Phase One: Research

there it is, ladies and gentlemen. a one-mile radius from my house. i have to say, i thought it was going to reach a little further, or at least it did in my mind. now i'm feeling totally up to the challenge. what's one itty, bitty mile?

i'm going to get this blown up at walgreens and then hang it in the dining room at the house to chart my progress. nothing says project like a giant google-map and some push-pins, eh? maybe even some yarn.

now that i've gotten this far, the next step is to start mapping out all those bars. it's the tiny, non-descript ones i'm really going to have to hit the streets for. you can't find those suckers on the internet.

to the boozemobile!

The Proclamation

sometimes you wanna go where everybody knows your name...

...but sometimes i wanna go somewhere and be a total stranger. just unwind and have a beer and blend into the background. that got me to thinking - where does a city gal go to just relax and have a cold one, where i can just soak in my surroundings, see new faces and still be close to home?

then those thoughts spilled over into a whole cauldron of thoughts. how many bars am i missing out on by going to all my usual haunts? am i turning my back to a whole scene of local folks or cheap deals? what if there are bars that just blend into all the row-houses and corner stores and one of those bars is sending out subliminal messages to me and i've been ignoring them all along?

let's talk about bars for a minutes, shall we?

bars have a long-history as a meeting place and common ground for adults. a place to escape, to relax, to go crazy, let loose, hang out, blah, blah, blah. it's like grown-up day care, but instead of fighting over toys, people fight over seats or ladies and instead of milk, the bottles are filled with beer.

they're deemed "recession-proof" and whether or not that's true, most drinkers will tell you that job or no job, they'll make time for $2 cans of old milwaukee once a week to just feel human.

it's what links a fair amount of people together - going out and sitting on a stool, ordering a drink and taking that first sip.

so what am i missing? how many bars have i just let slip by? too many, that's for sure. i'm denying myself too many opportunities.

2011 is going to change this. in 2011 i, hacksaw brothers, will go to every single bar within a one-mile radius of my house. at least once. and have at least one drink. every. single. bar.

that may not seem like much but when you're living in the heart of logan square and wicker park, lincoln park, roscoe village, humboldt park and a slew of others are within reach - that adds up to a shit-ton of bars. and i'll document it here. people i meet, stories that get told, who's making magical cocktails and things of the like.

people will surely join in on my adventures and when all is said and done, i think it will make me a more rounded-out bartender and a more rounded-out person. i've got some planning still to do, but this is where it begins. the proclamation has been made.

let's do it, chicago!