What is it?

Your weekend with Crispin GloverThere is more than a fist full of reasons that a barfly should visit Clinton Street on any given night. The amount and variety of bars in easy stumbling distance to each other is fantastic, so you don’t really ne

Posted By Misanthroptimist on January 25, 2008, 6:28 pm

Barfly roadtrips... go sober, stay drunk!

Ahhh the seashore! The sand in your toes, and your pockets, and your hair, and your naughty bits! The smell of the fresh sea air and dead seagulls! The brisk tide and the chill wind! The sunset on Sunset Beach! Hoorah hooray, there is nothing better

Posted By Misanthroptimist on January 9, 2008, 3:10 pm

Barflies = Fruit flies?

Can booze make you gay?  A recent study by scientists at Pennsylvania State University (the other PSU) seems to suggest that booze may not only lower your inhibitions, but it might actually catapult you from latency to flown blown ass pinching,

Posted By Misanthroptimist on January 3, 2008, 2:47 pm

Fancy Booze Kills

Or at least it kills computers. Go on, you say? Alright then.So I owned this laptop for about five years. It was built like a tank, never gave me any problems. With it, I banged out posts, wrote bad poems, started plays, freelanced- you know the deal

Posted By Misanthroptimist on December 10, 2007, 6:40 pm

Learning by Doing

There have been moments, working as a bartender, when I have been certain the lunatic perched on the barstool across from me was putting me on. For instance, the fellow who called himself Mike and loudly proclaimed to an empty bar that he was “

Posted By Misanthroptimist on October 18, 2007, 10:53 am

15 Beers a Day Keeps The Lancet Away

I’ll admit that I’m a sucker for heroic tales of endurance and overindulgence. Add a cherry to that suckerocity when those tales also involve beer.This from a mysterious “correspondents in Paris”Sixty-beer binge leads to four-

Posted By Misanthroptimist on September 28, 2007, 9:45 am

Ambulance #2

There’s never a second ambulance. Except, of course, for the brain-injured patron who relays this factoid across the bar on the wings of cheep American lager. There is never a second ambulance, he repeats himself:"But I gotta tell you man,

Posted By Misanthroptimist on August 15, 2007, 4:16 pm

Crossing the Bar

I’m not sure if my father ever crossed the bar. Twenty something, Astoria in the seventies, an infant at home. I can’t remember if he ever said anything about it, his days with the Coast Guard.The Columbia River bar, where the river meets

Posted By Misanthroptimist on June 21, 2007, 12:56 pm

Reason # 69 why you should not drive and... embrace?

Here’s a tip! If you’re going to have drunken sex in your car, then do it when it’s parked. If you’re going to have drunken sex in your car while it’s moving, make sure you have a designated driver. This from the News Tr

Posted By Misanthroptimist on June 14, 2007, 4:02 pm

America, you drink like a lightweight.

Last call, dive bar, east side. I was out of breath, grinning. I had drunkenly sprinted five blocks, throwing the weight of my body forward with every stride, allowing gravity and momentum to propel me, manically, down the street to gain a barstool b

Posted By Misanthroptimist on June 13, 2007, 3:29 pm

Rags to Riches in the CSP

There are some bars that are like walking into a Bukowski story. I think that’s why I love the Clinton Street Pub. This last Saturday, my lady and I having just completed a successful mall trip for new sheets, we wandered into the CSP around 2P

Posted By Misanthroptimist on June 12, 2007, 4:16 pm

A Beer by any other name would still taste like "peez"

I’ve been reading Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace for, like, 5,000 months now. Over that period, I have developed a nervous tick that occurs when anyone says the word “addiction” and a healthy respect for tennis players. Which

Posted By Misanthroptimist on June 7, 2007, 6:01 pm

Reason # 7,684 Why you should not drive drunk

I’m just going to say this right out front: Drunk driving is no good. Okay? Alright then. I mean, this is why I bribe my lady to be the DD (which is also, coincidentally, her bra size) or generally drink in places that are in walking distance.

Posted By Misanthroptimist on June 5, 2007, 4:26 pm

Everyone's a critic- with a gun

So, it turns out that if you ever embark on any kind of Karaoke madness, you should try to stay in tune as if your life depended on it. This from the Philippines:Man slain for singing off-key in videoke barBy NON ALQUITRAN The Philippine StarFor sing

Posted By Misanthroptimist on May 31, 2007, 4:15 pm

Captain Invincible, meet Dr. Enabler

Yes, I have had times like this, myself... Thinking it was over between me and the she-devil, booze. But just then, the Dr. appears and his song is like the sirens...

Posted By Misanthroptimist on May 30, 2007, 1:44 pm

Oregon's New State Bird: Wild Turkey

Way to be above average, barflies. I mean, I always knew that there was something special about my buddies and I, bent into giggling question marks behind watery bourbons at the local bar. Turns out, we can drink most of the U.S. under the goddamn ta

Posted By Misanthroptimist on May 30, 2007, 1:34 pm

More evidence that booze is good for you

I knew that I felt less hyper-tense when tilting back a brewski at my local brewski joint. I mean, there’s always that sense of relaxation and calm. That, aint-life-grand-with-a-beer-in-hand feeling, when your eyes are starting to glaze, watchi

Posted By Misanthroptimist on May 23, 2007, 2:45 pm

Strip Clubs for the Beginner -or- Perfect Gentleman Extended Remix

Ahhh the strip club- There is no other place where the human animal can express, so boldly, the full measure of its desire, beauty, ugliness, passion, hope, cruelty and kindness. All of it played out on the beat to hell barstools, neon stages and shi

Posted By Misanthroptimist on May 18, 2007, 2:28 pm