The Bulge

Pawnee has a gay bar? Yeah, The Bulge. It’s behind my house. The Bulge is a gay bar? Uh, the nights I’ve wasted there.

Bit of a double-edge on this one. And not just because we’ve got an oft-unseen back print. You can see the signage for The Bulge from the outside of the establishment and it’s a bit of a neon affair. Yet once we get inside there are a fair few self-promotional t shirts on the walls which, rather than replicating the design of the sign, they go for some bold, stretched Helvetica / Arial fare. Why? Well, I would naturally assume that this is a nod to the mid-80s Frankie Goes to Hollywood ‘Relax‘ t shirts. What with it being a gay bar and all.

You can find Bulge t shirts across the internet already but I always try and be different, so I’ve replicated the neon sign on the back and included the weekly goings on at the bar. I like the fact that it’s heavily alliterative but they clearly hit a bit of a pitfall with Thursday and just chucked Cher at the problem. If I know gay men like I think I do, this is absolutely the correct decision.

In real life, the Bulge isn’t in Indiana. It’s actually The Oxford Inn in Van Nuys, California. I don’t know how good your American geography is, but Indiana is absolutely miles away from California. So they lied to us. Unbelievable.