Ariel Pellman Puts the Steamy in Steampunk at the Way Station

Seems like they throw around the word “nerd” a lot at the Way Station. On their website, they bill the place as a “Music Venue and Nerdvana.” They call the place a “nerd mecca.” Sundays are “dedicated to nerd culture” and feature “nerdeoke”—you know, nerd karaoke. So when you enter the bar, you’d think it’d be all lab tables, computers, and calculators. Instead, it’s a seemingly “normal” bar with a small stage for bands, cocktail tables, and a few booths.

That is, if you don’t happen to notice the full-scale TARDIS standing proudly past the bar. What’s a TARDIS, you ask? (I asked, because I didn’t know.) TARDIS stands for Time and Relative Dimension in Space. More specifically, it’s the time-traveling police call box featured in the decades-long running British sci-fi show Doctor Who. Enter this police box and you’ll travel to a realm like no other: the bathroom of the Way Station. To geeks and nerds, this TARDIS cum lavatory is obscenely cool. And that’s the thing about the Way Station in general; with its live burlesque revues, sexy steampunk decor, and general safe space for nerds to talk freely of their passions for all things geek, this bar and performance space transforms outcasts into superheroes.

Don’t believe me? Then believe regular Ariel Pellman, who says the Way Station saved her life. That could be hyperbole on her part. But she did also meet her boyfriend here, and that’s at least a life-changing experience, right? Ariel went on to illuminate the finer points of real nerd culture and how it’s brought to life so well—especially for women—in a safe and surprisingly sexy space like the Way Station.

This bar saved my life. [The owner] said, “I didn’t know there were more people like me, and I wanted a place for people like us.” I know that so many people consider this place special.

I felt self-confident when I got here.

It was conceived of as a steampunk bar, as I understand. They discovered that crowd doesn’t drink much, but they added the police box—the TARDIS—and Doctor Who fans started to make a pilgrimage to the bar, and it became a huge success.

I was fresh off my breakup of six years. I had a different idea about how it was going to end than it did, so I was really down about that and floundering a bit, not getting used to living by myself in a big apartment with all the furniture gone. The whole relationship we lived together. The Way Station had karaoke on Sundays. I came out and had a blast.

It’s called Nerdeoke. Sometimes people will do parodies of a song. It’s very Weird Al [Yankovic]. Someone had a Frozen song with an Avengers theme. People are comfortable showing you what they are passionate about. That’s the spirit of it.

I think the nerd thing is very trendy now, which is a contradiction really. People associate that with sci-fi and video games and cosplay, Comic Con, anime. I think anything that anyone is passionate about, they can be a nerd about. I’m a Disney nerd. I can talk about it at length, maybe ad nauseam.

The burlesque show they do here is sort of a geeky show. [Performer] Nasty Canasta does a number based on Doctor Who. The new burlesque is very pro-feminist, which I think the new nerd culture is as well. The women and men who perform burlesque are very comfortable in their own skin. That’s what this bar is about.

A lot of the men who come here dress really well.

Being comfortable with yourself is sexy. I spent my whole life being conditioned to be nervous about talking about my interests—when I could let go and admit that I played Super Mario for hours. I felt self-confident when I got here not because I had to hide something about myself, but I felt more free.

There’s a beautiful steampunk painting of a naked woman over the bar. A lot of the men who come here dress really well because they are interested in steampunk or they are into the burlesque scene. So they wear bowties and kilts and blazers. I found that really appealing. I could wear a pinup getup, and I wouldn’t be alone.

This is a harness that I wore to Comic Con. All the buckles and straps are sexy. So I’m wearing that and a corset. I do waist training, which means I wear one on a regular basis and can cinch my waist to a very small size. I am wearing a bustle. So the whole thing is very reminiscent of steampunk themes. This being a steampunk bar, I wanted to wear something fun.

Women should be able to wear as little as they want without getting flak from anybody, and that’s what burlesque really promotes: a very body-positive, very pro-feminist image. At the same time, I think that cosplay oftentimes, and the nerd culture at the moment, does tend toward the hypersexualizing of women. And you do need to be careful of that. I think that confidence is what’s sexy about it. When a young woman walks in all decked out in her favorite steampunk Victorian top, top hat, goggles, and jeans, and she looks so comfortable in her own skin, that’s so sexy.

I usually drink bourbon neat, but only after the sun goes down. When my boyfriend saw, he thought it was super sexy, and he had to go talk to me.

May 14, 2015

(Photos by Phil Provencio)