On Sunday, Pints&union took to the airwaves for a final round of self-congratulation before decamping for Louisville.
From beginning to end, the symmetry between Joe’s abandonment of New Albany and Athletics owner John Fisher’s “wheels up” from Oakland has been almost majestic in both scope and snark.
Leaving your customers behind, whether bound for Louisville or Las Vegas, after years of promises that it’s all been about them, takes a special kind of deftness that neither Phillips nor Fisher possess.
Rather, if it’s ham-fisted narcissists you’re seeking, and with Fisher being far, far away, look no further than someone who writes these words, utterly allergic to irony: “The ones that lashed out, we love you too cause that meant you cared.”
That’s right, Colonel.
You need to believe that, as ludicrous as the sentiment remains.
They (they’re your customers) cared, you screwed them over by leaving, they “lashed” out (read: asked questions, expressed grief, pursued lines of thought that elude your limited understanding), and now you rationalize the reaction from these folks you’re abandoning by insisting that yet again, it’s all about you and the degree to which you’re being loved.
(Although I’d be remiss if I didn’t congratulate my former employer on making it through an Instagram post for the first time in six years WITHOUT deploying multiple exclamation points. There is hope, after all.)
Maybe the relocation WILL be a whole new era, rather than the end of an error. Meanwhile, Oakland’s out of luck; the city will not receive a compensatory expansion franchise of the sort that major league baseball has so often finagled to avoid anti-trust lawsuits.
Pints&union will quickly blend in with the esoteric crowd in the forever mercurial Highlands, and barring a partnership or angel investor, under-capitalization will take its usual toll on matters, and at some point down the road, Joe will sacrifice a new crop of scapegoats. We can be as sure of this as the sun rising tomorrow morning.
Back here in New Albany, I’m just sorry, even if it’s not my apology to issue.
I still feel terribly for the Pints&union regulars, and the fact that they’re being gaslit like this as the moving vans queue. I enthusiastically midwifed the establishment, which was wonderful at its peak, only to see it end in such a stupid, tawdry and plainly self-serving way. Not my circus, nor my orangutan, yet it still haunts me and likely always will.
I hope someone takes a chance on the building. It is small, but can work as a clearly defined concept, as with the Anglo-Irish theme Joe vaguely pursued during those rare times when he could tenuously commit to the level of patience required to forsake daily spins of the “here’s what we are today, but tomorrow it’ll be different” wheel.
If I had anywhere near the amount of money some of you seem to think I have (29 years of NABC co-ownership yielded me the onetime sum approximated by the annual pay of a barista), I’d give it a whirl, but in perfect honesty I’m no longer in that position even if I’m willing to consult future ownership in exchange for a few beers.
This saga has been painful. I won’t deny that much of it is personal in nature. Ageism’s slanders are brutal in ways I never imagined, but jobs come and go, and unfortunately, so do friendships. I’d like to believe the best in people; alas, sometimes it is exactly as it seems. That’s very, very sad. Still, this too shall pass.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a hip to replace (Tuesday 3 December).
Here’s the epitaph: “In the end, Pints&union didn’t deserve New Albany”
