This week, Xi Jinping visited the White House while calls for an international agreement on AI grew louder, Trump escalated his war on the press, and a resolution to the Iran War remained elusive. But all people want to talk about is a meltdown at a lesbian bar in New England’s Birkenstock Belt. As described by Blocked & Reported and The Boston Globe, when a bar that billed itself as a place for “dykes, transsexuals, gender freaks, workers, and their friends” announced that they would be relaxing their mandatory masking policy for one night a week, all rainbow hell broke loose. The details need to be read to be believed, but here’s one line about the three bar-owners that conveys the general vibe.
“…only one of the original founders, Jackie Matellian, is still involved. The two others stepped back from the daily operation months before, Matellian says, citing various pressures and health issues. One had enrolled in clown school.”
Yep: clown school. Not even clown college — this might be some sort of clown GED program. And with that level of color, it’s no surprise that this story seems to be single-handedly reviving print journalism. From Semafor’s Max Tani:
On one hand, I think it’s absurd that this is a story — it’s just some crazy people running a small business badly. On the other hand: It’s all I want to talk about. Surely the first reason that this story gained traction is that it’s fucking hilarious — it’s like a Portlandia sketch walked through the TV and became real. But I think it’s worth thinking for a second about why this story stimulates so many parts of so many of our brains. And, because I’m insufferable, I’ll also relate that conjecture to the current state of Democratic Party politics.
