Article about the Baghdad Country Club

[Video Link] Joshuah Bearman has a 10,000 word article in The Atavist. He says it's...

... about the one Western watering hole in Baghdad during the height of the insurgency! Basically, the Baghdad Country Club was like the Rick's Cafe Americain of the Green Zone. Or maybe the Mos Eisley cantina at times. Depending on who was there. But it was the one place where anyone -- mercenaries and diplomats, contractors and peacekeepers, aid workers and iraqis -- could walk in, get dinner, open a decent bottle of wine, and pretend that there weren't rockets falling all around them. Patrons would check their weapons in a safe, like coats in a coatroom, and wander past a sign that read: BAGHDAD COUNTRY CLUB. NO GUNS, NO GRANES, NO KNIVES -- NO EXCEPTIONS! It didn't last long, but while it did, the BCC was a beloved place, and a refuge from the war. The story is a life and times of the bar, and the people behind it. (Some of whom risked their lives to bring beer to the Green Zone, as it was like Road Warrior every time the crossed the desert with their cargo of precious liquid.)

The video above "tells the story of how James, the proprietor, first hooked up with the hooch supply and became a war zone restauranteur."

Baghdad Country Club

• [Ian Wood]

  It’s like M*A*S*H!

• [technicalogical]

  Where’s the rest of it?

  • [bigfatlamer]

    Behind a paywall of course.

    • [technicalogical]

      That’s fine, I just don’t have any of the devices that they are selling it for. And is there more to the video or is it just an ebook/audio book?

• [headcode]

  Is “GRANES” supposed to mean grenades?

  • [Ian Wood]

    Naw, man, it means no granes in the club. I don’t want to drink around people packing granes, do you?

  • [t3kna2007]

     I was wondering that too.  I guess you’re really in the shit when two syllables is one too many.

    • [Guest]

      Grane is another name for Kuwait. Not sure what that has to do with anything but it has Geography on its side.

• [noah django]

  yeah, for real though:  who cares?

  I ride my bike every day down Boulevard in ATL to get to work.  Today, some dudes on the sidewalk tried to test I.  they likely had guns, but they were trying to clown me, not rob me, so I dunno for sure.  I told them “fuck you” and kept it moving.  Yeah, it’s a war going on in 200whatever in some place you’ve never been to.  Go the fuck across town.  It’s not very exotic, it’s not as politically current, and the technology tops out at machine guns; but whatever the danger fix you live for from warzones our gov’t perpetrates worldwide can be found locally all over the US.  “Ooooohhh!  This honky was OVER THERE when rockets were falling!  Oh wow!  Then he capitalized on booze!”

  This armchair “danger tourism” bullshit white folks are so wrapped up in HAS GOT TO CEASE!  ‘CAUSE HONKIES GETTIN’ HYPED AT THE SOUND OF THE POLICE!!!!
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VRZq3J0uz4

  • [Rob Hobson]

    I hear you.

    Wait, no I don’t. What the hell are you talking about?

    • [LikesTurtles]

      Just another kid from the suburbs playing urbanite dress up in their first apartment. Mom and Dad are scared to come down so he feels hardcore. That part of town is infested with that type. Brag about living in the ‘hood (now with Chipotle Grill!) but freak out and declare a crime wave the first time someone gets the lawnmower swiped from their yard. It’s funny to hear them rail on the police for keeping rich neighborhoods safe while not protecting their kiddiehood while not realizing that the police are actually a couple miles down the road in an actual rough neighborhood they’d pee their pants in dealing with actual crime. When the police point out that crime is actually low where they live, they freak out and say it must be a conspiracy to cover it up because they know at least two people who are missing their fixed gear bikes.

      • [Petzl]

        I hear you.

        Wait, no I don’t …

        • [Guest]

          I hear something. No… wait… it was the wind.

      • [doggo]

        Oh, I hear you. Yes I do.

        • [JohnBerry]

          I must be going deaf.

  • [LikesTurtles]

    I go down Boulevard all the time. It’s a bit dirty but exotic? No. Call me when you’re hanging out at the Bluffs or English Avenue at 3am on foot. Boulevard is a ghetto like theme park for yuppies. Not that there is anything wrong with that but let’s be real about what it really is. The Cotton Mill Lofts aren’t hardcore, sorry.

• [Jimmy Jone]

  Reminds me of Club Scud from early 90s Doonesbury!

• [A. .]

  in the comments, behind the paywall, there lies a man who actually was BTDT; the writer of this article, by his own admission, had never been to the BCC.  Tales of East Africa and Thailand, of horrible bars in South America await us.