Nightlife
Picks
Bingo Is the Game-o
Pretend your friend Max is a psychiatrist, and we'll play
the word-association game. Ready? Here we go:
"Gambling."
You thought Vegas, right? Or perhaps exotic Monte
Carlo, where James Bond makes bejeweled babes
while coolly blowing a brick of legal tender thicker than
your neck. At the very least, you thought of the video-crack
dispensers at your smoky local suds-joint.
But your humble, drunken narrator recently stumbled--as
he does with every step--into a shadowy gang of gamblers
whose ranks run in the millions. No, I'm not talking about
George W. Bush's campaign financiers here. I'm talking the
people who fill bingo parlors. And lemme tell ya,
I originally found these temples to Lady Luck more frightening
than any Mafia-controlled casino. What could be so scary
about elder ladies with more blue hair than a Bay Area punk
band? The fact that they're casually spending our inheritances,
that's what.
To combat this intra-generational war of attrition, I assembled
a crack team to liberate some scratch for the youth. OK,
sure--I just wanted to win extra bills for beer. But as
we marched into Sunset Bingo's linoleum-floored and
fluorescent-lit arena deep in the jungles of Southwest Portland,
our battle plan was nonetheless the same: to carpet-bomb
our paper targets with ink and walk off with the cash.
Easy money, baby.
Except for one problem: This bingo ain't how it was in
kindergarten. Rather than align a simple row of numbers,
pro bingo requires players to blot out specific blocky shapes,
like check marks, donuts or kites. Each round has a different
shape. The blocks are printed on newsprint sheets, with
each page featuring three grids per game; the minimum purchase
at Sunset is a five-sheet pack for $5. The ultimate payoff
of $1,199 comes in the blackout round, when entire
grids must be filled in.
Now, I know something about blackouts. But with no beer
on the premises, I was worried my booze-starved brain would
make me blot the wrong squares, thus causing premature bingulation
(shouting "bingo" without actually having it) in a dizzy
fit of delirium tremens.
Fortunately, neighboring competitors weren't the cutthroat
killers I'd feared. Surrounded by a mess of paper, armed
with multiple markers, and punching called numbers into
a tabulation machine, one of these women kindly led us through
the game's complexities. Soon we, too, were burning out
our retinas on the hall's many monitor screens, waiting
for advance warning of the next alpha-numerical combo to
be called.
We watched. We daubed. We lost. Repeatedly.
WHERE
WE WENT:
Sunset Bingo
4830 SW Western Ave., Beaverton, 520-8600
Daytime rounds begin at 11 am. Night rounds begin at 6:30
and often run to the ungodly hour of
10:15 pm.
NIGHTLIFE
EVENTS:
KARAOKE
Micro-stewed sing-alongs
LaurelThirst
2958 NE Glisan St., 232-1504
9 pm Mondays
SOUL DJs
Soul Night at the Alibi
DJ Gabe spins singles from the '50s and '60s
Alibi Restaurant
4024 N Interstate Ave., 287-5335
9 pm Mondays
Fat Tuesday
DJ Aquaman spins '60s and '70s soul
Viscount Ballroom
722 E Burnside St., 233-7855
Late-night Tuesdays after live groove-jazz by Porterhouse
Soul Kitchen
DJs following live soul by Tahoe Jackson and Black Angel
Dante's Caffe Italiano
1 SW 3rd Ave., 417-1747
9 pm Thursdays
Exodus
'70s soul and funk
1201
1201 SW 12th Ave., 225-1201
9 pm Thursdays
COMEDY
Charlie LaBorte & Don Barnhart
Stand-up guys
Harvey's Comedy Club
436 NW 6th Ave., 241-0338
8 pm Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday, 8 and 10:30 pm Friday,
6:30, 9 and 11:30 pm Saturday, March 8-12. $8-$10.
ComedySportz
Dueling knee-slappers
1963 NW Kearney St., 236-8888
9 pm Friday, 7:30 and 9:30 Saturday, March 10-11
$10, $9 with can of food for the Oregon Food Bank
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Willamette Week | originally
published March 8,
2000
|
