Oregon Tavern Age: Empire Scenes

An OTA man informs the bar he has open heart surgery scheduled for next week. He’s drinking a double vodka in the early afternoon and stepping outside every ten minutes for a smoke break.

An OTA man recalls Myrtle Point back in the 70s. Seven bars on Spruce Street. Then Coos County built a new massive jail in Coquille and had to fill it up to justify the expense. So they targeted drunk drivers. Within six months, so many men and women were in jail or had lost their licensees that the local economy tanked, particularly the logging and fishing industries.

An OTA man stops in for a beer and asks directions to the local VA clinic. Another OTA man draws him a map on a napkin! A real map on paper!

A homeless woman of indeterminate age wanders in with a pizza pocket in her pocket. She orders a double vodka and takes the drink to a table. She pulls out the pizza pocket, unwraps it, and begins to eat.

Two OTA men discuss their various logging injuries they suffered over the years. They’ve never really recovered from them. Alcohol apparently soothes the pain.

An OTA man calls the female OTA bartender his “skank.” She calls him her “bitch.”

An OTA man working on an apartment building across the street enters and orders a Budweiser for lunch. He refuses a taco.

An OTA man drinking a can of Hamm’s bitches about his most recent DUI conviction and sentence—90 days in county jail—and just released. The judge begged him not to represent himself but he did and got creamed by that “bitch” DA. She had it in for him and Christ Almighty! did she give him a boner in court. At least there was that.

Three out of four OTAs sitting at the bar and drinking hard liquor relate their respective experiences of being life flighted to a hospital in the Willamette Valley. Two were in coma and don’t remember all that much. One trip cost $76k. Naturally they couldn’t afford that. The taxpayers did one way or another. And fuck socialism, too.

A female OTA bartender discusses various ways she would torture men convicted of serious sex crimes.

A man bedecked in Grateful dead attire sits at a table and makes bracelets for anyone who wants one.

An OTA man pays for his beer with change. Hours later he is seen searching for cans and bottles along a road.

An OTA and former Oregon logger in the early 70s says he’s never heard of Sometimes a Great Notion, the novel or movie.

An OTA woman wearing Christmas-themed pajama bottoms (in July) complains about DHS trying to take her kid. She then segues into a story about her kid tried to lure one of the wild turkeys roaming around Empire into the house and become the Thanksgiving dinner entree.