WHAT THE HECK IS A HOOKAH LOUNGE?

Midweek again. I stayed in bed till five. Whoop, whoop, that's sleeping in for me. But I wasn't really asleep just laying there putting off putting my feet on the floor. But I'm up now. My ever faithful cup of coffee at my side. A slight chill in the room. I think I best make this a good day. Why waste a perfectly great day by not having a good one.

i was talking to my friend on the phone yesterday and she mentioned the "Hookah Lounge," here in Joplin. "Say what," I asked. "What the heck is a Hookah?" She explained it is a place where mostly young people go to smoke out of a Big Bowl (Bong) of flavored tobacco or non-harming tobacco. Wow, I never heard of this before.

I went on Google. My ever wonderful Google that holds the world of information. I guess the Hookah comes from the Hookah pipe. They've been doing it in Turkey for centuries. A group of people sit around sharing a Bong . Now the appeal of this lost me on the sharing part. I don't want to be sharing somebody Else's mouth fluids. But the explanation says you pay twelve dollars for a bowl and a extra three for a extra bowl. Then you just sit around with your friends, listen to music and puff away out of your bowl. Where was the Hookah place when I was growing up? Of course I have never really got the hang of smoking so I guess it wouldn't have done me much good even if they would have had them back then. But shoot it sounds cool.

I think I should get a group of my little old lady friends together and go share a bowl. We'd scare those young college kids to death if we arrived. My friend Joan would want to bring them cookies. And my friend from the East side of town would ask them , "What in the Hell were they doing?" So maybe I won't get the group together after all, but who knows it might be fun.

So I learned something new yesterday. They say you never get to old to learn. As I pass through Blogland this morning, on my way out of town. I'm going to be on the look-out, now if I see a Hookah Lounge here I might just stop. Try it out Blogland style. But for now friends I'm outta here. Below is the information about Joplin's Hookah Lounge and just what a Hookah is. Happy Bowls to you, until we meet again.

12:51 HOOKAH LOUNGE

A hookah lounge in Joplin puts a new spin on social smoking by offering a very old tradition.Smoking the hookah: Middle Easterners have done it for centuries. College students are doing it, and so are city dwellers from L.A. to Joplin to New York. Joplin? It’s been only a few months, but Adrian Gonzalez is pleased with how his business, 12:51 Hookah Lounge, has been received by Joplin’s young adults. The mostly twentysomethings who frequent 12:51 have their choice of several conversation areas, arranged with sleek and stylish futons and glass tables. The atmosphere Gonzalez has created is laid back.

“There needed to be something different than the usual bar scene,” he says. “I was tired of it in the first couple of weeks after coming back here.”
Gonzalez, 21, returned home to Joplin from Riverside, California, in order to be closer to his family. They’re closer than ever now as parents Joe and Margarita Gonzalez are in the hookah business with their son.

Margarita admits it took a while to warm up to her son’s business idea. “I had considered opening a business myself,” she says. “But I was thinking along the lines of a boutique.” Instead, she found herself researching the hookah, a Middle Eastern water pipe used for smoking tobacco and tobacco substitutes.
Hookah smoking has been practiced for 400 years as a social activity in Turkey and other Middle Eastern countries. It has recently gained popularity in the United States.

Some 12:51 Hookah Lounge hookahs have two hoses, allowing friends to share a bowl of flavored tobacco. The cost is $12 per hookah and additional bowls are available for $3 each.

Customers can choose from 20 flavored tobaccos, 10 herbal tobacco substitutes, soft drinks and snacks while enjoying a variety of entertainment that includes live music, flat-screen televisions and a PlayStation that rents by the hour. Individual hoses and mouthpieces can also be purchased.

Still, the Centers for Disease Control caution against hookah smoking, finding that a typical session involves inhaling 100 to 200 times the volume of smoke inhaled in a single cigarette and that sharing a hookah may increase the risk of transmission of tuberculosis, viruses such as herpes or hepatitis and other illnesses.

“We don’t tell people they have to smoke when they come in here,” Adrian says. “They can come and just listen to music and hang out with a soda and a candy bar. That’s fine with me, but for those who do smoke, this is an alternative.”


Wanna Go?
12:51 Hookah Lounge
3702 E. Seventh St., Joplin,
417-623-6666
Sun.–Thurs. 4 p.m.–midnight,
Fri.-Sat. 4 p.m.–3 a.m.


How a hookah works
To use a hookah, smokers fill a water bowl with warm water and submerge a metal body in it. A hose is attached to the top of the water bowl and at the other end is a mouthpiece. Moist tobacco is placed in the head and a charcoal is placed on top. When the charcoal is lit, the smoke passes through the water before being inhaled through the mouthpiece.