I ran with the Hot Dog, you put it in your mouth

The band is back together. After a late run to make our July bar count somewhat respectable, we needed to keep momentum going with the start of August. Earlier in the week I got a text from Broseph, who owns the Great Urban Race, to see if I wanted to compete with him in the this years race so he could see the dynamics of GUR from a new perspective. Experiencing both the highs (winning the 907 scavenger hunt in 2007) and lows (teaming up with Selfy for a demoralizing 17th place at the 2007 GUR) of this type of adventure, I needed to get myself back on a winning note.

After a 16 mile run Saturday morning with the OMTC crew I had an hour to rest and caffeinate before the high noon start at The Cubby Bear. Our strategy was simple, sprint to the Addison Red Line stop ASAP and work on the clues from there. This went sour when we waited 10+ minutes for the southbound train to arrive which allowed the CTA platform become a complete GUR clusterf*ck. The trip south gave us plenty of time to solve the clues and map out our routes: Q1) Comedy Sportz – Belmont and Sheffield – check. Q2) need to find someone wearing a tie-dyed shirt or Chuck Taylors – keep in the memory bank. Q3) Kingston Mines – Wrightood and Halsted – check. Q4) Find a job application or a Help Wanted sign – easy, hit up a Starbucks before the finish. Q5) Herman Joseph _____ started what German restaurant…think, think….Berghoff – around Adams and State – check. Q6) Daley Bicentennial Plaza, just east of Millennium Park – check. Q7) Victor Fleming directed what movie in 1939 that later had a Chicago park dedicated to it? Has to be Oz Park. What character did Jack Haley play? ….we need a picture in front of the Tin Man – Lincoln Park off Halsted – check. Q8) Famous tattoo shop owned by Dale Grande? …. Has to be the one near Belmont and Sheffield, note: near Comedy Sportz. Q9) Riddle that Joe solved before even finishing – need to find a street sign w/ the same consecutive letters, ie..Sheffield, Fullerton, Wellington – check. Q10) Eat a hot dog from new joint at Fullerton/Clark, easy enough. Q11) Detour: count how many Olympic flags are in the Morningstar building window, then hold up that many fingers in a picture in front of the Art Institute, or count number of flags outside the Palmer House and do the same but in front of the Picasso – cake walk. Q12) Donate one of 4 items (pack of 8 markers and one coloring book, matchbox car, Barbie doll, or a children’s book) to the Starlight Children’s Foundation – across from Berghoff easy.

Train stops at Lake Street, we’re off. I sprint to the Morningstar building while Joe goes straight to Daley Bicentennial Park. 7 flags, Ricky don’t forget this. Now sprint the near mile to the park dodging thru traffic and putting my body as fatal risk crossing Michigan Ave to meet Joe just as he is jogging there. Task: crab walk, then leap frog, then wheelbarrow the full length of the tennis courts here. After 5 minutes of constant sweating we’re off to the Art Museum. Take picture w/ 7 fingers, check. Berghoff, there down the street, go! Wait, we need a kids book, we got to the poster store across from the museum and pick up a $15 kids book on who knows what. We dash out of there, donate the sweaty book to Starlight and dash across to the Berghoff. Wait, what do we need to do here? Get a picture of 10 people doing the “Superstar” pose in front of the sign. Joe, I’ll round up 10 people, you get someone to take the picture. God damn Joe, get someone to take the picture, these people are restless. After finally asking 5 people, someone is nice enough to take our mug. Now sprint to the Brown Line. After another near 10 minute wait we finally get on. Wait, Joe, look, Chuck Taylors. Excuse me sir, do you mind of we take a picture with your feet? Brown Line arrives at Armitage, we sprint for Oz Park and find the Tin Man. Joe is completely winded and slowly heading towards the pain cave. Joe, you wait for the Halsted bus north and I’ll meet you at Comedy Sportz, we’ll skip Kingston and I’ll run to Fullerton and grab the dog. I sprint to the hot dog joint, crab one immediately off the counter and proceed to run w/ it in my had for the 1.5 mile distance over to CS. Still no sign of Joe, I wait, I wait, I wait and wait. Finally he sprints up the stairs. Our task: charades, we can’t leave until Joe guesses 1 of 2 of my words. I get “children” or “knight”. After a couple failed attempts of acting like a baby, I pull out my knight act and he gets it immediately, go figure. Joe, eat the hot dog, I ran with it for 2 miles you put it in your mouth. Now off to the tattoo parlor. Pick up a rub on GUR tattoo and put it on my forehead. This took way too long to get it to stick. After many failed attempts it’s time to spring back to the bar. Wait, Sheffield, get a picture of the sign. Nice call. Now sprinting home, get the Starbucks application and cross the finish line to victory. Well after 1 hour and 38 minutes of closeness with Broseph we take 2nd overall out of 500+ teams. Since Joe is the head hancho though we obviously have a conflict of interest and don’t officially count in the results. After a shower and 2 Lagunitas IPAs, its time to celebrate.

The post party wastes no time as we’re joined by Selfy and the many GUR staff/interns. We spend too many hours at the Cubby Bear (especially considering Kyle and I were already here for the EB&D premier) getting drunk on cheap beer and watching a makeshift jam band on stage. Kyle arrives after his adventures at Cog Hill and we head out to actually start crossing bars off the list. The night gets blurry as our raucous behavior continues on to John Barleycorn (worst bar in the city) and Moe’s Cantina (not far behind). We play the dancing game (each person gets 1 artist, and when the DJ plays that artist, that person needs to lead the dancefloor). I challenge Selfy to many one on one’s and I’ll have to admit he had the better of me this evening. My quick feet and flailing arms are no match for his electric shoulders and swinging hips. Around 11 I call it a night (after consistent boozing since 2PM). Kyle holds on strong and does EBONY proud.

Tonight we are off the Southside see Gordon Beckham and the Sox tackle the team with the best record in the AL on Mark Buehrle appreciation night. We'll be raising a pint in MB's honor.

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.

Where would I be? I'd be a Warrior, a Warrior

First, lets do the numbers ( it's reverse of how NPR does it, but this isn't NPR).

Some stats, we're 8.3% of the way through the year and we've hit roughly 14% of the bars on our list already. This is good news, as free weekends will be few and far between as the days begin to warm up this spring and summer. I doubt we'll have back-to-back Saturdays with 8 bars each again this year. Concerts, weddings, races, vacations and common sense will start getting in the way. We'd like to thank those of you who have helped us so far along the way: both of my brothers - for their encouragement and suggestions; Derek - who acts as our unpaid consultant; Hall - for always managing to stay classy; Annie - for not telling us that this is a ridiculous idea.

As promised -- the January Leaderboard!

We have a four way tie for 3rd place -- visiting all of 6 bars with us...Selfy, Isler, Costello & Chenoweth! Congrats fellas. You will get complementary EBONY matchbooks. They're in the mail, probably lost. Call your post office to check up on 'em.

Coming in second place, with an impressive showing of 10 bars and already the clubhouse leader with multiple entries into the EmptyBlogOfNothing Quote Hall of Fame...Hall! Way to go Halljams. Best of luck in the Boston Marathon if you manage to keep this pace up.

No big surprise on the winner here if you've been following our trials and tribulations...but it's a huge shock to us considering we didn't even know this guy until after we had visited our first bar of the year. Coming in with a grand total of 13 bars (would've been 14 if he had spent more time at Rose's)...Internet Celebrity Baumer! I'm not making this up when I say the monthly superfan will probably end up with an EmptyBlogOfNothing t-shirt once I get them made. The rest of you will have to pay.

So there you go...the gauntlet has been thrown. If you want the spoils of February start showing up.

And finally, a plea.

We'd like to think that during these times of economic hardship our mission at EBONY is acting as a local micro-economic stimulus package, however minute it might be. We're doing what we can with our expendable income to pump it back into our local surroundings, recirculating the monetary funds to support those who provide us with entertainment and liver damage. It's important that we, as Americans, support our local watering holes -- even if you do have 170 of them. If your streetcorner tavern shuts it's doors the battle will surely be lost, surrendered to the evil forces of corruption and all that is wrong with the world. Now, not every bar I enter is going to agree completely with me, but that's what the free market is for. Through diversity we achieve great things, our differences will unite us. There are enough of us here to drink the available spirits, and there are enough different bars to house all of us. So to you -- the preps & punks, young & old, gay & straight, country & western, alkies & winos, cubs & sox, the carnivores & herbivores, the bluetools, the young professionals, the unemployed, the underemployed, hooligans & beatniks, club kids, pool sharks, and karaoke stars -- venture out of your homes, don't drink in solitude by the fireplace! The cold bleakness of winter cannot be battled alone -- it must be fought with your comrades. Do not go softly into the gray recession, we must fight it together side by side, barstool by barstool, pint to pint! Raise your glasses and sing together -- we shall overcome! We, the denizens of the night, the drinkers of the day, the champions of the club! The Masters of Consumption and Double-Shots for Everyone! Forty-thousand, counting affiliates, and twenty-thousand more, not organized, but ready to drink: 60,000 soldiers! CAN YOU DIG IT???!!!

We are still here! Today, let us send a message to that army. Tonight, let us shake this cave. Tonight, let us tremble these halls of earth, steel, and stone, let us be heard from red core to black sky. Tonight, let us make them remember, THIS IS ZION AND WE ARE NOT AFRAID!

Sorry...got a little carried away there. Drink responsibly and make sure you can walk home. Shake that cave.

And if you say run, I'll run with you

The day began strangely -- we witnessed what almost escalated into a parking lot fight at the drive thru of the Chase across the street. An older man (maybe mid-60s?) was screaming at the top of his lungs at a similarly aged couple who had their dog with them. I quote, "I said I'm sorry!! WHY ARE YOU TREATING ME LIKE I'M A %&*$ING CRIMINAL!!!" This continued for 30-40 seconds. We couldn't really figure out what happened but eventually they must've figured out it was a beautiful snowy winter day in Chicago and they should enjoy it instead of spending time shouting at each other in a parking lot.

So we continued to The Union, a Big Ten sports bar. Walking in we were greeted by an empty room and a dog loudly barking at us. Of the 7 people in the bar we were the only paying customers and the only 2 who were not friends of the owner. I ordered a Blue Moon (without the orange, I don't need fruit in my beer), and was quickly reminded that I don't actually like Blue Moon. Jimmy Buffet's greatest hits album was playing on a loop. That I was able to detect this should signal that we spent too much time at The Union.

Heading south to the Irish Corner, (Halsted & Diversey, a title I've only bestowed upon that intersection just now as I type this) we stopped into Harrigans to meet some friends. This is your standard Irish bar, nothing spectacular about it. The bartender struggled with a coffee machine for several seconds (and actually called someone on the phone for assistance) before serving us a few glasses of strangely priced Three Floyd's Alpha King. There was no music playing, just the broadcast feed of the first NFL playoff game today. We were soon joined by Internet Celebrity Baumer, a sick-yet-still-visionary Holland, and the surprise arrival of Costello and Isler.

Needing food we hit another member bar of the Irish Corner, Trinity. Trinity has $3 Guinness...ALL THE TIME. We picked the right day and the right bar to hit up for food -- cheeseburgers were also on special for $3. These aren't the thin patty mini burger almost sliders they have on special at The Northpark Tap (extra $1 for cheese), these are real standard sized cheeseburgers that come with a large serving of waffle fries. I ate two of them.

Friend of the Blog Selfy eventually showed up, making his first of what will be many mentions in these pages. Laura, our bartender who looks a little like Alison Lohman (pictured), pretended to be interested in our conversations...conversations that included Isler's claim that he could walk across the United States in 2 weeks.

Heading south again we walked into a sparsely populated Victory Liquors. This is a Notre Dame bar that replaced former pool hall The Corner Pocket. Our reserved VIP area (it wasn't a reserved VIP area) featured one of those Boxer machines. Basically these things are an easy way to rid a group of competitive males of the singles in their wallets without employing poles, women or a bad dj. For the low low price of a dollar bill you get one punch on the speed bag, the power of your punch is displayed. Top to bottom, our rankings: Selfy, Costello, Kyle, Ricky, Isler, Internet Celebrity Baumer

A group of meatheads showed up and quickly put about $10 into the machine...one of them claiming he held the record on the machine at another bar. He never came close to the record on this one. Also, there's a video of Costello head-butting the boxing bag that'll be uploaded eventually (check the facebook page linked below). His score after the forehead impact was significantly lower than any of our punching results, leading to a discussion of the usefulness of the headbutt in combat (pro - suprise, useful in close quarters; con - headache).

The Grand Central is across the street from where we used to live. We used to hit up the All-You-Can-Eat brunch buffet here on the weekends after winter long runs, then they raised the price (presumably because 8 skinny runners would show up every weekend and each fill 5 plates worth of food...but probably not).

Rick and our waitress had the following exchange:
What's your name?
Yana
With a K or a J?
With a Y.

The GC is also the place that caused the end of a previous brief relationship for Selfy. The message she left him, in reference to a night spent at the GC, "It's your dancing. It's all over the place and it's not good."

So speaking of dancing, we're greeted with David Bowie upon our entrance to Chi-Town Tap. Based on the acquaintance that Internet Celebrity Baumer was trying to make it was apparent that the spoils of this bar crawl were affecting him far more than the rest of us. Whoever pumped some money into the jukebox gave us a surprisingly good run of tunes (Interpol, Radiohead, Kings of Leon, Ramones, Strokes). The tall glasses of Bass were on special here for $3. For reasons unknown, Isler remarks, "On a scale of 1 to 10, you guys are sweet!"

Rose Bar is possibly the best dive bar in Chicago (The Queen of Dive bars, maybe?). Really, there's little to no effort put forth here...it's a haphazard collection of mismatched furniture, glasses and patrons. If you order 3 of the same beer there's a good chance you'll get 3 different glasses. An older man drinking by himself broke into The Music Man's "Ya Got Trouble" when we walked in the door. Internet Celebrity Baumer showed up late, announced that "it smells like body odor in here" and we left.

Strangely enough, this was on the wall at Rose Bar, not Delilah's

For our last stop, Selfy, Rick, Internet Celebrity Baumer and I hit up one of our favorite places in Chicago (bar or otherwise), Delilah's. There's always an interesting crowd, a superb selection of drinks, great music (be it a themed night or just the jukebox), strange things playing on the televisions (old Batman episodes in this case), and the art on the walls is for sale and frequently changes (a selection of Elvis paintings tonight). I wish I had remembered to take a picture of their sign out front...oh well, I'll be back here again. The Batman episode must've been a good one -- top tier criminals The Joker, The Riddler, The Penguin and Catwoman were all featured. I don't know how often this happened in the series, but it must've been significant. Somehow I put $5 into the jukebox at 9:30 and my songs immediately began. This will probably never happen again.

Delilah's

Thanks to the idea of sick visionary Holland, we've put together a Facebook group that'll house more pictures, comments, etc. You can find it HERE

what's your malfunction besides alcohol?

i'll leave the full recap to Kyle, but here are my brief notes from last night:

The Union:

- the owner smoking inside the bar, the owners dog named Caesar hangs out in the bar, watching the Illini Alumni basketball game and not seeing Damir Krupalija

Harrigans:

- "blogs by nature are full of nothing, and yours actually acknowledges it." - Holland

Trinity:

- Laura, our bartender being very impressed w/ our resolution - you better be reading this!, and Kyle telling her he can get her running shoes if she wanted any

Victory Liquors:

- taking on the punching bag machine and seeing Baumer not doing much better than Costello head butting it

Grand Central:

- Kyle, Selfy and myself going to our old apartment to see our neighbors dog Hercules, only to learn they moved and Kyle telling the new tenant "You ruined our fun"

-throwing tater tots

Chi-Town Tap:

- nothing too out of the ordinary here, just Baumer putting more effort than necessary on to his new friend

Rose Bar:

- noticing in a single glance that there are at least 11 different types of chairs in this bar

Delilah's:

- drinking some Changs, and me burping it up 14 hours later on my run.

so far we have accomplished our January quota, so we're off to a good pace - which helps since i'll be out of town next weekend, although the following weekend is my birthday, so i'm sure a handful will be crossed off then.