Yesterday after work I was going to swing by a friends house and drop off a little portable word processor that she wanted to play with. She gets out of work an hour later than I do
and since my house is on the opposite side of town I decided to just blow off an hour locally and grab a beer somewhere. I really do not know much about bars in the Lake Mary area
and I did not feel like driving far
so puttered around the general area looking for one.
At first I was going to stop into 'chilli's
however once I saw the mob of cars in the parking lot I decided I did not want to squeeze in between a bunch of chattering laughing yuppies. That's when I spied out a little hole in the wall named 'The Thirsty Whale Too.'
Now
I actually know where the thirsty whale 'one' is. A friend of mine used to live in an apartment complex out in Altamonte
and in a dank little building out there squatted 'The Thirsty Whale'. I used to say 'Hey
lets hit the thirsty whale!' and I would be presented with a twisted expression as if I had just suggested we drop our pants and take turns shitting on road kill.
So into the whale too I went. It was a very small place
very dim and had a couple of pool tables squished in the corner. A very obviously mother and daughter team run the place. I think they were Indian.. or something. Anyway they had amber bock on tap
which is fairly decent
so I has a frosty mug of it and read my book. It was nice and quiet in there
except when a skeleton interrupted me once. Well
he was not really a skeleton but he was fairly old and was mostly skin and bones and he wore a pair of horn-rimmed glasses that looked like it had more meat on it's frame than he did. He asked me if I wanted to shoot some pool. I politely declined. He then just stood there for a moment with no expression on his face
then turned and walked to the far end of the bar where he put on what looked like a fifty gallon cowboy hat and nursed his beer.
Once it started to get too dark to read by the ambient light that was filtering in the front window
I paid my bill and took off. I headed down I-4 and dropped in on Matt and Shallan.
I told Matt I had been to the thirsty whale. "That's a gay bar." He said.
I said "What
no way
its just a little bar."
Matt then asked
Was anyone in there?
I said
Some old man asked me if I wanted to shoot pool.
Matt then raised his eyebrows and pointed at me as if that was all the evidence he needed.
Was it a gay bar? I have no clue. How am I supposed to know? Gay bar's need to have a big 10
000 watt neon triangle hanging in the front window that blinks on and off to ward off the innocent straight beer drinker who is wandering in unfamiliar territory looking for a quick beer. I can just see a reporter jumping in the bar and snapping a picture
and on next weeks edition of 'The Orlando Weekly' you will see full page image of me slurping a beer with the captions 'LOCAL GAYS LOVE NEW HOTSPOT!'. Yeah
that is all I need.
I watched some Ghost hunters' last night
but they were all reruns. They did have the one on the battleship
which I thought was cool
even if you could explain the noises they heard by the fact they were on a moving boat. The new ones are coming out on the 29th of this month
and I do no plan on missing it.
2026 Update
Twenty years back, I get to watch Ed wander into the Thirsty Whale Too, drink an amber bock, then read a book until dark.
Ah, 2006. Ed's bar-finding strategy was driving in circles and squinting at parking lots, because there was no pocket oracle to tell him whether a Thirsty Whale was a gay bar, a dive, or a trap. Now the same phone that could have answered Matt's question in seconds would also geo-tag his visit, rate his beer, and probably ask him to tip before he'd even sat down. The Thirsty Whale Too survives in memory as a dim room with pool tables; these days it would have a website, a 'vibe' page, and a line about 'curated rail pours.' Also, reading an actual paper book in a bar by ambient window light is basically a period piece. You'd pull out a phone, scroll, maybe pretend to be doing something important. And Ghost Hunters reruns on an actual TV schedule? I had to check what year this was. But the real change: a man could be our age and still be baffled by whether he'd stepped into a gay bar, whereas now he'd have checked an app, a review, or possibly been proudly greeted by name.
“2006 Ed, when a perfectly friendly older man asked if you wanted to shoot pool, why did your brain jump to an Orlando Weekly exposé instead of just saying yes? And did you ever figure out whether it was a gay bar, or did Matt's raised eyebrows remain your only evidence?” — Beelzebubba the Third
2006 Ed: So, Beelzebubba, you've got it a little backwards. When that old fella shuffled over and asked about pool, my brain didn't jump to any newspaper exposé — my brain was busy thinking, “Man, it's dark in here, and I've got a book and a frosty mug of amber bock, and this guy looks like a strong wind could knock him into next week.” I just didn't feel like shooting pool. That's all. The Orlando Weekly nonsense didn't come until later, after Matt raised those eyebrows at me like he was some kinda detective. And did I ever figure out if it was a gay bar? Hell no. I still have no clue. For all I know it's just a dim little spot with cheap beer and one old pool-playing skeleton. But now, every time I drive past it, I get this weird feeling like I'm missing a punchline. Matt's eyebrows remain my only evidence, and honestly, that's probably for the best.
