The month of November is fast approaching and I/we/the universe has decided that a bar crawl for the awesomestest charity ever, Movember, is in order. Last year I personally raised around $650 bones for the charity and was ranked 299th in the nation. This year, we’re blowing the lid off of it and having a full blown bar crawl complete with T-shirts and a charity auction at the end.

So the question is this: which weekend to have it? The 14th or the 21st? Both are Saturdays, but the 21st is the weekend before Thanksgiving and people may be traveling. On the other hand, there are big fat college sporting events on the 14th and people may not be able to make it. So I ask you, dear readers, which day you think it should be on????????????question mark

At The Decline, an eclectic blogitation of philosophy and brain snot, we ask the tough questions. This time we tackle the age-old question of how you’d like an animal to eat you…

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In what will be an undoubtedly failed attempt at sparking a bit of conversation on this often-times echo chamber of a website, today I will offer my opinion as to which bars have some of the most generic names, for better or for worse. Granted I can’t help but offer at least something of a review of the interior, but I’ll try to be brief. Behold:

5. Sliders Bar and Grill 504 Washington Blvd. Baltimore, MD 21230 (410)-547-8891

I don’t care if a billion people flood this place after Orioles games while in season, Sliders is just a generic name for a bar, sports bar or not. I mean, with a rich cultural and sports history in a city like Baltimore, you could probably come up with 90 more interesting names than Sliders – Orioles Nest? Birdland? I dunno. Even Pickles Pub right next door has a better name, and it’s named after a frigging condiment!

4. Nobles 1024 S. Charles St. Baltimore, MD 21230 (410)-727-1355

I’ll call it a close tie between Nobles and Mother’s at #4, but Nobles eeks out the win in this slot for being fairly uninteresting in almost every other way. Whereas Mother’s has become quite the destination bar for tourists and meatheads alike, Nobles is just kind of blah. Kind of blah, even after closing up shop for weeks on end while renovating to create a rather sizeable dance floor, AND changing their name to something slightly more “classy” than Drifters Raw Bar and Grill. Then again, if you like to bump n’ grind and do very little else I guess Nobles kind of fits the bill.

3. Bartenders 2218 Boston St. Baltimore, MD 21231 (410)-534-BEER

This one tears me up, because Bartenders is actually a pretty kickass place. Kickass pizzas, nice guys running the place, hell even their phone number is kickass. But the name is just kind of ….eh. Bartenders.

2. Cheerleaders 702 S. Broadway Street, Baltimore, MD 21231 (410) 675-5177

Every time I walk past this place I kind of roll my eyes at its unimaginative name; and then I look inside, and actually get a chill. Anna Ditkoff put it best in this blurb:

There was nothing particularly cheerleadery about it. It was dark with TV screens covering the back wall like an altar, and the female bartenders wore T-shirts and baseball caps rather than the spirited uniforms you might expect—though one did get up on a raised platform and shake it with some pompoms for a song or two. The most striking thing about Cheerleaders was the age of the crowd. It was old. Not old like I’m old—old like my parents. And they were partying hard. A gray-haired gentleman sang along with “Sex Machine.” Another explored a woman’s tonsils with his tongue, and, stranger still, a man who looked a bit like Tim Conway rode a Segway through the bar.

It all made Cheerleaders feel like Neverland for frat guys, where you may age but you never grow up. Or maybe it’s more a Cocoon scenario. Either way, according to my scrawled notes “guy in the polointentey into music,” so, um, it was time to leave.

1. BAR Corner of Lancaster and Regester, Baltimore, MD 21231 (???) ???-????

Another Fells Point bar of considerable note, as the name itself is the embodiment of generic (thus it is #1). I’ve only been to “BAR” a few times, and every time it has been strange. Canned beer only (rarely cold), a pool table and maybe some old people sitting around. So basically, it’s like most towny bars in Baltimore. It always kind of reminds me of a scene from some sort of David Lynch film; really uncomfortable, you’re not quite sure of what’s going on and you feel like you need to get out very quickly. Currently the established sports a sign on the front door that simply states “Out of order,” which could either mean the front door is literally out of order or “BAR” is defunct. Regardless of its extreme dump-charm, “BAR” definitely takes the crown of Most Generic Bar Name in our fair city.

Honorable Mention: Islander II Bar and Grill – it no longer exists, and is now known as Bad Decisions, which is a much better name (and a much better bar to boot). But for the love of crap, don’t put numerals in your bar names, people. And stop adding “Bar and Grill” to everything, GAW!!

I realize there are more than likely hundreds of bars in Baltimore that could expand this list, but quite frankly I’m not going to be driving out to Central Park Heights to find them. That’s your job.

Baltimore’s Ex-Mayor Lays Out The Next President’s Best Possible Drug Policy:

“A different commander-in-chief will soon assume leadership of the War on Drugs. Let’s hope that a new leader will implement a new strategy, because for nearly a century now–following the passage of the Harrison Narcotics Act of 1914–America’s War on Drugs has been seen primarily as a criminal justice problem.”

(Via The New Republic Politics.)