Ageing Has Never Been His Friend (2nd time)

First -- this pie chart over here on the right is old and out of date. Maybe I'll fix that soon. Or I'll just remove it. On with the chlorophyll!

Celebrating Falcon Heene Day (10/15/09), I meet Rick and Internet Celebrity Baumer at Beckett's, #141 (formerly Belly's). This is the first bar that has closed and reopened under a different name within the year, necessitating a return trip. Beckett's is owned, operated, decorated, and serves the same menu as it's sister- (brother?) bar, Wilde. Before I arrive Rick sends me a text saying it feels like he's drinking in a library. I show up and that "library" is playing Britney Spears.
The Blue on Blue burger is above average, and our waitress/manager stops by multiple times to have the same check-in conversation over and over.
"You guys okay? ... Awesome."
"You guys okay? ... Awesome."
"You guys okay? ... Awesome."

The Blackhawks, having just days earlier put together an improbable comeback, are not performing as expected. They will lose this game, leaving us disappointed. My Grimbergen Double Ale does something similar.

Go Southeast, Young Man! So the three of us do...down Lincoln to Witt's, #142. Belguim beers are on special on Thursdays, so I go to the restroom and return to find we're all drinking Delerium Tremens. We listen to Cake and Pearl Jam, exchange Major League lines w/ a solo drinker at the bar, and I remember to write down a few of the more notable quotes from the conversation:
"Vampires and Umpires are only 2 letters away. Coincidence?"

"Speaking of mushrooms...did you see that Hiroshima and Nagasaki are bidding on the Olympics together?"

"Hiccups...one of the most annoying things you can have."
"That, and syphillis."

Thursday night ends and we're smart enough not to tackle any additional EBONY bars.

Moving on to Saturday...Rick runs in and I ride the lead bicycle for the Pumpkins in the Park 5k. A couple of drinks at the beer tent, a brief stop at home to clean up, and then we're out for the evening.
First stop, meeting Internet Celebrity Baumer and EBONY-virgin Borling at Galway Arms, #143. This is a geniune Irish bar down on the southeast corner of our radius (do circle's have corners? i guess not). The 4 of us discuss marathons, I devour a hearty guinness beef stew, and we drink a couple of $4 20 oz Sam Adams. Not a bad deal. I show Borling the EBONY notebook as we fill him in on the process. He begins to leaf through it..."Wait! I'm in this notebook already!" I have his name written down on page one from a story Baumer told us 20 bars ago.

A large crowd plans on joining us soon, so we move somewhere with more room. A couple of filthy back-of-the-room tables open up at The Other Side, #144 just after we arrive, and our growing crew begins to take over. Represented tonight: Abby, her visiting brother Zach, Jamie, Bode, Ken, Kathy, Reamer, Verdo, Molly, Carolyn D, maybe others I've forgotten to write down.
All our friends manage to do initially is prevent us from being served beer. Finally our 312's arrive alongside some fried cheese curds. The marketing genius who came up with the name "curd" probably didn't stop to think about their shape and it's phonetic resemblence to something else.

Drinking beer steins leads to a discussion about Octoberfest (the real one, in Germany), which leads us to conclusions that it is the exact OPPOSITE of Wrigleyville. Everyone is drunk & people pretty much get away with whatever shenanigans they want, except it's actually fun and the meatheads aren't violent.
Baumer, on his 8th or 9th beer now, has his arm around our waitress.
Ken walks into the restricted kitchen hoping to find out if the BBQ sauce they used was Sweet Baby Ray's. He is escorted out without an answer. This would be the first time this evening we would have run-ins with tavern authority figures.
Zach has never heard the animal/bar jokes (he lives in Boston...if he lived in Chicago he'd have heard me tell all of them at least 20 times by now). He gets them. The girls have a dance party to Toto.
A surly Aussie suddenly stops by our table, corners Borling, and proceeds to close-talk him for a good 6 minutes. Rick and I lean in, and we can't decipher a word. The guy finally leaves, Borling says, "I couldn't understand a word either. I didn't know if he was hitting on me or if he wanted to fight us."
Obviously we stayed at The Other Side longer than we planned, but everyone was having a grand time.

Next up...we move north to Frank's, #145. Years ago 2 friends of mine (Tim & Tim) got themselves into a cake fight with each other. Covered in frosting, they had to walk to our old apartment to change clothes and this trek took them past Frank's. For kicks, they tried to stop in and the bouncer denied their entry. Tim yelled at him. "What, you guys don't like cake?!"
On our trip to Frank's Rick danced across Clark St and stopped taxi traffic. Jeff, one of the managers, sees my notebook, asks me about it, and gives us free shots when we explain the premise behind EBONY. Note to self (and readers): use this idea for free shots. A large majority of The Other Side crowd follows us to Frank's. Rick stands on one of the booths, the bouncer yells at him, "You've got 2 strikes! One more and you're out of here!" I don't recall what strike one is, but run-in number 2 is in the books.

Since Saturday night is in full swing, we need to check more bars off the list. We head north again, this time planning on visting Matisse, #146. I order 2 Summitt Octoberfest beers -- both of us much prefer the Octoberfest fall selection over the pumpkin ales that also show up this time of year. I tried the Dogfish Pumpkin beer last week, and it's safe to say if I don't even like the Dogfish variety I'm not going to like any other brewery's creation. Today has turned into a very very rare night out where Rick is drunker than I am. Matisse is a laid back, loungy, chill, basement bar with mood lighting. Rick is in the mood for a party and doesn't like this. He's also starving. Rob shows up, Zach, Abby & Jamie show up. Rick leaves, planning to go get food. We send Zach after him, figuring the buddy system always works best.
They return in 15 minutes with stories about a closed KFC and making sandwiches behind the counter at Dunkin Donuts. The bouncer sends Rick outside to eat his sandwich, no outside food allowed in. He sulks his way through his sandwich, and returns to announce his major displeasure with Matisse and serves up a warning about the skewering they will receive within the pages of EBONY. He doesn't finish his shouting diatribe as the bouncer kicks him out. Run-in #3 in the books! It may have taken us 146 bars to get here, but one of us finally got kicked out of a bar.

Next stop...heading up into boystown to a lesbian bar, The Closet, #147. Something about everyone taking pictures of themselves holding a Charleston Chew became a running theme here, I'm not sure if I can explain this one. A girl is dancing solo on the empty makeshift dance floor, and I join her for some twirling and dipping. We (the collective 'we', this certainly includes me) are all shocked that I manage not to drop her on her head. It's been a long night, and we've still got a crowd of 6 in attendance with us. The friends-rankings are heating up. Spots 2-10 are all still undecided, even though we all know Baumer is taking home the title.

We've visited another 3 bars since then, so we're resting at a very lofty and round 150 bars off the list. As Rick mentioned in the last post, it's been rough lately. I long for the days of visting just 1 bar in an evening, and the constant movement and planned bar-hopping wears on us. I mean, really, think about this. It's the end of October, and I've been to 150 bars within a mile of where I live. That's ridiculous. My wallet and my liver scream for Father Time to bring us January 1st ASAP.

Couple of internet things of interest for ya:
Letters of Note -- this is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. A blog with historical letters of note. Read Hunter S. Thompson getting pissed at Hollywood types. Read Samuel Clemens' letter to a 9-year old girl. One of my favorites, read Beethoven's tortured letter explaining the loss of his hearing and how he hid it from the world, only to be opened by his brother's upon his death.

The NBA season kicked off last night. If you're a fan of the hoops, and you're anywhere near the same age as I am, you'll enjoy this 2009-10 preview from the always superb guys at Free Darko dot com:
Growing Older and the NBA

More later this week. Stay Tuned as we wrap this damn project up!