The bartender poured his jello shot concoction into tiny paper cups on a silver tray. They looked like a kind of communion, for a kind of church, an OTA church, where the bar is the pulpit. It’s the only church in the world where parishioners get multiple shots of the sacrament. <\/p>\n
I sat near the window writing a post card as post cards go extinct. They are almost impossible to find in traditional retail outlets. <\/p>\n
This OTA joint was all Halloweened-up. They were laying in the chilled stores of jello-shots for the big party. <\/p>\n
Near me, an OTA woman sipped a colossal glass of wine. I heard her tell the bartender she was playing hooky from teaching middle school. I was a teacher once, I get it.<\/p>\n
The female OTA cook emerged from the kitchen. She told the bartender her memories of a concert at the Fillmore that changed her life back in the day: Quicksilver Messenger Service. I felt the same way about seeing the Bus Boys at Starry Night. I’ll never forget their cover of \u201cBrown Sugar.\u201d <\/p>\n
An OTA woman walked in the joint with a hamburger basket. She set it down on the bar and ordered a double rum and coke.<\/p>\n
The bartender came up to the hamburger eater and offered a free jello shot as a kind of taste test. She didn’t hesitate and gulped it down. <\/p>\n
Another one? Sure, why not. <\/p>\n
The bartender proclaimed he was a jello shot \u201cmaster\u201d and this serving was his original Cherry Cheesecake recipe. His other concoctions included Fudgesicle, Banana Cream and Pumpkin Pie. <\/p>\n
I winced hearing that. <\/p>\n
The bartender said he’d made 96 shots so far that morning and had to make a couple hundred more. <\/p>\n
I winced at that, too. But I also smiled because it was so utterly preposterous, harmless and depraved and the essence of Oregon Tavern Age life, a life that is increasingly endangered. I will document it to the very end. <\/p>\n\n
The bartender poured his jello shot concoction into tiny paper cups on a silver tray. They looked like a kind of communion, for a kind of church, an OTA church, where the bar is the pulpit. It’s the only church in the world where parishioners get multiple shots of the sacrament. I sat near the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4524,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,15],"tags":[101,847,13,21,27,23],"class_list":["post-4523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-meditations","category-oregon-tavern-age","tag-dive-bars","tag-jello-shots","tag-oregon-coast","tag-oregon-tavern-age","tag-ota","tag-taverns","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4523","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4523"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4523\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4525,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4523\/revisions\/4525"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}