A Hodgepodge of Good ol' Fashioned Morons (Part 1)

For any out-of-towners who happen to come across this blog and who have future plans to visit our fair city, there are two essential factoids you must learn before going out carousing at the Kankakee County bars. 1) If you order anything but a Bud Light, Miller Lite, Coors Light, Busch Light, or Jagerbomb, you will receive at least a dozen odd glances in your direction. 2) Depending on how many bars you go to (must be at least 3) and how many hours you are out drinking (at least 4), you are guaranteed to hear these 4 songs on the respective jukeboxes (or, as I started calling them 30 seconds ago, the Holy Quadrumvirate):

• Living on a Prayer-Bon Jovi.
• Don't Stop Believin'-Journey.
• Shots (shots, shots, shots, shots, shots)-LMFAO.
• And this song, which when sung by 37 year olds with tatoos of bloody butterflies on their lower backs, typically plays on repeat in my nightmares that night.

Also, you know things are looking up for you and your friends when you hear mashups of any combination of those 4 (as I have at On the Rox). Sidenote: the bar On the Rox in Kankakee, although being the prime destination for any 20-something looking to grind on overweight girls, has one inexcusable flaw. On the front of the banner that hangs on a lightpole near the entrance, it denotes the name of the bar-On the Rox. But on the back side it changes to the accurately spelled "On the Rocks". It's like the owners were trying to be hip and grammatically correct at the same time and didn't know which road to take. Poor managerial judgment if you ask me.

Now, since the last time I posted, there understandably hasn't been a story that could rival that of Wild Bill's. I've had a few interesting adventures and met some of your typical asshats, but nothing that has been wild and crazy enough to turn itself into its own separate post. Thus, I've decided to make this entry a sort of highlight package of people i've encountered in my last year and half drinking in Kankakee. Also, you may have noticed that fat neo-Nazi looking dude who has taken over for Wild Bill in Club K3's Drunk of the Month. I'll get to him later. He's one of the asshats. I really like the word asshat.

I also really like alliteration, and thus will call this section Brainless Bartenders. As I don't want to generalize all bartenders in Kankakee County as idiots and morons, I'll put it lightly and say that "many"  Kankakee-area bartenders are idiots and morons. Take this one for example:

It was the night of my 23rd birthday and as I had just watched an episode of my favorite show of all time giving the background of my favorite character in the show,  I was pretty pumped up. I decided I wanted to have my friends meet me at The Office, a tiny bar off of Rt. 17 known for its everyday $1 Miller Lites and its title of  main stomping grounds for the biggest, baddest, and most likely cheapest, motorcycle gang in town: The Hieland Road Hotrods. I got to the bar before any of my friends did as that song about rain making corn and corn making whiskey that has the lyrical skill of an alcoholic pre-schooler blared on the jukebox. Being as I was one of only a handful of people at the bar, especially one that did NOT appear to be regular clientele, the bartender decided to chat with me. (At the time I was wearing a Juarez, Mexico T-shirt that I had bought at a market there. My youth group in high school went down to the poverty-stricken city to build houses for desperate families, and it was a really rewarding experience.)

Anyway, the conversation with this 40-year-old was simple enough. She asked me where I lived and I told her just down the street. Her response was "Oh, it seems a lot of people live over there." I could tell from that point it was going to be a really stimulating conversation. I told her yep, thats what all those houses are probably for. Except I didn't say that, I just kind of nodded my head. She wasn't finished, though. Looking at my shirt she inquired,
"Been to Mexico?"
To which I responded yes, I had been to Mexico.
"What part?"
After taking a quick look down at the name JUAREZ splattered across my chest, I looked back up and said "Juarez."
She gave a quick smile, uttered "I love vacations" and turned around to serve another customer.

As anyone who knows anything about Juarez, it ain't exactly Cancun.

Another story happened a little farther down the road at a little restaurant/pub called Ryan's Pier. Never a place to be without its own little quirks, (I still occasionally order the "Biscuits and Gray" stemming from a mistake on the menu that lasted about 10 years) the Pier has a gimmick known as Drinking Around the World, in which a customer has to drink a beer from each country in the bar's stock. I think it's a total of 20 or so beers, and if you do it once you get a Ryan's Pier T-shirt. Do it twice, you receive a badass sweatshirt, and three times gets your name on a small plaque that hangs on the restaurant's walls ( basically the Stanley Cup for young central-Illinois drunkards). Given that about 4 of my relatives' names are on that plaque, I decided it was about time to start my own Ryan's Pier drinking quest. The first night I didn't make much of a dent in my trip, only knocking out Mexico and Japan. It was second trip that brought me this gem.

I walked in with a coworker at 4:30 on a Wednesday afternoon, looking to check a couple more countries off my list. Not knowing where to start, I asked the bartender, who was also most likely in her 40's, what she recommended. She suggested I go with New Belgium Fat Tire, a beer I had had before and liked so I went with the suggestion, not knowing much of the background of the beer. I gave her my card, she wrote on it, and  I put it back in my pocket without looking at it. We stayed for a couple more beers and I ventured on home. After I got back home and was sitting on my couch, I took out the card to inspect it. There on the third line under Mexico and Japan, this clueless lady had written "New Belgium" as the country where Fat Tire was brewed. Obviously, New Belgium certainly isn't an actual country, but the best part about that little mistake is that Fat Tire isn't even brewed overseas, it's made in, you guessed it...Fort Collins, Colorado. Now when I go back I can't wait to check the beer 312 off my list-you know, the beer from that mystical country called Goose Island.

To add one more member to the all-Kankakee bartender 1st team: the girl with the fake tits in which 75% of Kankakee men know her weekly schedule (surprise, surprise: she has an illegitimate child).

Since I have a few more short stories to tell, and don't feel like writing any more, I'll save the second part of this post for tomorrow. And if that pisses you off, well, to quote my friend Roy D. Mercer, I'll mop the floor with your ass then whoop it for not gettin in the corners.

Club K3
"Where Every Beer's a New Adventure"