Bar #35: Corky's Place

The second bar of the preplanned bars was put on hold till we could get all our friends that wanted to do karaoke. Of course after 8 months the 2 original friends that wanted to come didn't. However, it was my friend Aiden's going away party; so, we had plenty of people to go to a memorable night at bar #35, Corky's Place.

My business, Pawsitive Influence, is a door down from Corky's Place. You would think I would be heading over there all the time. I run a dog daycare and bring my dogs to work with me. Since, going to Corky's requires me to drive home and then return back to work I haven't felt compelled to make the trip. Plus, everyone that I know that's been to Corky's has been there for a specific reason karaoke. I don't sing. Tonight, I would sing karaoke for the first time in 15 years.

Corky's Place did know I was coming. They did nice things like reposting that I would be there Friday night, giving me a free beer, and putting up a Every Bar in Lakewood graphic on the screen. If there is one thing I have found during this blog is that if a bar is given an upper hand then bad luck or weirdness will ensue. The first of these happened before I even arrived. I got a text from Katie that there was a fight. A couple minutes later there was a second fight (only verbally this time.) That was the end of any violence of the evening. The scuffles were between the new bouncer and the previously fired bouncer who are normally friends. The new bouncer was victorious and like a Bumble, bounced the old bouncer.

The atmosphere was dark and taverny. This helped make the open layout feel intimate while drawing your eyes to all the entertaining features. These included ping pong, a bowling machine, pool, Golden Tee, free pop corn, a shiny bar section and, of course, karaoke. None of these were the first thing I noticed upon entering Corky's Place. What we were all immediate spell bound by was a very drunk man probably named Tom yelling out made up lyrics to a song while being a stumble away from face planting.

Johnny started us off with a brave choice, Pepper by Butthole surfers. It was better than Tom. Sorry Tom. The nice thing about karaoke is no matter how bad you sing there's always someone worse...or at least your friends will tell you that there was. I was the worst of us but that's coming up.

The list didn't have all the songs we wanted but the DJ was willing to look them up to see if he could download them. Normally we picked songs via a cracked ipod. There wasn't a printed list.

I went with Me & Julio Down by the School, it was a rash decision once my first three choices weren't available. It was also the wrong version so my timing was off. For normal people this would have been fine but as my voice acts like I'm tone deaf; I'm not. I hear that I'm wrong without the ability to fix the issue. After failing I went back to drinking (it's hard to mess that one up.)

Alcohol drank that night: mead and hard cider at the first bar, then Sam Adams, a jello shot, Bell's Oberon and to finish things off a can of Busch. I find Sam Adams to be the defining line between craft beer and corporate beer. Bell's Oberon is still awesome. Busch is not good, it has a kind of stale sweetness that probably comes from being made from corn.

The high and low points of the evening came one after another. Aiden got the bar excited by his rendition of Baby Got Back, including most of the bar yelling “Yeah!” at the appropriate times. My rendition, even with two of my friends backing me up, of the Boba Fett Rap was disastrous. It was probably played too fast, since between the three of us no one could keep up for more than two lines.

Rules to follow about karaoke.

1. Singing unhappy songs well is better than happy songs unwell. Example: Me and Julio vs my friends' Radio Head and Fiona Apple songs.
   
   
2. If you sing show tunes, you are never as good as you think you are, but you can pretend this is because of the speakers.
   
   
3. If you don't sing, you can't make fun of other people who do.
   
   
4. No matter how bad, drunk, sober you are compared to everyone else sing and have fun anyway.
   
   
5. If you are stumbling around drunk we, probably, don't think you are singing well, sexy or funny; and yes, we are laughing at you. (The tough love part of todays blog.)

The DJ was pretty good and usually funny. He played funny clips in between singers.

I met a fan that was real happy with my previous Corner Pub review and said I hit it right on the nose. Compliments and criticisms are always encouraged, more so the compliments. I also, met another person that had just heard that I existed and was there. She stood in front of me as I tried to tape my friends sing Bohemian Rhapsody. But I never have a problem with any of you coming over to talk and it is a very long song. It was made even longer by randomly halfway through jumping into fast forward. You could see their brains crash to a halt the word speed hit 5x. It was fixed and they pulled it off. They also received free shots for their trouble.

Eventually, the lights came up and it was time to go. We had a really good night and saw a handful of really creepy people (you can't have karaoke without a couple.) Most of the people there were normal enough, even saw a random friend. We really didn't have anything bad to say about our experience.

I got the lunch special later that week. A small pizza and a beer/pop for $5. It was good for $5 and cooked in the toaster over in like 3 minutes.

Fun fact: Corky's Place is named after the son of the original owners, my landlord. When they were registering the bar they needed to give it a name, which they had't come up with yet. So on the spot they named it after the kid.

Corky's Place is not your average bar. There is plenty to do there and karaoke Wednesday through Saturday. There's a wide range of beer available but mainly your standard corporate varieties on tap. There's a wide range of patrons that will always give you someone worth meeting and someone that will be refereed to in a later conversation “Did you see that crazy guy/lady/...person” Regardless, Corky's Place, bar #35, is a lot of fun and lived up to its reputation as the place you must do karaoke at. Fun enough in fact, that I returned or am returning, depending when you read this, the following Saturday, May the 4^th Be with You.

13302 Detroit Ave

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Bar #30: The Flying Rib

This week's bar was picked because I was hungry. This is one of the few bars that comes right out and says we're good at this one specific type of food. The Flying Rib is bar #30 and I'm eating ribs tonight.

I entered the Flying Rib, which used a mixture of antique ceiling, dark wood, and modernish designs. The first room was all bar on the left and all four person booths on the right. 

Unfortunately, there were five of us so we moved onto the dining room, decorated with a ton of beer sings and a punching bag machine. In the beginning, we had to order at the bar but both bartenders quickly switched over to serving us directly at the table.

I didn't write down what I drank.

 Check back later and I'll have actual information here.

The salad was fine and 

more filling than expected. Jalapeno poppers are fried cheese with a jalapeno pepper slice inside. You really can't go wrong with that, and they didn't. Now the important question. How were the ribs? The sauce was good, a little tangy. The meat just fell off the bones. There were the little bonelets on the end of the ribs. Overall they were good and more than worth the price.

I ordered a side salad, jalapeno poppers and a half rack of ribs. 

There's a lot to do at the Flying Rib, most of which is in the third game room that takes up the right half of the bar. They've got indoor cornhole, ping pong, darts and pool. The game of the night however, was the electronic punching bag. A group of guys were going back and forth on it. They were punching hard enough that little Jurassic Park rings were appearing on the beers. They started with using their fists. They then, upped the ante to using their heads. The first head bunt hit as hard as some of the weaker punches. The second guy slipped and almost put his head into the machine. They went back to punching after that.

Johnny our beer connoisseur was unable to be with us this bar.  His job shipped him off to Taiwan for a couple weeks to teach them how to build his solar panels.  But he was with us in spirit and with spirit over Skype.

The Flying Rib had good service, food and a comfortable enough atmosphere. Everyone there was enjoying themselves and they had more than enough games to keep the good times rolling. There are plenty of reasons to go to the Flying Rib, their ribs are just the BBQ icing on the cake.

11926 Madison Ave

216.521.0117

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