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Everything you always wanted to know...but couldn't shut up long enough to listen to the answer.

Via: Pharmacy Technician

(Long overdue) Follow-up: Ben Pamies

 

(photo stolen appropriated from Pablo Olea's Facebook photos of the Jeremy Scott F/W 2010 presentation. Thanks, Pablo!)

You might recall I am obsessed with invariably mention a particular bartender whenever I post about Gym Bar.  Last time I posted about him, an evil dream-dasher helpful friend identified the runway and print model as Ben Pamies, who - the friend says - is also a nice guy, a husband to a beautiful (I'm assuming?) wife and a father!

Aside from an utterly illogical disappointment I experienced upon learning these facts, there's a part of me (get your minds out of the gutter!) that wants to make his presence there behind the bar in the City's only gay sports watering-hole something bordering on heroic, if not merely admirable...the idea being it must be a pretty cool, well-adjusted and secure straight guy who'd willingly "endure" the lustful attention of a bar-full of drunken (or soon-to-be) gay men...particularly a guy with model good looks who's still working the runways and getting print campaigns. 

I think the truth is it probably is the rare straight guy who's comfortable enough in his own sexuality to work at a gay bar...yet at the same time I think the underlying reasoning (that I'm assuming is) behind a straight guy's discomfort is fairly nonsensical.  Unwanted romantic or sexual advances from any sex are probably a fairly pervasive part of nearly any person's - male or female - life (I would think?). They're certainly an everyday thing for the vast majority of female bartenders working behind the bars of straight establishments, right? So why do straight men get a pass - based on their fear of being hit on - when it comes to gay bars? What are they facing in that particular job that's really so terrible? Attention? Flirtation? Unwanted sexual advances? Giant tips from lovelorn patrons? Come on! I'm not saying anyone should have to experience these various harassments, but I think most of us would agree that they're pretty much an inescapable aspect of working in a bar...or most anywhere, for that matter.

No. I don't think any of these is terrible enough to warrant such timidity on the part of many straight boys faced with working in a gay bar. Instead, I'd wager it really has a lot to do with fear of (gay) guilt by association, something that - to my mind - underlines the vastly more fragile state of masculinity - vis-a-vis it's need for protection and maintenance - as compared to that of femininity. In other words, many (most?) men are much more concerned with being perceived as masculine and work much harder at it than many women have to work at, or are concerned with, being perceived as feminine...perhaps because the consequences of letting your masculinity "slip" are greater?

"Wait, Duane. I thought this was a post about your obsession with a hot bartender!?" It is...which may or may not undermine my entire argument above. Whether it does or doesn't, I can speak to one thing with assurance, and that is to vouch for Mr. Pamies - from personal experience - by noting that he is professional and courteous in fulfilling his bartending duties...and for this, if for no other reason, he is deserving of admiration. He's also - impossibly - even more appealing in person.

I will also say that my intuition tells me the money is good, or is, at least, a major factor in his presence there behind the bar which - further - reminds me of the great truth of modeling...that is, no matter how highly we as a society value beauty, we don't pay its possessors' (or very few of them at least) very well at all.

Trend/Trainspotting

Tai called this one!! For your nights out at Phoenix this Fall? (I like their choice of Thunder Thighs to model them.) 

Seen at Commonwealth Utilities F/W '10 show.

 

Gym Bar

• Valentine's Day coverage of the NBA All-Stars Game shared TV time with Olympic figure skating when I walked in last night on my "Tour de Chelsea". I thought it the perfect juxtaposition for a gay sports bar.

  
 

Gym Bar

• The basement room at Gym Bar is (still?) called Locker Room, and - when it's open - the usual bartender is one of the top contender's in my "Most Attractive Bartenders of 2009" line-up. I haven't seen him yet in 2010, but - if he's still there - he's in the 2010 edition, too...no doubt. He's a model of Middle Eastern(?) descent, who's appeared in numerous print ads. Most that I recall were for underwear (surprise!) but he's not just an Undergear model, if that's what you were thinking. He gives face AND body, DOWN!

Gym Bar

• 167 Eight Avenue, between Eighteenth and Nineteenth Streets    Map   Website