- 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.
