Label and Creative Loafing hosted a Martini Madness night on Aug. 23, 2013 - featuring liquor bottle tossing and martini tasting. (Photos by Justin Driscoll)
The 2nd annual Summer Love Music and Arts Festival was held at Area 15 on Aug. 10, 2013, featuring live music, art and a fashion show. (Photos by Jerele Lindsey)
It's Saturday night, right around 2 a.m., on the Common Market's front patio. Considering time and place, blood alcohol levels are expectedly high.
But then it's time to go, and when they are told this they aren't happy. One of them says, "Fuck you," to the Common Market employee who has just told them to leave.
"Fuck me?!? Did you say fuck me?" He tries to play it off, denies it, says, "Okay, okay, okay" a bunch of times while attempting to stand, as the Common Market employee produces a small flashlight from his pocket and shines it in the drunk's face.
Finally they get up to leave, stumbling, as one of them eyes the rather newly installed lights on the brick and cement column separating the patio from the sidewalk.
He takes his big, meaty paw and slaps the first light. BAM! It snaps off its plastic base and hangs sideways by the wires like a crooked tooth. BAM! He hits the next one. BAM! The next one.
By now, the initial stunned silence from the fellow customers and the couple of employees transforms into yells of "Whoa!" "What the fuck?!" and good, old-fashioned boos.
He takes a swing at one last light, hitting it but not breaking it, and then takes off running. Next thing I know, there's a crowd chasing after him, led by three Pinky's employees, still wearing their matching work shirts.
They disappear around the corner and those of us left talk among ourselves at the ridiculousness of what we just witnessed. But the night's ridiculousness isn't over yet. Alcohol is a hell of a drug.