3:10 pm: Sitting at the bar in the 10 Barrel pub drinking a Tullamore Dew next to comrade-in-bloggery Jack Elliott, who talked me into joining his annual St. Patrick's Day pub crawl. Jack is having some kind of "Irish" red ale. Doesn't think much of it.
One respect in which Bend doesn't suck too hard is it's a good drinking town. There isn't a hell of a lot else to do, so people kill time in the many brew pubs. As Holly Hamilton sings in her wonderful parody, "Stuck in the Middle of Bend": "There's one job for every 10 people here, so we sit around and drink micro-beer."
Gotta bug out of this pub crawl before too long or I'm gonna have a macro-hangover.
4:05 pm: Made it to O'Kane's without any casualties. First Tullamore Dew has settled well -- now working on the second one. Elliott was kind enough to let me scarf up some salami and provolone from his antipasto at 10 Barrel. Gotta keep the stomach well-coated. Steady as she goes.
4:17 pm: Even on St Patrick's Day, O'Kane's refuses to play anything but the goddam Grateful Dead. "This is a Grateful Dead cigar bar," I was told once when I requested a change in the music. WTF is a Grateful Dead cigar bar? A Grateful Dead marijuana bar ... now, THAT would make some sense. Fortunately there is a bagpiper outside who is more or less drowning out The Dead.
5:20 pm: Leaving O'Kane's. Eliott is headed off for Velvet, another pub, to continue the crawl. I'm crawling home. Two drinks is enough for me, considering I don't want to arrive home completely shitfaced for Mrs. Miller's special St. Patrick's Day dinner. An enjoyable mini-crawl it was, nonetheless.
5 comments:
Have fun out there guys! Watch that stout stuff, it'll pull a knife on ya'!
O'Kanes, an otherwise pleasant place for playing a game of chess, smoking a cigar, sipping a libation, also loses points with me for the soundtrack. How or why they feel that the Dead's incessant tuneless whiny vocals and endless, aimless cannibis-inspired guitar noodling goes with the well-appointed and comfortable space is quite the mystery.
How or why they feel that the Dead's incessant tuneless whiny vocals and endless, aimless cannibis-inspired guitar noodling goes with the well-appointed and comfortable space is quite the mystery.
So very well said. I've wondered that for years. My theory has long been that if one were to be able to find as drug-addled an "audience" as they had, then yes, The Standard becomes so low in fact that virtually -anything- becomes an acceptable form of "music"?
Never been a fan of music Exec. controlled material where every facet of the release is polished to the enth degree, but those meandering "sessions" were intolerable. And that's AS a guitar fan!
"those meandering "sessions" were intolerable. And that's AS a guitar fan!"
It's especially intolerable to a guitar fan because it's BAD guitar playing. It's just diddling around. The musical equivalent of a marathon wanking session.
I'm told one of the all-time great guitar solos ( is likely the work of clever EDITING, after the fact! )
Cream's version of "Crossroads" is widely considered one of the best and for years I lamented the fact that over 8 minutes of it wound up on the cutting room floor! For the longest time I'd have given -anything- to have heard them!
Of course all that built on the assumption it was every BIT the culmination the originally released FOUR minutes were? In time, that Quest grew less urgent. Although Clapton could get "long winded" in those days, he ultimately cleaned it up and brought The Goods.
To be truthful, in retrospect ( and no offense to the dead ) but Stevie Ray tended to get sidetracked as well. Great solos stand the test of time. Noodling is well.., noodling.
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