I took another swing at the Worst Bar in the World last weekend, after taking in Walk the Line with my doll. It’s the Chestnut Tree of the Augsburg bar and café scene: Just a bunch of aging socialite wannabes who’ve given in to horrors of Room 101, and now spend their days waiting on the lethargic service to bring their gin and tonics, talking nonsense about things that interest no one. And, like the denizens of the Chestnut Tree, they pray for death with each passing moment. I wouldn’t have gone there had it not been for the after-movie party, hosted by Johnny Cash’s German biographer, Franz Dobler. And while his knowledge of the Man in Black borders on encyclopedic, his public speaking skills lack flair. I settled, ordered some food; and, par for the course, I left before eating, lest I die of rickets and spider-bites before it got there. I wound up eating somewhere else, and coming back once the crowd had thinned out. I half expected them to arrive with my food when I walked in the door. But I jest; food, here? My view of the Worst Bar in the World has not improved after this last trip, but there’s nothing new there. I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time and energy on them, compared to what they’ve spent on me.

There are a lot of bars here in Augsburg; some are good, and some are bad, and some are really, really bad. Right now, I’m whiling in the very acceptable corner bar, Barium. It’s about 30 yards away from my front door, staffed by cheerful, attractive waitrons, and they serve cheap German beer to morons like me, without mocking me for tapping away on a laptop in a social setting. And, they bring me beer. I’m not sure why I ever go anywhere else, actually; force of habit, I guess.

That picture, by the way, was taken in a bar that’s far from the Worst. It’s called Annapam, and is a salt o’ the Earth kinda bar, a reliable standby with good food and ugly waitresses. The people in the picture are Italians, who were apparently visiting Augsburg for the falafel and having a hell fo a time doing it.