Copeland’s
Corner
The Life
of the
Party
I probably shouldn’t start my first-ever magazine article
about a bar with a story honking my own horn but...I’ve been
drinking at The Basement Bar in Fort Worth, Texas for the
last seven years completely free.
So... HONK HONK Motherfuckers!!!
Now, if you don’t drink alcohol and hang out in bars...first of
all, I feel sorry for you. Secondly, a free lifetime tab at a bar
may not sound like such a great perk to you. But - as usual
with you non-drinkers - you are wrong. On top of that, you
probably aren’t much fun to be around. So, please stay out of
my magazine article. Thank you. Ok then.
Anyway...Sometime around 7 years ago, I was doing some
day-drinking in the historic Fort Worth Stockyards, as I often
did - and still do - to this day. I happen to be doing it right
now as I am typing this (which is neither here nor there).
But back to the point, this one particular day my day-drinking slowly-but-surely turned into all-day-and all-night drinking with the vast majority of it done at The Basement Bar.
The Basement is a dark, cozy, hip, underground live music/
drinking establishment on Exchange street just across Main
Street from The White Elephant Saloon. As far as stockyard
bars go, The Basement Bar always seemed to have the least
amount of shit-kicking rednecks present which is the main
reason I frequented it the most. Because of all the times I’ve
had to defend myself physically in a bar during my lifetime,
14far and away the most altercations were with Wrangler-wear| Acoustic Drive
ing, Stetson hat-sporting, Tony Llama-having, Copenhagen-dipping shit-kickers. I don’t know why, but it’s a fact.
Anyhow, after a good 7 or 8 hours of bourbon drinking, I
asked to pay my tab. The young, cute new-hire bartender
told me, “I was told that if Scott Copeland paid for a
drink here, I was fired.” I was confused by this at first,
but after realizing she was serious, I quickly swelled with
pride. I tipped her thirty bucks and left feeling pretty
goddamned important.
A few days later I returned to the Basement Bar to see if
what the bartender told me really happened or if it was
just some stinking, stumbling, drunken figment of my
imagination. Much to my delight, my inebriated memory served me correctly. This time, however, a different
young, cute bartender told me she would be fired if I paid
for drink there. Needless to say, I have returned to the
Basement Bar to drink somewhere in the neighborhood
of a thousand times and have never left disappointed. I
don’t know how much money my free Basement Bar tab
would total now, but let’s just say it probably would buy a
pretty decent tour bus.