honkyonk2

by more than a nkonky tonk • 2026-08-29 23:42:16

 HONKY TONKS ARE MARXIST AND I WILL NOT BE TAKING QUESTIONS Listen. LISTEN TO ME. People keep saying honky tonks are capitalist because there's money and beer and some guy named Travis owns the building and he's got a Ford F-250 and a suspicious amount of opinions about taxes. WRONG. That is exactly what THEY want you to think. Because the honky tonk is MARXIST. I have figured this out tonight. I have figured it out in the most important way a person can figure anything out, which is after approximately seven whiskeys while sitting underneath a neon sign that says LIVE MUSIC. You see, capitalism says everything has a price. Honky tonks say: WRONG, IDIOT. A song is worth more than money. A dance is worth more than money. A bartender remembering your name is worth more than money. And, most importantly, that one guy who has been standing next to the jukebox for forty-five minutes contributing NOTHING TO PRODUCTION but somehow everybody likes him? THAT GUY IS THE PROLETARIAT. Or maybe he's the bourgeoisie. I don't know. THE POINT IS HE'S CLASS. Marx talked about alienation, okay? Alienation! Workers become separated from the products of their labor, from each other, from themselves, from the very essence of being a human being. And then you go into a honky tonk and there's a woman named Tammy singing about her divorce while six people cry into Miller Lite. THAT'S NOT ALIENATION. THAT'S DIALECTICAL MATERIALISM. I think. There's also the bartender. The bartender is extremely important. Because the bartender sells you a beer for $6, which is capitalism, obviously. But then the bartender listens to your problems for twenty minutes, which is communism. And then you tip them $11, which is somehow both. THAT'S THE CONTRADICTION. That's the dialectic. That's why the floor is sticky. The stickiness represents historical materialism. I WILL NOT ELABORATE. Now, consider the dance floor. This is where the bourgeois order COLLAPSES. A rich man walks in wearing a $900 cowboy hat. A poor man walks in wearing a $40 cowboy hat. They dance. Same floor. Same song. Same terrible knee injury waiting to happen. THE HAT HAS BEEN ABOLISHED. Private property has been temporarily suspended by George Strait. This is the revolution. And don't even get me started on the band. The BAND! They are literally workers producing cultural value in real time. They create the thing everybody consumes. Everybody dances to it. Everybody sings along. Do they own the means of production? NO. They own guitars. THAT IS DIFFERENT. The guitar is an instrument of production, but the venue owns the microphone, the speakers, the stage, and probably the little machine that makes the fog. This is exploitation. And yet the musicians keep playing. Why? Because they believe. In what? I don't know. Probably the next drink. BUT STILL. That is revolutionary. The honky tonk is therefore a contradiction: it is a capitalist business that creates temporary little pockets of communist emotional economics where everyone shares songs, loneliness, peanuts, and increasingly questionable decisions. It takes your money. Then it gives you a community. It takes your labor. Then it gives you line dancing. It takes your dignity. Then it plays “Friends in Low Places” and somehow you get it back. THAT'S MARX. I don't care what anybody says. Somebody could walk up to me right now and say, "Sir, this is a Chili's." And I would say: NO. IT IS THE INTERNATIONAL. And then I would probably fall over because the chair moved. But that's okay. Because when I fall, someone will pick me up. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is collective ownership. Thank you. I will be accepting questions tomorrow, assuming capitalism hasn't killed me.