We Were Born to Sin

The prior weekend was a quiet one for us, but we did tackle 2 more bars in the neighborhood. Saturday started off at Clark Street Bar where we enjoyed our overpriced hot dog and fries, and extremely cheap pitcher of 312 while watching our White Sox take on the Twinkies. I guess you can consider this a dive bar/dive eatery all in one. It’s no Hoagie Hut though, which we were truly spoiled by when we resided at the 907. The Hoagie Hut was pretty much our go to hangover joint. We have yet to find one of these places in our new neighborhood; The Bagel had a good run, but ever since Intelligentsia increased the price of their coffee by 50%, my rendezvous down to Broadway has been limited.

After watching a couple innings of the game, we headed down Wellington to meet up with Adam, Sonny and Jorge (amongst many others in their posse) at Kirkwood. They claimed they were there to watch the Masters, but it seemed to us they were more preoccupied with the surroundings of the bar (especially Adam who was trying his hardest to bring out his ‘A’ game). We stayed through the end of the Sox game and progressed our beer intake by enjoying a couple Fat Tires and then finally a Delerium Nocturnum. I am pretty sure this is the earliest in the day I have ever had a Delerium – needless to say, I had a solid buzz going for a couple hours even though I was sans drinking. There were also a handful of idiots within Kirkwood, which I guess is expected on a Saturday afternoon. One especially that sticks out was sitting at the table with Adam. He got to be known as “Sunglass Dude” since he kept his shades on while he was INSIDE the bar the whole time. Seriously why do people do this, I don’t get it? What is even worse are visors, do dudes still wear those? If they do, they should be stoned (like in Biblical times, not with a joint). Anyway, Sunglass Dude is the epitome of Wrigleyville/LP d-bag. I hope he’s reading this (as we gave him a business card) so he can straighten his life together, you can thank us later SD. Adam claimed he wasn’t his friend, but a friend-of-a-friend. Okay Adam, okay. The biggest chuckle of my day came when Jorge was looking at the beer menu and told me how much he enjoyed Kalibur. I debated if I should tell him or not that a Kalibur is a N/A beer. He’ll learn someday.

Kyle and I split ways after this, I met with Annie and we dominated some damn good BBQ at Smoque. Kyle went to a beer tasting and eventually down to Guthrie’s to play some Battleship and Connect Four. We planned on meeting them at Guthries, but it took us a good 2 hours to get home from Smoque because the Addison bus apparently doesn’t run after 8 and there no cabs in sight. So we relied on the CTA and ended up taking 3 buses to get back to her place (Pulaski to Belmont to Halsted). At this point we were beat and bailed on Kyle. I do look forward to Guthries in the near future and taking down my opponent in Scrabble.

On Sunday we headed down to Bridgeport for the White Sox game. So far we’ve been to 2 of the 6 games and my goal is to go to 1 game of every home series. We’re well on pace. We’ll be MIA next weekend as EBONY is heading out to Boston to cheer on our peeps in the Boston Marathon (and celebrate afterwards). Keep your eyes pealed though as we’ll keep the blog rolling with our exploits in Beantown. Peace.

Powers Out_

Nothing too exciting on the EBONY front this weekend, just spreading the VD joy and love. We did more than enough of making up for ourselves on Thursday night. Kyle and I tackled 9 bars which doesn't include the 2 drinks I had at InFields (should it be called InMacy's now?) with my BCBS cronies. Speaking this nights cronies, Adam, Jorge and JoePi joined us and most likely persuaded Kyle and I to escalate our evening in to what it ended up being. Kyle did a good enough job explaining the mayhem along with EBONY popping its Halsted bar cherry. A big shout out goes to Jorge with proving us with endless entertainment with his dance skills - the best coming coming later in the evening (for the sake of his embarrassment, I won't elaborate beyond this). The following quotes for notated in my notebook:

Me: What Great Lakes brew is that on tap?

Waitress at Lucky: ummm.....the dark one

Me (inside my head): Thanks for nothing

JoePi: This places smells like a peg leg (of Slugger's)

Adam: Those girls are eyeing us like we're their ticket off welfare

Random dude at Little Jim's: Cock-block (after Adam and I switched seats because this random dude was totally creeping out Adam - fuck my life)

Random dude at Scarlet: I just assumed you two were a couple

Adam: That shot was So-Co and gay (after Jorge bought us a round of So-Co and lime)

Adam: Jorge, where are you from?

Jorge: South Padre Island

Kyle: People actually come from there?

Maybe if you gave me some positive reinforcement I would play better

February is under way kids and EBONY had a productive week. It was a typical Saturday (aside from the unseasonably warm day) of a long run in the morning followed by a lazy early-afternoon of drinking Intelligentsia, having a bowl of cereal and watching the original 90210 on the Soap Channel. 3:30 rolls around and we meet Baumer, Holland, Holland's buddy from Boston (formally know as the Diddler), BSwerve and Adam at Paddy Long's. Based on the facade we assumed it would be an Irish bar, but there is a definite German twist to it with the selection of beers and the Oompa band going on at 5. I have a Cooper's and a London Pride and am entertained by Adam's coaster flip trick (see the vid on our FB fan page). We also learn that Adam's goal as a child was to be a magician. Some how he ended up at Blue Cross though. Bravo Adam, bravo. Chenoweth and Beth show up at the 11th hour and we take off.

Next stop was planned to be Uncle Fatty's. Uncle Fatty's is one of those bars for some reason you hate since the first time you see it (we also feel this way about Prost). But the bar wasn't open yet and we move on to Vaughn's. BSwerve says Vaughn's is a hidden gem, but we beg to differ. We are at Vaughn's briefly, the only memorable portion of it was the two huskies greeting us at the bar when we walk in. And by huskies we mean the dog, not those with a weight issue. We have one drink there and try to go Uncle Fatty's again. But of course UF is not destined for us and we end up at Soprano's. Soprano's is mostly an upscale Italian restaurant but there is a small bar to the side. We are easily the loudest people in the joint, and this includes the large kids party in the restaurant. After a having a drink there and discussing the religious undertones in The Wrestler we try Fatty's one last time. Apparently the third time is indeed the charm and we enter the 'Rum Resort.' The only redeeming factor of this bar is the two courts of bags inside of it, and I hate playing bags. Of course Kyle and I absolutely dominate and go 4-0, this includes coming back from being down 12-0 to Chenoweth and Beth and take home the victory. Each game was met with a friendly bet of a round of drinks, so we leave the bar with 1 free round and have 3 more to come.

The conclusion of the evening comes at Matilda. We planned on closing the night here as the FF party was going off at 6:30. We show up un-fashionably late and are greeted by many of our closest friends (too many to mention, sorry guys, maybe you should have made an effort to meet us out earlier). We each get a free drink ticket from Mark and the 3 that are owed to us from playing bags and the evening escalates. Kyle is full-blown on the surly bus and provides never ending entertainment for the crowd. I make the amazing decision to go to bed at 9:30 and feel great the next morning, Kyle can't say the same.

Bulletproof Tiger

Glad to get this one out of the way -- Cubby Bear is off the list. Thanks to our well-connected friend Heidi we attended a screening of the new HBO show executively produced (is that right? executively produced?) by Will Ferrell, "Eastbound & Down". It's vulgar and over the top and pretty funny. Watch it when it premieres next weekend on Feb 15th. At the worst it's still better than the incredibly disappointing start to the second season of Flight of the Conchords.

So...the Cubby Bear. We were joined by Annie, Adam and Adam's brother, who suggested a possible 2010 EBONY challenge: Every bar on Clark Street. Anyway, back to Cubby bear -- everything was free tonight, which is the best way to experience anyy bar. I had a hotdog, 1/4 of a pretzel, one coors light and 2 Sam Adams Winter Ales. $1...not bad. Heidi, you're the best.

I also brought home a beer cozy with EB&D logos on it, as well as a giant foam middle finger that I'll take to any Cubs game I happen to go to this summer.

While in the bathroom 2 guys were arguing about the main character..."In today's America, with this economy, and this recession, I just don't know what they're thinking! How do they expect people to like that character? Seriously!"..."I know just what you mean! It's sooo vulgar! I think Kerry Wood is the basis for the guy." (we are in Wrigleyville, of course everything has to tie in to the cubs) ... "I don't know, I think he's clearly John Rocker."

I got out of the restroom before listening to any more of this.

Elsewhere. I've added another music widget to the blog, this one has a few unreleased (as of yet) tracks from the Dark Was The Night album, which raises money for HIV & AIDS awareness. So listen to these tracks and buy the album. Additional artists on the album: The National, Bon Iver, Feist, The Decemberists, Grizzly Bear, Sufjan, My Morning Jacket.

And lastly, we're issuing a challenge to the members of the EmptyBlogOfNothing Facebook group. I think we can get up to 200 members in the group by the end of February; Rick doesn't. So forward our page to your friends, invite them to the group, let them know about the enjoyment you receive reading about our antics. Spread the love, spread the fun, grow the network, fix the economy.

This Saturday we'll be starting a mini-bar crawl at 3:30pm at Paddy Long's. Stop by and have a drink!