Tax Day : Weird Guerrilla Style
Tax day came around this year and instead of digging in and giving the government more cash to fund a war with, we decided to file an extension and go drinking. Our fabulously awesome friend, Aunt Stacie took over babysitting responsibilities for the evening and we were off to a friend and fellow business person's 40th birthday celebration.
The location was somewhere I've wanted to check out for years now, but never came up with a decent reason for going to. Backspace is a gaming center very much like the one I was trying to open up about 3 years ago. It's a coffee bar, lounge area, artist gallery, and online gaming hangout. The only thing they are missing from my vision is the beer.
For those without prior knowledge of the business I was intimately familiar with starting, the gaming location I attempted to organize was going to be a place where online gamers could congregate and destroy each other in virtual cyberspaces. It consists of a bunch of networked machines, playing many different cooperative strategy-based games. The punch was that we were going to serve pints of tasty brew and facefulls of deep-fried everythings. Specials on Bawls and happy hour drinks, appetizers, and memberships were all covered. The whole operation never took off because of dwindling resources and no bank would give me financing (despite presenting a sensational business plan). The fundage on the whole thing went down and I had to go find me a real corporate-type job to start paying the bills again. Anyway, that's all in the past and I now refer to it as just another business learning experience.
So, Backspace is a great place with an artsy spin. They're staffed with a couple of real geeks, Drew and Chris, whom I had the pleasure of rapping out with for a while about business and what-not. They feigned interest in what I was talking about and were stoked when I said I would come by during normal business hours. That was at 3:30am Sunday morning when we decided to finish the night out at the same location we started at. More on that later...
The back room area of Backspace is still under construction, which made it the perfect location for a birthday party/artist showcase/fundraiser, powered by digital record-spinning DJs. I mean, they were real DJs, but they were all Macs and iPods and what-not. Anyway, we brought the birthday girl an appropriate Vantucky-inspired gift of a bottle of Jack Daniels, a pack of smokes, and a WWE ("pro" wrestling) lighter. She was thrilled.
They had a keg of some microbrew and some awesome foodage at the event. We stayed for a bit, but we left just as the fundraiser part was about to begin to hit another favorite bar of ours. We promised Andrea (our birthday girl) that we would hook back up with them at the Shanghai Tunnel later on. Our friend, Steph, had been at another 40th birthday celebration, and we all decided to take a break at the Low Brow together to get drunker.
We walked in to the Low Brow expecting the normal crowd and got the opposite. 90% of the people in there were dressed in some crazy costumes with some definite theme involved. Being that it was such a weird occurrence, we grabbed one of the party goers and interrogated them as to what the hell was going on. It was the inaugural Guerrilla Masquerade Party PDX. Yep. They chose the Low Brow. The poor unsuspecting wait staff was overwhelmed with business. I think they must have supplemented the staff by calling in an extra. It was really bizarre, but I think everyone was having a pretty good time.
After getting some threatening cell calls from Andrea about why we hadn't joined them at the Shanghai Tunnel yet, we decided it was time to hop over there. We gained a very welcome reception from the group and proceeded to close the place down. Seriously, we were the last ones out of there - and only after being asked to leave several times by the staff.
I'm not the first one to say that my wife and Andrea are cut from the same cloth. It becomes even more apparent when they are drinking/talking (read: drunk talking) together. Their actions are similar too. We found this out when I was restraining my lovely wife while at the same time Jim (Andrea's hubby) was mimicking my actions by restraining Andrea from somehow getting involved in an alley fist fight between a couple dudes we didn't know. They both really wanted to step in and "contribute" somehow. I looked at Jim and realized we're married to the same people.
We said our farewells and went looking for our car. Being safely headed toward home is always the best time to turn around and head back to the place where you began the night. So, we did just that. Back to Backspace and we helped close that place down too.
We got back home to a sleeping babysitter on the couch a little after 4am. It was a great night, and one that we don't get to experience all too often being parents of a couple kids. Happy 40th, Andrea!
The location was somewhere I've wanted to check out for years now, but never came up with a decent reason for going to. Backspace is a gaming center very much like the one I was trying to open up about 3 years ago. It's a coffee bar, lounge area, artist gallery, and online gaming hangout. The only thing they are missing from my vision is the beer.
For those without prior knowledge of the business I was intimately familiar with starting, the gaming location I attempted to organize was going to be a place where online gamers could congregate and destroy each other in virtual cyberspaces. It consists of a bunch of networked machines, playing many different cooperative strategy-based games. The punch was that we were going to serve pints of tasty brew and facefulls of deep-fried everythings. Specials on Bawls and happy hour drinks, appetizers, and memberships were all covered. The whole operation never took off because of dwindling resources and no bank would give me financing (despite presenting a sensational business plan). The fundage on the whole thing went down and I had to go find me a real corporate-type job to start paying the bills again. Anyway, that's all in the past and I now refer to it as just another business learning experience.
So, Backspace is a great place with an artsy spin. They're staffed with a couple of real geeks, Drew and Chris, whom I had the pleasure of rapping out with for a while about business and what-not. They feigned interest in what I was talking about and were stoked when I said I would come by during normal business hours. That was at 3:30am Sunday morning when we decided to finish the night out at the same location we started at. More on that later...
The back room area of Backspace is still under construction, which made it the perfect location for a birthday party/artist showcase/fundraiser, powered by digital record-spinning DJs. I mean, they were real DJs, but they were all Macs and iPods and what-not. Anyway, we brought the birthday girl an appropriate Vantucky-inspired gift of a bottle of Jack Daniels, a pack of smokes, and a WWE ("pro" wrestling) lighter. She was thrilled.
They had a keg of some microbrew and some awesome foodage at the event. We stayed for a bit, but we left just as the fundraiser part was about to begin to hit another favorite bar of ours. We promised Andrea (our birthday girl) that we would hook back up with them at the Shanghai Tunnel later on. Our friend, Steph, had been at another 40th birthday celebration, and we all decided to take a break at the Low Brow together to get drunker.
We walked in to the Low Brow expecting the normal crowd and got the opposite. 90% of the people in there were dressed in some crazy costumes with some definite theme involved. Being that it was such a weird occurrence, we grabbed one of the party goers and interrogated them as to what the hell was going on. It was the inaugural Guerrilla Masquerade Party PDX. Yep. They chose the Low Brow. The poor unsuspecting wait staff was overwhelmed with business. I think they must have supplemented the staff by calling in an extra. It was really bizarre, but I think everyone was having a pretty good time.
After getting some threatening cell calls from Andrea about why we hadn't joined them at the Shanghai Tunnel yet, we decided it was time to hop over there. We gained a very welcome reception from the group and proceeded to close the place down. Seriously, we were the last ones out of there - and only after being asked to leave several times by the staff.
I'm not the first one to say that my wife and Andrea are cut from the same cloth. It becomes even more apparent when they are drinking/talking (read: drunk talking) together. Their actions are similar too. We found this out when I was restraining my lovely wife while at the same time Jim (Andrea's hubby) was mimicking my actions by restraining Andrea from somehow getting involved in an alley fist fight between a couple dudes we didn't know. They both really wanted to step in and "contribute" somehow. I looked at Jim and realized we're married to the same people.
We said our farewells and went looking for our car. Being safely headed toward home is always the best time to turn around and head back to the place where you began the night. So, we did just that. Back to Backspace and we helped close that place down too.
We got back home to a sleeping babysitter on the couch a little after 4am. It was a great night, and one that we don't get to experience all too often being parents of a couple kids. Happy 40th, Andrea!
1 Comments:
At 1:58 PM,
The Kyle said…
You just can't disrupt the careful balance of street fights. It is for nature to decide the victor, and which drunk must retreat to nurse its wounds. Darwin said so.
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