Thank you everybody for coming today on this day of sadness and joy. Pain and pleasure. Reflection and inebriation. Welcome one and all to the eulogy for Lodge Bar Columbus.
Hello ladies and gentlemen. My name is Bryan Fraker and I’m an alcoholic…or as Lodge Bar called me a regular. I will be the narrator on this magical journey through the two and a half years of fun known as “The Lodge Bar Years”, “Drunken Debauchery Downtown”, or “Fondling Fatties: Cankles In The Air”. It was an era unlike any other and will never be seen again. As is true with any trip down memory lane let me take you to the beginning.
I was a young 20 year old heading down to the 2008 BCS Championship Game that hailed my beloved Ohio State Buckeyes versus those inbred, tobacco chewing, gumbo slurping, English language raping LSU Tigirls. I took the trip down to New Orleans as a member of Buckeye TV, the campus television station where I was going to be the Walter Cronkite of sports, but I turned into the Jenna Jameson of bible study. During this trip I met someone who was a bartender at a Columbus tavern that I had never heard of since I was only 20 years old and wasn’t allowed to have a spirituous beverage because I wasn’t of age (…ok maybe I enjoyed a sip of Chardonnay after a long night of studying…ok maybe I had two beers on a hot day…ok maybe I took shots and became the life of the party…ok fine!…I would drink seven beers and end up vomiting one can on my shirt, two on my pants, one in the sink, one on the foreign exchange student walking by, one in my dirty clothes hamper and one inside my roommate’s economics book.) Anyway this gentleman would regale me with stories that tickled my college drinking bone (which may/may not have been my penis). Great stories like girls dancing crazy to certain songs, awesome drink specials on certain nights and anyone named Fraker got a complimentary motorboat whenever you entered…so I was tickled by this bar already…and I thought this was a great place to be…but I had no idea.
Everyone remembers their first time. I remember my first bike ride, my first baseball championship, my first sexual experience…all three of them ended up the same way: me crying in the fetal position. The first time I went into Lodge Bar it was for a friend’s happy hour. We went into the bar, sat at a table and just got a single drink $1 beverage at the bar and just talked to each other about string theory and possible cures for the common cold. After I explained my points of “I have no idea what string theory is” and “Shut the hell up with this smart sh*t let’s talk boobies!” I noticed the gentleman I met on the ride down to New Orleans. Turns out he was an assistant manager. He started walking towards our table, I made eye contact and said “Hey man what’s up?” I expected a startled expression on his face followed by a loud shriek, a pissing of the pants and lots of worshipping the ground I walked on because I am awesome! And…sure enough…he walked by without making a sound or looking in my direction. After five minutes of tears and wiping mascara off my face my manager buddy walked behind me and said “What’s up, man? Sorry about earlier. I had some work to do. You guys want some shots?” Upon hearing this I had my very first, but certainly not last…Lodge Boner. The amount of pure ecstasy I had at that moment, I knew…I would never love another human being as much as I loved my manager buddy…I mean his penis…balls…shots…Lodge Bar…there it is…I could never love another human being as much as I will love Lodge Bar.
So there you have it, ladies and gentlemen. The beginnings of my relationship with Lodge Bar. It wasn’t just a loving, nurturing and semi-coherent companionship with an inanimate building…there were people inside it. Since Lodge Bar wasn’t a futuristic robotic building that disperses alcoholic beverages directly into my bloodstream via anal suppositories, we got to meet many a bartender and made friends with a lot of them. There was Kenny Woo, Jay, Mike, Matty, Joe, Rob, Robbie, Steroids McGee who hooked us up with a $3 tab one Halloween, Eric, Pat, Tad and inevitably others whose name I forgot. Now it wouldn’t be a list of bar employees without the women! And we met a lot. There was Marmaduke (drunkenly one night I was asked to give a female bartender a nickname and shouted “Marmaduke!” It stuck and whenever we didn’t know a bartender’s name we gave her a three syllable nickname that made no sense), Jennifer, Topeka, Haley and her twins (she once introduced me to her parents who were at the bar and drunk me said “Your daughter has great boobs!”…then walked away), Alexandra, blonde with great cans, brunette with great cans and finally the other blonde with great cans. Sure, you could say that me knowing every guy’s name and giving only nicknames to the girls makes me gay, but I assure you if you lined up every girl……’s cleavage in a line-up I could tell you which one is which. It may take me 13 hours, two naps and 34 seconds of “me time”, but I can get it.
When you combine a great place with great people working there you know what you get? A cold shower after grinding on what may have been a 250 pound tranny? IT WAS JUST ONE TIME LEAVE ME ALONE!!!…I mean great experiences with two leading the way: The Party In The USA dance and Crawl For Cancer. As many of you have seen I did a certain dance to a certain Sylvia loving, mullet-dad having, no longer statutory girl’s salute to America. While it looks like a finished product in the video (or as finished as a guy alone in his room with his camera propped on a dresser and no rhythm or tangible musical talent can be) the dance started at Lodge Bar. People may be shocked to hear this…I don’t like dancing. No, it’s true. I have zero abililty/confidence/belief in other people wanting to dance with me. Don’t get me wrong; if someone wants to dance with me you’re damn right I’m gonna bust a move with you, but if I’m flying solo I feel that if I get on the dance floor I will not only stick out like a sore thumb, but may cause girls to jump out of a window or piss myself…until Miley came along. I always liked the song because it’s catchy and I love ‘Murrica and as a result…I found the song that would get me off my feet. After a couple of Fridays I had almost 75% of my dance done…then I did the video…and completed it…and the world is forever changed for the better. Hellen Keller…Betty White…Bryan Fraker: true champions.
The other memorable event would be the Crawl For Cancers. The Crawl For Cancer is a bar crawl involving almost all the Arena District bars all day Saturday of Memorial Day. There have been three CFC’s…and we have done all of them. The first time is where we got a hint of Lodge. I enjoyed the smell of wood, beer and vomit; the look of a cabin filled with wood, beer and vomit; and especially the drinking of beer that gave me wood and hope I don’t vomit. The first CFC I ate two Chipotle burritos for dinner, stayed out partying from 1 pm-2 am and we accidentally left a team member at Lodge chilling against the wall with a team that was blue like us…only they were baby blue and we were navy blue; the second CFC I ended up making out with a member of another team at Lodge Bar outside in the sun…and if I’m not mistaken she didn’t have an Adam’s Apple or a nub of a wiener; and last year for the third go around…I had an eventful time. Let’s just leave it at that.
With all of these experiences and people we’ve met…there were a lot of innovations and inventions we were a part of. The biggest invention was the pitcher of rum and coke. This was a year long process of showing up every Friday for happy hour, downing drink after drink, until Matty got fed up of constantly making single drinks for us folks that he took a beer pitcher and filled it with rum and coke…and the invention was created. We felt like kings. Every time someone went up to the bar and saw what we had, they were like “Oh my God how do you get THAT???”; and I’d be like “Depends girl…you like what you see?” as I caress my ass in an oh so seductive way; and she’d be like “Wow…I do like what I see. You wanna make out with me and my team of Swedish Lingerie Bowl models?”; and I’d be like “Hells yeah!”; and then there’d be at least 25 women making out with me and rolling around the bar and then I’d get a paddle and…AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!…sorry…just fell out of my chair fantasizing. I think I’m alright…does anyone know how to put an eyeball back in its socket?
Anyway the pitcher of rum and coke was the major invention, but there were other minor ones: Beer Shots (get a shot glass, fill it with beer and toast everyone whenever you felt like drinking), Team Peanut Butter (trivia team name that always did well), the 404 handshake (I’d show you…but I’d have to kill you…or take a dump in your car…either way), the 404 sign (I’d show you…but I’d have to kill you…or just show you if you ask nicely…either way) and my fraudulent educational background to impress women (I’m training to be a veterinarian currently at Northwestern specializing in equine studies…score!)
Two and a half years. So many friends made. So many Friday nights spent. So many memories made…and forgotten. So many great times.
So long Lodge Bar…
