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.

Odds and Ends

I’ll fill in the odds and ends of the weekend not including BBC/Kylepalooza. Friday night we saw Todd Barry perform at the Lakeshore Theatre. Todd is famous for his extreme stoic/dry sense of humor. He absolutely killed and broke glass at the same time. He has an amazing ability to roll with the punches in performing ad-libs back to obnoxious audience members/hecklers. The stand-up routine was top notch too; check out YouTube for some of previous skits. You may have seen him in the The Wrestler, or in last seasons Flight of the Concords. On special, Lakeshore had 22oz Goose Island Matilda’s for $10 – this increased the comedy tenfold. For how good the show was, the quote of the evening comes from Kyle telling the dude waiting in line behind us after his friend cuts to the front, “apparently your friend thinks he better than all of us.” The expression on his face was priceless.

Sunday was a rougher morning for some of us than others. I think I heard from at least 3 EBONY fan club members that they either threw-up last night or early this morning – nice job kids. The Internet Celebrity Baumer met us at Justin’s in the early afternoon to catch the Hawks game. In a very uneventful Game 1, we nursed a couple Buds and headed back home to recover from Saturday. A few hours later we went over to the DOC Wine Bar for CarolynFest. Too many friends were here to mention, but the full friends ranking list is updated. Message us if we screwed up somewhere as some nights become foggy. I think it is safe to say I am never going to the bar again. It had absolutely the worst service we have experience all year. Yes, there were a good 25 people in the backroom for the birthday gathering, but that is no excuse to wait 50 minutes for a glass of wine! Fucking ridiculous. Carolyn II mentioned to me that she is stealing my patented dance move from last night with giving me no future credit at all. My immediate response was, “well, you can go to Hell.” I think it was adequate in its brevity.

So far we have crossed 91 bars off the list – well above are quota of 75 thru May. We figure we have about 100 left to tackle. If you include bars outside of the mile radius, our total count (bars were Kyle and I are both there) is up to 119. I don’t know if I’m proud or extremely sad with myself.

Circus

I get to write the short version this week! Various notes:

Paddy Long's has framed pictures of Pele and Chewbacca on display behind the bar. Can't argue with that. Our bartender was slightly miffed when I put money into the jukebox, thus ending her broadcast of the latest Britney Spears audio assault.

Vaughan's…I got nothing. Unmemorable.

Soprano's…Derek and his dual-citizenship friend from Boston forgot to pay their bill. The waitress from here tracked them down before we got to the next bar.

Uncle Fatty's was closed at 4:53 and 5:18, open around 5:47. I was hoping we wouldn't have to go there. A group of medical professionals in training were upset when I asked them to move because they were in the way of our bags game.

Matilda is most likely our favorite bar in Chicago. The fact that many of our friends were there as well made that quite a good night. Eating as many appetizers as possible did not make up for me not eating dinner on Saturday night. I hung out downstairs in Baby Atlas, Rick didn't. No problem, I'm pretty sure we'll be back there before too long.
At some point this year I will no longer be able to list every bar we've been to, in order, off the top of my head. We haven't reached that yet. I think I can make it to 50.

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.

What's Goin' On?

Hatched while watching a snowstorm fall on the Chicago intersection of Clark & Belmont from the front windows of The L & L Tavern, Rick and I wondered how many bars are within a mile of our apartment. Before determining the answer we decided it would be our challenge and opportunity to visit all of them during calendar 2009. This site will be the chronicle of our chronicles.
Official rules for what constitutes a "visit" and what establishments qualify are forthcoming. Generally we have to have one drink there and it has to be a place that one would go to just to have a drink. (ex: The Vic does not count, that is a concert venue. We'll probably end up having a drink there anyway and write about it. Cesars/Killer Margaritas does count. People go there to drink margaritas.) If the place is famous or known for something we will attempt to enjoy that (fish & chips at the Duke of Perth; karaoke at Trader Todds).
When I say that there are a LOT of qualifying bars that we would normally not visit it is not an understatement.

We're searching for a better title for this. Feel free to submit any ideas.

These don't count, but last night's venues were Parrots, The L & L Tavern, Matilda and Baby Atlas. There are an astonishing number of unfavorable reviews on L & L at yelp.com. We surveyed the Saturday night drinkers attempting to determine who would go home disgruntled, armed with the power of the internet and their wits. The jukebox at the L & L is adjacent to the men's restroom, however the old man sitting by the jukebox smelled far worse than the toilets. He asked that I play a Marvin Gaye song first. I did.