El Zirco

---

Has anybody ever composed a list of the dumbest themed bars in the world? That would surely put Pachuca, Hidalgo on the map. Last night we went to Zirco, a circus themed bar. I wonder who thought that would be a good idea. But the circus bar that we went to was not the one I knew about, there is another fucking circus bar in Pachuca. In a city that has 300,000 people there are two circus themed bars. Pachuca has the most circus themed bars per capita of any city in the world (consult wikipedia.)

When I got there our friends were trying to get in to the bar. Somebody asked me to "work my magic." As it was a circus themed bar, I felt that phrase was appropriate. So I just told the bouncer we had reservation.

I am cool as fuck, so he let us in instantly. I guess it could have also been that I was with a troupe of fourteen white people, who in the minds of the management would spend lots of dinero.

What I liked about the other bar was that it was carpeted, but you could still feel the dirt underneath. This bar was paved. The inside of Zirco is gigantic. Zirco makes their employees dress up. There are acrobats, clowns, and popcorn vendors. The popcorn vendors were dressed accurately. Spiderman (Espiderman in Spanish) was in the house. So was a third of the class I teach. It's really disconcerting that there are no girls over twenty in Pachuca, and that it is feasible for a hot chick to just be graduating from junior high school.

Using my finesse (I guess) I was able to get my compatriots a ringside table. We were supposed to buy two bottles but I convinced the clown waiter to let us buy only one. At bars in Mexico it is common to buy a bottle for the table. The establishment brings you ice and four sodas, and then charges two-fifty US for each additional soda. It ends up being cost effective to buy a forty-dollar bottle of rum between four people.

I proceeded to take advantage of the bottle. I danced around, went to the bathroom six times, and talked to a girl "I used to know." Around midnight they had fire jugglers and acrobats. Even though Zirco is the dumbest fucking idea for a bar, I had a lot of fun.

By four all of our friends had gone, and I was "tearing up the dancefloor" with my friend Ryan (we are contractors) and these indie-rockish friends of the girl I used to know. I was making headway in my pursuit to find slumber party participants, when that clown came back.

They always come back.

He told me my table hadn't paid the bill. I partially thought they had, and I partially thought that through brilliant locution I could hustle my way out of payment. So I told the clown that the bill was only one-hundred pesos (divide by eleven) as opposed to the seven-hundred he expected. I gave him two Nezahuacoyotls (one-hundred peso notes) and told him I was tipping him heavily. That wasn't cool for this bozo, so I asked to speak to his jefe. I didn't know if I could trust his manager, as he was not costumed. I ended up talking to the management for forty minutes, often shaking their hands and letting them know that I wasn't mad at them I was only trying to solve the problem. The problem was that I still owed five hundred pesos, and I couldn't convince the motherfuckers that I had paid it. Eventually they brought their English-speaking employee to explain to me that if I didn't pay the fifty dollars they would call the police. I didn't have the sixty dollars to pay off the police, so I figured I ought to pay the bar. I told them I'd never return. Which is definitely true for tonight, but as time passes I imagine the truthfulness of that statement will deteriorate.

The circus themed bar is a hustle, which cannot effectively be counter-hustled. Beyond exploiting my pocket book (it's a cute Kate Spade pocket book) they are running a brilliant scheme. A bar inside of a tent is smart-as-fuck because you don't have to pay for a building. You can move your bar to any parking lot in the city, with three days notice. The cleverness of putting your bar inside of a low-rent tent is to theme it. If it were just a regular bar in a tent, nobody would go, but if you bring acrobats and popcorn vendors people love it... kind of.

The moral of the story is: do you know where I can get a gently used circus tent?

---

Comments

[Jesse]

El Zirco is not the problem
The problem is not the Zirco, you wanted to make believe you paid. You thought you were free and clear because of your coolness, not so cool huh? Too bad so sad. You had to pay