture of him though.
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