Old Wine, New Bottles

Friday the 15th
Having tired of frequenting the same places in town, I decided to change up my routine. For the sake of familiarity, I started out at Envy to warm up with a few drinks but soon found myself at club Extreme. Extreme wasn’t packed, but should have been considering a fantastic band was playing. If Pink Floyd had been a black jam band, I imagine this is what they would have sounded like. An almost continuous stream of music poured from the stage as several different people took over on the mic. Fast forward two hours; with a trio of separate bars and a drink selection more diverse than their mix of clientele, Synergy is one of the most unique clubs in town. The music was going and the lights were flashing and despite it being fairly late, the crowd hadn’t thinned out much. If they had still been serving, you wouldn’t have known it was any later than 2am. I also wouldn’t have headed home to build a still in my apartment in an attempt to remedy this atrocity.

Wednesday 20th
I showed up at Grants for the 37th anniversary celebration and what appeared to be the busiest night of the year. Blues legend Eddie Kirkland had just taken the stage wearing a jacket he must have acquired from an old women’s estate sale in the mid eighties and that only he could actually pull off. As I made my rounds at the bar and through the crowd I wondered why it wasn’t this busy more often. Someone dropped a buzz in my beer along the way and after getting a few pictures with some local music legends, the stage had started to clear and I proceeded to head home but the rookery got in my way.

Thursday 21st
As soon as I heard, for the thirteenth or fourteenth time in a month, that the Hummingbird had finally reopened, I went there to get confirmation… and a drink. I played a not so riveting game of darts and ended up losing horribly. Not exactly the nail-biter I anticipated. I blame this on beer and the fact that I’m just absolutely horrible at darts. At the Capitol, MAGA was kicking off with a showing of the Otis Redding biopic “Dreams to Remember”; Filled with footage of Otis performing locally and around the globe and interviews with his family and fellow musicians. I anticipated it being a late night, but much like my previous adventures as an amateur lumberjack, things didn’t go as planned. After the movie I passed out next to a leftover pizza on the floor in front of my TV (this is now a permanent back-up plan).

Friday 22nd
I’m hooked on happy hour at the Rookery. Cheap beer and quarter wings are my weak spots. So are jukeboxes and girls with daddy issues. At least I know I’m guaranteed the jukebox, wings and cheap beer on any given evening at the Rook. The local crowd that’s just gotten off work and the strangers that are passing through town usually fill up the bar. Hopefully none of them will be ganging up on me for continuing to play Duran Duran on the jukebox every evening. Later at the Downtown Drill, about a dozen or more of commandeered the area by the bar, eating, drinking, smoking and making a general ruckus until late night. I eventually made it home to change and decided to give the ascot a test run, I have a feeling I didn’t appear as aristocratic as I felt that evening. Maybe next time when include the pipe with the ensemble.

Saturday 23rd
On our home pitch we (Macon Love R.FC.) managed to narrowly defeat Savannahs Shamrocks Rugby team for the second time, winning 8-7. At Cj’s by 3, we managed to kick one keg within an hour and the second shortly after. When the sun went down, so did my level of sobriety. Downtown around midnight I gravitated towards an old friend, the Hummingbird. It was loud as hell and I was on my fifth or sixth wind at this point. None of that stopped me from stumbling around to get a Strongbow, exchanging head butts with Dan and proceeding to actually get lost downtown. I live downtown. Eventually I would miraculously awake in my own bed, the world once again my oyster.