Best Crawl Ever

So I guess I've been charged with retelling the tale of our Pub Crawl drunkedness, which would be easier if I could remember it all. Hell, it'd be easier if I could remember most of it. Luckily I have our Twitter feed, pictures, and the memories of the soberer (aka everybody else) to help jog my memory. Without that we'd be completely screwed.

Regardless, we started off the night early because we always enjoy an opportunity to drink while it's still light out. Misaki's was fairly uneventful, mostly because all of us (sans Bris, the ultimate pregamer) were soberish still. After a quick round of Sake Bombs to remedy that situation we headed towards the Miracle Mile portion of the festivities. Centrale and Alder Market didn't participate this go around, which seems strange considering the only reason I even know about either of those establishments is because of the Pub Crawl.

The bars that were there stepped their game up and embraced the Crawl for all its drunken awesomeness. Valley Brew once again changed its menu from the last time we'd been there (surprise!) and for once, I was disappointed by their deep-fried mushrooms. I'm not sure if we just got an off batch or if they intentionally made them less crispy for the free grub vouchers, but they left a lot to be desired. Luckily ranch fixed that.

Next I'm told we headed to the back of Taste of Brittany, also known as Moulin Rouge. The name brings up memories of a horrible Australian musical, but it's actually a pretty cool place that serves a nice variation of one of my favorite drinks, the screwdriver. We chatted with the owner Dan a bit, he seems pretty cool. We all make a note to come back to next morning for some crepes. None of us make it.

The Matinee earned our derision last crawl with their lackluster Jungle Juice. This time wasn't that much better, but we did get a piece of alcohol soaked fruit to go with it. They packed a decent punch.

After jumping on the trolley towards the Waterfront Warehouse, we noticed the crowd had picked up considerably. While the crowd was still of the slightly-to-considerably older variety, it was still a pretty fun group as everyone was pretty hammered by now. So it was against our better judgement to chug the slurpees masquerading as premixed maitais that they call Hula Girls at the Sunset Grill (nee Waterfront Grill, Boiler Room). Granted, they were delicious going down. But mix all that sugar with the Long Islands, Jungle Juice, sake, beer, vodka, mushrooms, and deep-fried asparagus and the results aren't going to be pretty the next day. But for that night they were fucking awesome. Sunset Grill even had Samoan dancers for some reason.

After that it gets kind of hazy. If I remember correctly we made a quick Chitivas stop and then headed to Beach Hut Deli via trolley. As usual, Beach Hut had the best deal of $1 pints of any beer. A deal which I promptly wasted on Pabst because there was no way I could handle thicker, qualitier beer with all that sweet shit in my stomach. Sadly, Bradley's drink special was also the Orange Lazarus of alcoholic drinks known as Hula Girl, so I stuck around Beach Hut and ate some of their kickass nachos. Because, fuck it, my stomach's already going to hate me, might as well throw in some chips and salsa. Eventually, a band broke out in the corner by the door, which occasionally happens at the Beach Hut.

Eventually we all chugged our beers, and decided we were going to see what was up with ol' Paragary's. You may recall that at the last Crawl we didn't receive the best treatment when attempting to drink there. We drunkenly thought that surely they had come around this time in these hard economic times and take any comer and treat them as royalty. I mean, he's supposedly hurting for customers, right?

Well, we walk in and are immediately shot a dirty look and told that they're closed. Now, mind you the bar is about a quarter full as she tells us this and that it's 10:30 at night on a weekend. An hour and a half before the Pub Crawl ends and well before when any self respecting bar attempting to turn a profit would close. Naturally we ask "Closed? It's 10:30. Why?" and are told that they are in fact, out of drinks. Of course, seeing the full stocked bar behind her, a confused look comes over our face. We reason with ourselves that she means that they're out of the free Hula Girl candy drinks and I go "No, I have money" and proceed to whip out my wallet and display my impressive $45 wad.

I feel I should break here to note that this is probably a milestone in Downtown Stockton's redevelopment that a pessimistic native Stocktonian like myself would willingly open their wallet without fear of ramapercussions in the middle of the night. I mean, this is exactly what they want right? For us to open our wallets to downtown to generate revenue. I wasn't even doing it figuratively, I was doing it literally. And what do I get? I get a "No, we're out." So my friend and I go on a drunken rant about being a paying customer and Paragary's is losing revenue for this reason, and not for any lame subsidy excuses because, well, fuck Paragary's. So the next time Mike Fitzgerald tries to lament the fact that we're petty dicks with a hard on for subsidies, and that's the reason Paragary's has to sell, you can tell him he's dead wrong. It's because shit like this happens. Twice.

After this it gets incredibly hazy as we hiked on over to the Hippo Bar, which is massive, and drown our sorrows in they're late night drink specials (which I hear they have on a weekly basis) that extended past the Crawl. Around this time our group got separated, because that's always a good idea when you're completely plastered. I ended up on a trolley back towards Bradley's that was so packed that some chick came up to me and sat on my lap and then turned to me and said "Don't get hard." Yup, it was a Stockton kind of crowd. It was pretty awesome. Frankly, if downtown concentrated on more alcohol-centric ideas like this to get people down there on the warm summer nights (because, let's face it, booze one of the few things that we can all agree on), that whole revitalization thing might actually catch on.