Star Bar lovin’

For many Gonzaga students who are over 21, the question we are asking ourselves on this fine Thursday is not where we are going to go tonight. No, tonight, like pretty much every Thursday night, many of us are asking ourselves what we are going to sing (or, if you are like me, shriek), after pounding one too many elephantine Coronas at Star Bar.

After our performance, we will stay on the dance floor, and go hoarse belting out the next few irreconcilable tunes, ranging from "Let the Bodies Hit the Floor" to "My Heart Will Go On" to "Hit Me Baby One More Time."

All this in the most lovely, neon-lit, mullet-filled bar within stumbling distance of our houses.

Don't get me wrong, I mean this in the most affectionate of terms, because, like most of you, I love Star Bar. I will warmly remember letting loose in this unpretentious, frill-free establishment.

For most of us, though, the Star Bar is only doable one night per week, and only after we have sufficiently primed our palates. On all of the other nights of the week, Star Bar is the place we love to hate. It is not uncommon to hear people making fun of the Star. Take your pick, Star Bar is: "trashy," "a dive," "filled with Spokies doing Spokie things," or "gross." But, actions speak louder than words. There is something contradictory about going to Star once per week to party, on the one hand, and on the other, leveling the joint and its patronage as coarse and uncouth. We are Star patrons! So what makes us different than anyone else who goes there?

Inlander writer Luke Baumgarten aptly calls out our conflicting behavior in an online review of The Star, writing, "This is the closest most Gonzaga students will ever actually get to interacting with real people while in Spokane. Yeah, get a few spritzers in them and the Malibu types and trustafarians absolutely love slumming in this dark, wood-paneled joint ... you'll know them in winter by the excessive North Face fleecing."

Blaring stereotypes aside, I think there is some merit to Baumgarten's jeering review. We love the Star, but make ourselves at home only after alcohol has lowered our guard.

It is my belief that under the North Face branding, we are individuals not any different from our Carhartt-clad counterparts that we try so hard to distinguish ourselves from. And this is the beauty of the Star: It breaks down barriers and brings out an undiscriminating quality in us. Our dichotomous "us and them" categories are shattered, and we sing, we dance and we laugh for a few ecstatic, brandless moments. Every Thursday Gonzaga students commune with some Spokane locals.

I don't want to give the impression that the Star is Spokane and vice versa, but the Star shows us that there is a value — a value that hits surprisingly close to home at the social justice champion we call GU — to getting out of the comfort zone that I will call the Gonzaga bubble.

Too often we get caught up in the Gonzaga bubble that is a microcosm for our lives back home. It is easy to think of ourselves as people from Western Washington, or the Bay, or Portland, or Southern California who are simply implanted at Gonzaga University for four years. And, in line with this habit of thought, it is also easy to think of the campus and a handful of addresses within walking distance as the physical limit of our college experience. There is a comfort to staying on or near campus. But, there are half-a-million people in the greater Spokane area and less than 8,000 people at Gonzaga. The Star Bar offers just a shimmer of myriad experiences to be had outside of our bubble.

So get out and experience some not-Gonzaga. There is a multifaceted and nuanced milieu that is unique to Spokane and this region that you will regrettably miss if you convince yourself that the college experience begins and ends within five blocks of campus.