Tales from Down River – Da Brewski

The first time was around Halloween time 2004. After we successfully left “Little Joint” with our necks intact, we began driving down Southfield again. Now, if you read our tale about “Little Joint”, you would know that it’s Chris, Donna & I. I am DD and they are a wee bit tipsy. If you didn’t read the tale, then now you know also. I spot “Da Brewski”, so do a U turn, and we head on in. Now, Chris & I are on a mission to get Donna a lemon drop as she has never had one, plus she is sooo funny when she pukes. The bar is sparsely populated, but they are doing Karaoke, so we decided to take a table and watch.

Chris goes up to the bar to get us some beer and get a lemon drop for Donna. As Donna & I are at the table, we both start discretely pointing out people to each other. It doesn’t take long to realize that there is not one sober person in the bar, except me. Actually, as far gone as the other patrons were, Chris & Donna would have been considered sober as well. It was very surreal. The two waitresses were wobbling around, not really serving anyone. The bartender/owner was doing the side step drunk walk. You know the one, where you are trying to walk straight, but due to your body lean you sorta go at a diagonal. It was truly amazing.

Chris got us our beers, but no lemon drop as they didn’t have any lemon. We had a bit of a laugh over that as it appeared the elusive lemon drop was simply not to be. We watched the waitresses play a deer hunting game. It was quite funny to see them standing, their feet firmly planted, yet their upper torso’s were going around in circle trying to aim the gun. Reminded me of some of my real deer hunting trips, which is a very scary thought. We were thinking about leaving, when this guy staggers up to the karaoke machine and starts it. Yep, it is time for Drunken Karaoke.

Of course that the only way most people will do it anyways, so it’s not that unusual. What made this such a memorable event was how drunk they were. It was the two waitresses, the owner/bartender, and one other guy. I think he was the karaoke DJ as he had stumbled to our table and gave us a song list. It was like watching a horrible car accident. As much as you are repulsed you can’t turn away. You just can’t. That is what the singing/howling was like. We just couldn’t leave. I don’t know what songs they tried to sing, I knew that it was painful. Literally, my eardrums hurt as they tried to reach a high note and began screeching. At one point two were standing and singing a duet. They were really getting into it, swaying back and forth. Of course only 5th word or so was understandable, but the funny thing was they couldn’t control their swaying. They keep going faster, back and forth, faster, until “PLOP’ they both just sat down on the edge of the little stage.

At that point we left for another bar. We have stopped back in there, but nothing equals that first night. It was truly a drunken dive.