I like to be independent but I don’t always like to be myself. One of the most difficult things about living in LA, for me, is that I don’t have too many people that I can call and hang out with, which was never the case when I lived in Tampa. A lot of the time it’s just me and my dog. I go out most nights not to get hammered but to just be around people. I may never talk to any of them, but it helps me feel like I’m not alone. That’s why I like the Parlour Room so much; I feel comfortable there and I have made a few friends, but for the most part — to borrow a line from one of my favorite movies — I consider myself to be a bit of a Lone Wolf.
According to Wikipedia, a “lone wolf” is “an individual who prefers solitude, expresses introversion or works alone”. In that sense, I am not a lone wolf. I think solitude sucks and I am naturally extroverted (I also don’t work, but that’s not by choice). When I call myself the Lone Wolf what I mean is that I don’t have a pack that I belong to. A long time ago I did, but I chose to leave my home pack and I haven’t found a new one that I fit or that fits me.
I also haven’t had anything to write about lately. I have things I’d like to write about, sure, but for some reason I haven’t had the motivation to do anything about it. Some of it is because I’m focusing on other things like some new scripts but a lot of it has to do with me. Lately, I’ve been feeling like there’s nothing to write about because there’s nothing going on in my life at the moment. Like, nothing at all. (That’s not entirely true, my roof did catch on fire last week but I’m not going to dive into how or why because that’s not what this story is about.)
I turned 30 a couple of months ago and since then, it’s been pretty uneventful (minus the fire). My birthday came and went, and aside from a nice little gesture from my homies at Parlour Room, there wasn’t really any celebration. I did, however, treat myself for my birthday: I bought five tickets to see my beloved Philadelphia Phillies play the Dodgers and Padres in early June. I had never been to San Diego and figured I’d stay an extra night to celebrate my birthday a couple of months late.
I had two objectives when I went to San Diego: see the Phillies win and successfully complete a bar crawl for my (late) birthday party. I like bar crawls, although I haven’t been on an official one. Sure, I’ve bounced around from bar to bar, but it’s never been curated or anything like that. Plus, doing a bar crawl is great when you’re in a new city because you can get as much nightlife in one night that you can handle. The hostel I was staying at happened to be doing a crawl while I was there, so this was perfect planning.
The hostel was pretty cool, all things considered. I stayed there because I wanted to interact with people and seeing as how I was by myself, I could’ve used the interaction. The last time I went on a solo vacation was my March Madness trip to Vegas and aside from a nice hour long get together with my uncle Tim, I barely talked to a soul for three days. I didn’t want that to happen again and going on that bar crawl was going to solve that problem.
So the idea of a bar crawl is simple: there’s a string of bars… you go to one, have a drink and chill for a bit, and bounce on to the next one. No more than an hour, tops. At least that’s how I always saw it. If there are a lot of bars in the area, especially in a place as cool as the Gaslamp District in San Diego, wouldn’t it be great to see as many as possible? Sure, if one is pretty lit it’s alright to stay but don’t overstay, you know? Anyway…
There were six people in our bar crawl group that night: two Norwegian girls (let’s call them Sweet and Low), a British preppie (we’ll call him Hugh), a guy from Fresno who randomly stumbled upon the group (we’ll call him Brad) and the leader of our pack who we will call Jack, because as he was “a jack of all trades” when it came to partying (keep this in mind). I was the first one to arrive and my first impression of Jack was that he was enthusiastic. I was looking forward to drinking with this guy. With all of them, really. It was an interesting pack that I was happy to be a part of.
Our first stop on the night was to a dueling piano bar called The Shout! House. Two guys playing requests on these big ass pianos. It was a nice place to start the night, get the right vibe going. Jack got everyone together at a table and said they’d play any song we could think of. When it turned out that wasn’t true we decided we had enough. Or at least, I mentioned we’d been there for an hour and should probably go check another place out. After a unanimous vote, we headed to our next stop: The Double Deuce.
The Double Deuce was a pretty dope place once we got there (we had walked around in a circle because Jack couldn’t decide where we should go next). There were two sides to the bar, one for karaoke and the other for bull riding. The best part was that because we were with the hostel, we got a free drink and special deals. People started to loosen up a bit… Sweet, the friendlier of the two Norwegian girls, had a lot of charisma and I really dug her energy. I convinced her to do karaoke, she convinced me to ride a bull and vice versa. Jack recorded it on his phone and said he’d send it to me. Things seemed like they were going well…
Then an hour went by. Sweet and I were trying to convince the others to go to another bar. By this time Brad, who apparently knows Jessica Alba, decided this bar crawl was stupid and left. Worst of all, the Jack of All Trades Party Animal was busy playing some Harry Potter shit on his phone in the corner. After another hour went by, Jack had decided he wanted to go to bed so he just left. But we were in the hands of Hugh, who was the back up host. Turns out that guy was only there in case the host decided to bail, which he ended up doing.
Hugh was a worse host. He clearly had no intentions of doing the bar crawl, nor did he want to talk to me at all. All he wanted to do was hook up with Low, the other Norwegian girl. Sweet, on the other hand, agreed that we should go somewhere else but she didn’t want to leave her friend behind. I tried, I really did, but I couldn’t stay any longer. This was not how I saw my night going. And unlike Vegas, I wasn’t going to sit in a bathtub and drink by myself; I was going to crawl around San Diego and drink by myself, because that’s what a Lone Wolf does.
The new objective was to hit ten bars in one night. I had already been to two. I left Double Deuce a little after 11 and I had until (at least) 1:50 to get my last drink, which would be at The Bootlegger, the bar right next to my hostel. As long as there was a bar along the way, I’d stop in and get whatever was on special and stay until I finished my drink. Be in bed by 2 am, call it a night. It was a brilliant plan.
The third stop on the crawl was Coyote Ugly. Fun fact about Coyote Ugly, they’re all over the place. That movie wasn’t any good, but they had a $4 Jack Daniels special going so that was enough to get my ass at the bar. Speaking of which, you can dance on the bar but you have to be a lady. I’m not saying I want to dance on the bar, but as someone who has dancing Tourette’s I feel like I should be at least allowed the option to. Who’s to say someone doesn’t want to see me dance a little? Equal opportunity, guys. Come on…
The fourth stop of the night was a place called Vybz. First of all, what a flex! You couldn’t just name it Vibes because that’s too basic and instead of deciding on whether to add a Y or a Z, you said “screw it, let’s do both”. Amazing. I’m not sure what type of vybe it was supposed to give off but there was literally no one inside except for a DJ playing extremely loud music and a very nice bartender who I’m assuming the DJ was playing the music for. They had $2 Coors light and two tables set up for beer pong, but no one but me to drink and play. It was sad.
The fifth stop on the bar crawl was arguably my favorite, The Tipsy Crow. It’s an unassuming corner bar, dimly lit and small on the inside but go up the staircase and there’s a whole lot more to it. It’s got a speakeasy look and a pool table but it also had portraits of Ron Burgandy along the walls. There were couches and tables and a faux fire place. Even the door guys were pretty nice, talking about living in SD and giving me tips on where to go next. It was definitely a classy joint. Mr. Burgandy would’ve approved, although he wouldn’t have had a $5 Jameson like I did.
The sixth stop on the bar crawl was Barley Mash. The place was pretty cool and it was still crowded even as the night began to wind down. I managed to get my drink for free after I acknowledged it was someone’s birthday in the line to get in (they were more drunk than I was). They took me in and wanted to do a shot, but I convinced them to get me a Coors instead. After a chat with the birthday boy(s?), I decided to keep on going. Barley Mash was cool though, definitely a place you’d want to go if you had a group with you. You know, like a bar crawl group… Just saying.
My seventh stop was Werewolf, a place where you can sing karaoke from anywhere at the bar. There was this girl singing “Superman” by Eminem and she was holding this super cute dog the entire time. A lot of these bars in San Diego are very pet friendly. At this point, I was pretty drunk and I was beginning to miss my pup. When the song finished, I awkwardly asked the girl if I could introduce myself to her dog and after a minute of pleasantries I went back to drinking my $4 Jim Beam. The girl then came over and wanted to talk to me, and even let me hold Cody, the dog. Dogs are basically domesticated wolves, so we had that connection. I don’t remember what the girl’s name was, though. That was probably my favorite moment of the night.
My eighth stop of the night was at a place called The Tin Roof. If you’re thinking “holy shit Shea, how are you still going”, you’re going to be shaking your head at this next part. OK, so The Tin Roof looked like the place to be if it wasn’t 1:15. If it was 10:30, oh hell yeah. A lot of good looking people, lots of space and the drinks were pretty cheap. The only problem is there were like two bartenders working the entire time and everyone around me was piss drunk. I stood at the bar for about twenty minutes before I decided to just take the untouched drink that was right in front of me and quickly chug it before I left. You can judge me all you want to, but the Lone Wolf doesn’t listen to the opinion of sheep. Besides, I was on a time crunch, OK?
My ninth stop was at The Smoking Gun, and at 1:35 we had officially reached last call. The bar was a little more upscale than the others, but it was on the way so I had to stop in. There was no special either, but I told the bartender to give me a well whiskey and make it feel special (whatever that means). I noticed a group of people hanging out, all talking about work or school or whatever. They seemed to be having fun, enjoying a night out amongst friends. I started to think about my friends back home, how I hadn’t had a good night out with them in a very long time. I got a little sad, as one tends to do when drunk. After a tear dropped in my whiskey, I drank it and hit the road.
The last stop of the night was Bootleggers, just as I had planned it. I walked in at 1:45, just in time to get one last Coors Light from the bartender. As I sat at the bar with my frosty brew, I felt really proud of myself. I know that sounds stupid (because it is) but I seriously felt like I had accomplished something. Not only did I manage to make it all the way to bootlegger’s, but I did so without any bumps in the road along the way. And even though I did it by myself, I did meet some really nice people at the bars I went to. That made up for it. And I made it back to the hostel on time. That was hands down the most astounding part.
You’d think the story would be over after that, but if you know anything about me by now you know that’s not the case. Before going to bed, I decided the responsible thing to do would be to drink a big bottle of water. There was a 7-11 nearby so I headed that way. Unfortunately, my phone died on the way there and I was so drunk that I ended up getting lost. I was maybe four blocks from the hostel but it took me two hours to get back to it. Everything I was proud of myself about with the Bar Crawl evaporated during my impromptu 7-11 Crawl. Say it with me… this is why I can’t have nice things!
My hangover the next morning wasn’t the worst I’d ever had, if I’m being honest. I wasn’t black out drunk, because as you can see I remember practically everything that went down that night. No, instead of a hangover I had a three hour train ride back to LA where I was left with my thoughts. My bar crawl was successful and yeah I had fun, but what did I really get out of it? It’s not like I could look over at my friend next to me and say “remember that from last night?”. But there was no one there. It was just me.
Later that night in Hollywood, I went to Parlour Room and told a couple of my bar buddies about the bar crawl, basically what I just told you guys. They asked me if I had fun and I said yes… but in the back of my mind what I wanted to say was “eh, it was OK”. What I really wanted to say was I wish I wasn’t by myself the whole time. What I really felt was alone. But that’s not this Lone Wolf does; he sips his cheap whiskey and keeps it moving. He can’t let anyone know how he really feels because it’ll make him look weak. In reality, the Lone Wolf misses his pack.
I do miss my friends back home. I miss going to Press Box or The Patio and throwing darts and drinking beer. I miss hanging out and cracking jokes with the homies. There were a lot of late nights and great memories, and there were times I took that for granted. I mean, it was me who wanted to leave in the first place. No one told me to move to LA, it was something I has always wanted to do. I just never took into consideration how lonely it could become. I love it here, I really do. But I don’t have a pack out here.
I promised myself that I would try something different now that I’m in my 30’s. Nothing’s really panned out from my 20’s, or since I’ve moved to LA, so it’s time to switch it up a bit. That’s why I’ve decided to join a couple of improv and sketch writing classes. Maybe there are other lone wolves in attendance. We would know, we can sniff each other out. Who’s to say that a bunch of lone wolves can’t form their own pack? If a bunch of lonely people hang out with each other, are they really alone?
Just like my bar crawl plan, it’s a brilliant idea, the first of many I’m sure to have in my 30’s. And unlike my bar crawl experience, maybe this time I’ll have people to talk to about it.
Until next time…
SF
“You guys might not know this, but I consider myself to be a bit of a loner. I tend to think of myself as a one-man wolf pack.” – Zach Galifianakis, The Hangover
This Is Why I Can’t Have Nice Things 