9/6/07
I should tell you that the Annual Billings Pub Crawl is in no way organized or sanctioned by the City of Billings. It apparently started when a few people decided it would be fun to go to all three of the town’s bars in one night. Last year I went with Hanni and there were about 30 people. This year, intermittently, I think the number may have been closer to 40 at the highest tide. The only thing that urks me about Hanni's crowd is that they all seem to operate in the “Matlock” time zone, meaning their functions start around 7 in the evening. Which, any sane person will tell you, is so early in the night as to be ridiculous. There is no call for falling into unconsciousness at the tender hour of only 1 a.m. on a weekend night, ladies and gentlemen. But I digress…
We started at the VFW, which is far and away my favorite of the three, if not high in the running for my favorite bar ever. Although, they did lose points because between last year and this year they removed the shuffleboard table.
I believe I discovered why the drinks are so fantastically cheap; apparently the Billings VFW exists in a time-warp and we were paying 1986 prices (see picture below). Seriously, though, $2.50 for a 7&7? Bacchus be praised! Even at $1 tip each I still made out swimmingly, and the barmaid was quite generous with the liquor-to-Sprite ratio.
I should tell you that the Annual Billings Pub Crawl is in no way organized or sanctioned by the City of Billings. It apparently started when a few people decided it would be fun to go to all three of the town’s bars in one night. Last year I went with Hanni and there were about 30 people. This year, intermittently, I think the number may have been closer to 40 at the highest tide. The only thing that urks me about Hanni's crowd is that they all seem to operate in the “Matlock” time zone, meaning their functions start around 7 in the evening. Which, any sane person will tell you, is so early in the night as to be ridiculous. There is no call for falling into unconsciousness at the tender hour of only 1 a.m. on a weekend night, ladies and gentlemen. But I digress…
We started at the VFW, which is far and away my favorite of the three, if not high in the running for my favorite bar ever. Although, they did lose points because between last year and this year they removed the shuffleboard table.
I believe I discovered why the drinks are so fantastically cheap; apparently the Billings VFW exists in a time-warp and we were paying 1986 prices (see picture below). Seriously, though, $2.50 for a 7&7? Bacchus be praised! Even at $1 tip each I still made out swimmingly, and the barmaid was quite generous with the liquor-to-Sprite ratio.
Hanni and I played some spectacularly bad pool. I think there was one game where our team didn’t sink a single ball. Except for maybe the cue ball. I am powerfully happy that I married someone as dangerously un-athletic as myself. Whenever we vacated the place all that was left were a bewildered bartender and one relieved-looking old fellow at the bar.
A scant few blocks away, “The Bank” is a quasi-tavern situated inside—what else—an old bank.
I have to say I do dig the outside façade. The inside is roomy and they have somewhere in the neighborhood of a thousand songs on the juke. The only negatives about The Bank are that it’s privately owned and keeps no set-in-stone hours, and they only serve beer and wine coolers. I had to make due with Corona, but the heroic amounts of spirits I had consumed at the VFW made sure I was in no danger of sobriety.
Come to think of it, none of the bars and precious few of the shops and restaurants in Billings keep rigid hours. They seem to operate more on a “whenever we feel like it” opening and closing time which is the sole dominion of mom-and-pop businesses.
Earlier in the evening I was promised that we would not be frequenting Billings’ third watering hole. I was lied to. I hate The Oasis. Hate it. I hate this bar with the fiery intensity of a matador afflicted with gonorrhea. Hanni’s brother Peter is a fire fighter, and was a first responder in Billings. He recalled with disgusted amusement that nary a weekend used to go by when they weren’t called out to Oasis because someone had gotten beaten with a crowbar or something.
Imagine, if you will, a dodgier, less-classy version of Patrick Swayze’s Roadhouse. Now add shit-kicking karaoke and a smattering of people who count the time they got a sloppy yawn* from a girl in a vomit-covered Skynyrd t-shirt their sophomore year in high school as the high point of their life, and you’ve just about got it.
This year for whatever reason The Oasis wasn’t as bad as last year. There was a smaller crowd and less republican sing-a-longs, so it was tolerable. All in all it was a good night. But goddamn…I hate that fucking bar.
*Sloppy Yawn: aka – a blowjob.
Earlier in the evening I was promised that we would not be frequenting Billings’ third watering hole. I was lied to. I hate The Oasis. Hate it. I hate this bar with the fiery intensity of a matador afflicted with gonorrhea. Hanni’s brother Peter is a fire fighter, and was a first responder in Billings. He recalled with disgusted amusement that nary a weekend used to go by when they weren’t called out to Oasis because someone had gotten beaten with a crowbar or something.
Imagine, if you will, a dodgier, less-classy version of Patrick Swayze’s Roadhouse. Now add shit-kicking karaoke and a smattering of people who count the time they got a sloppy yawn* from a girl in a vomit-covered Skynyrd t-shirt their sophomore year in high school as the high point of their life, and you’ve just about got it.
This year for whatever reason The Oasis wasn’t as bad as last year. There was a smaller crowd and less republican sing-a-longs, so it was tolerable. All in all it was a good night. But goddamn…I hate that fucking bar.
*Sloppy Yawn: aka – a blowjob.
No comments:
Post a Comment