Our Bodies Get Bigger but Our Hearts Get Torn Up

As has been hinted all week, this is Kyle's younger brother Grant guest reporting here at EBONY. With Ricky returning from Mexico & subsequently recovering, I only had the opportunity to enjoy one official evening of EBONY bar crawling. Saturday the 30th found Kyle and I attending Maifest in Lincoln Square and then the Do Division Festival later in the afternoon. A few highlights before the official bar visits:

- The 7 year old guitar player / gimmick of the Maifest Polka band. He needs to work on his stage presence.

- Kyle, Selfy and I played some Ping Pong at the Happy Village bar. I dominated until the local ringer showed up with his own paddles.

- The Seitan sliders from the Mana food tent at Division were excellent. Kyle and I devoured several each day. If you happen to be in the neighborhood, I think I could safely recommend the Mana Food Bar.

- Handsome Furs delighting the Division Fest crowd with their energetic live show. They played a shortened set with pretty much only songs from their new album, Face Control. It was still great. White Rabbits were enjoyable, but often sounded a little to much like a Spoon cover band. Flosstradamus started quite a party for their hometown crowd with their dance-happy mashups.

- Got to meet up with several of my Chicago friends briefly at Do Division and also at Boundary on Division. Good to see all of you guys. Sarah claimed I displayed some confused puppy dog eyes as I had to choose between following Kyle to meet Ricky or hanging with my friends around Division. I followed Kyle, only because I dream of being a great EBONY internet celebrity.

Kyle and I took a taxi from Division back to his apartment where we dropped off our bags and then took off on foot for Smartbar. Kyle made the mistake of crossing Clark in hopes of saving time, but my patience allowed me to destroy him in our foot race to Smartbar. Flashing our "get-in-free" text messages, we quickly made our way down to the basement club. Ricky and Kyle have been there before this year, so I won't give a full report. I must confess, however, that I was served the worst gin and tonic of my life in this establishment. In retrospect, I think the bartender added soda instead of tonic and fully neglected the gin part. After chatting with Craig and company for a bit, the EBONY-ites and I set out to tick some bars of the great list.

Before getting underway we savored a quick 4th meal at Taco Bell. This experience would set a theme for the evening, as we were entertained by the wildly intoxicated girl sitting next to us. As she ate her two sober-er friends looked at her with total disdain. As her friends dragged her out, this girl decided to throw her trash all over the ground. Clearly trash cans were too complicated for her at this point of the evening.

No more than a block down the street we found Uberstein (#92), a German-themed bar within a block of Wrigley Field. Uberstein could be a decent place to enjoy some German beer were it not placed right smack in the middle of Wrigleyville, a neighborhood I have learned is synonymous with being neither fun, interesting, nor cool. Saturday night's crowd saw some leftover Cubs fans and many fratty, Wrigleyville types. Ricky, Kyle and I sat at a high table across from the bar and ordered a round of Hofbrau steins. Little did we know we would soon be treated to a tragic "love-square" worthy of Shakespeare's pen.




The pictures above explain the situation far better than I ever could, and this post is rapidly becoming obese, so I'll keep it succinct. The sport-coated individual, who was dressed not unlike Andy from The Office, had a overwhelming fondness for his friend's girl. He was so smitten that he totally ignored the girl with him, who seemed not to mind as she spent the whole time texting. "Andy" was rather aggressive at times, especially when his friend went to the bathroom, leaving the desirable girl all alone to fend off Andy. At one point of the evening, his friend had his hands around Andy's neck in a half-joking/half-serious choking manner. It was all very dramatic, awkward, and extremely childish. Isn't that what happens when morons drink too much alcohol? (and i'm sure we've all been the morons at one point in our life).

Finishing our beers at Uberstein, we set out to knock another bar off the mighty list. A few doors down Clark we stepped into The Central (#93), which I think typifies the Wrigleyville scene. 3 Miller Lite's were ordered and we spent about 7 minutes watching some rather grotesque dirty dancing that somehow passes for courtship these days. We may have finished our beers, but I'm pretty sure we didn't, so I hope that counts as an official EBONY bar visit. A quick walk down Clark back to headquarters concluded our evening, although Ricky claims to have been up till 7am with some Mexico-related illness.

After attending two bars with Ricky and Kyle, I now acknowledge that their quest seems more of a chore than I had once thought. Crapholes like The Central and its surrounding bars offer the promise of peoplewatching and little else. Make no mistake, the completion of this year-long task will rank among the great endurance epics of our modern era. I should think the 907 will be pleasantly exhausted at the end of the year when they can return to endless nights of beer drinking at Matilda and dancing like idiots in the basement at Baby Atlas.

Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)

A day full of torrential downpours and we decide to knock off a handful of the neighborhood bars hidden on streetcorners to the West of our apartment. First stop, Will's Northwoods Inn. We've been there once before, and the guy we played pool with on our first visit was also present for the second one. He doesn't remember us, probably because he lives there and the memories bleed together when they're all the same. If you've seen the How I Met Your Mother episode with the Minnesota Bar, well that's pretty much what this joint is, except for Wisconsin. They've got a giant fishtank in the front window and whoever decorated the place is a fan of taxidermy...this is clearly a bar with character. Hearing MGMT songs was a little weird considering the locale.

We order a couple of Broken Arrows, realize this is the 3rd bar we've been to this year that had a dog walking around inside, and wait for former 907 member Malmo to drive down from the 'burbs. We're glad he joined us, he's got a handful of timely quotes making the entry this week.

Next up...we thought we were headed to Witt's but we weren't sure exactly where it was, so we end up at Wellington instead. They've got shuffleboard in here and we planned on saving this bar for later, but oh well. Burgers are on special for $1, Rick and I each had 3.
Malmo only had one because on his ride down he had a double filet-o-fish, large fries, 2 apple pies, and a Shamrock Shake...Disgusting.
We had five beers and seven burgers, our total bill was $31...Amazing. (Jason: "and they weren't even Coors!")

The table next to us brought their own 2 liter of coke and were mixing it with the Jack they were ordering...Strange.
Any bar experience that includes Guinness and Biz Markie can't be a bad one. I schooled Rick and Jason on the correct order for telling the various animal walks into a bar jokes (ftr, it's Horse, Grasshopper, Bear, Parrot, Whale).

Then we head over to Fearon's for a larger "former members of the 907 reunion" -- Leroy, Malmo, Rick & Kyle. According to Jason, "it smells like meat & potatoes in here". I think our waitress was physically incapable of smiling. We tested this theory by being as witty and clever as possible, results weren't entirely clear.

Retired Steeplechasers

Heading north we cross Belly's off the list. This was the first time I'd gone to Belly's by my own choosing...previous visits here were the result of girls. It's completely empty, we throw darts. I killed the opposition with a toss of Triple 19, 20 and Double Bullseye to win the game.

Next up is a quick visit to Fizz and a round of Goose Island Matildas. We would soon pay the consequences for drinking such a strong beer this late in the game.


Second to last stop, we return to the Pony Inn because we enjoyed it so much last time. It's crowded again, and the 907 reunion grows with the arrival of Selfy and professional couch-surfer Tiede. Worlds collide as one of my coworkers is here and Rick tells her all about the EmptyBlogOfNothing. A Kyle divided against himself cannot stand!

Last stop...Bungalow Lounge. Craig orders a pineapple cocktail, as if we needed another reason to make fun of him.

ChaCha response of the evening: After I used ROFLCOPTER in a sentence Rick and Jason wanted to know what the heck that was. Thanks to ChaCha for providing us with the origin (ROFLCOPTER means you are laughing so hard that you start to spin in your chair). Maybe next week we'll cover LOLLERSKATES.

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!