This blogpost is about the Gentleman Loser, the bar in William Gibson’s Burning Chrome. The Burning Chrome master blogpost is here.

The Gentleman Loser

The Gentleman Loser is a bar. It’s a cyberpunk story so the story pretty much has to start in a bar. This bar is a chic bar full of computer cowboys and other hustlers. Gibson uses the term “rustlers.” It sounds so close to “hustler” so that’s the meaning one naturally think of.

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But, if you look up “rustler” in the dictionary it tells you it refers to Wild West types who would steal cattle. That’s about right because the story is about burning/hacking Chrome and stealing her money. It’s a really good use of language by Gibson.

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Gibson also says that it is full of “cybernetic second-story men.” I have no idea what the means. What is a second-story man? Is it a middle manager type? Someone who has climbed above the first story but is nowhere near the top? That’s the only thing I can think of. I think this is another example of Gibson being too cute.

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Anyways, the Gentleman Loser is a “chic” bar. I think that’s pretty bad writing. How is it chic? What does it mean to be chic in in this cyberpunk world? Gibson doesn’t say. Saying something is “chic” without showing how it’s chic – especially in a science fiction world where what the in-world characters consider to be chic would not necessarily be the same thing as the reader would consider chic – is pretty bad writing. Gibson is telling instead of showing. It’s a lazy short hand that probably should have been deleted.

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The bar is full of “young-old” people. I assume that means young looking console cowboys who are old for their profession. Like how Case is 28 years old in Neuromancer and that is considered over the hill for a console cowboy. It’s an interesting phrase – not quite too cute but getting there – that seems to undercut the “chic” description. If the bar is so chic why is it only populated by these young-old hacker types? Why not an actual young person who isn’t a hacker or looking to date one? It seems this bar is a hipper version of a dive bar – but that’s not chic, is it?

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It’s mentioned that Jack, Bobby, and Rikki go to the Gentleman Loser to talk about Jack’s old war wound (that’s how he got the cybernetic/myoelectric arm) and they sit in a “small table in a corner.” This shows that the bar isn’t overfilled. My image of the typical cyberpunk bar is that it’s packed to the brim with a restless humanity where everyone is trying to line up their next score. Gibson seems to feint in that direction – this is the place that console cowboys looking for that next big score hang out – but he ultimately contradicts that image with an image of three people just quietly talking in a small table in the corner.

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I find the Gentleman’s Loser’s minimal description fascinating. The layout or the look isn’t described at all. Just that a certain type of clientele likes to hang out there – the console cowboys and those who want to date them.

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In my writing, I am always tempted to be detailed as possible and describe what someone walking through the door would see. But Gibson doesn’t do that. He describes it’s function and that’s it. Writing out another boilerplate description is unnecessary.

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In fact, Gibson probably could have dropped the “chic” part and maybe the “small tables” part as well. Although, I guess you can’t become such a minimalist that it ceases to be a lived experience.

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Perhaps better would be to describe the small table more fully. Is something carved in the table? Is the table next to a wall? What’s on the wall? There has to be something more specific than just it’s a small table. Something that gives you a sense of time and place.

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The name “Gentleman Loser” is an interesting choice. Apparently it’s form a Steely Dan song from the 70s. The “Loser” part is obvious. The hackers and their girlfriends are losers because they are the ones on the outskirt of society and not the ones running the big Mega-Corps.

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But what does “Gentleman” have to do with anything. Are these outcasts gentleman? At first glance, the answer is no. They’re hackers not plantation owners. But I think Gibson is saying is that in this society there are no old-school gentleman left. So the hacker with a cybernetic arm scrounging for a big score is the closest thing to a gentleman remaining. It’s hilariously ironic, actually.

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My latest cyberpunk story also takes place in a bar. This bar is called “Moe’s Ashtray” which is a name I put a lot of thought into. The story is called THE LAST BLONDE. You can find it at www.blackflagliterature.com