Pubs & Bars: @ Newtown (52 Enmore Rd. Newtown).

I'll be honest. When I was asked to check this place out, I was totally non-plussed to be peeping a place with a name like a fucking e-mail address. It made me assumed the place was half webcafe, full of sunburnt, nubile Swedes and irritatingly-accented English chaps. It made me think the drinks menu would read 'appl3t1n1s r h3aps yum n onl1 n9n3 buck$$ lolz.' And it made me assume whoever named the place was drunk and far too enamoured with their shift key.

But despite my apprehensions at the dubious name, @ delivers in a totally non-internet-related way. It's a sister venue to the Petersham RSL, but unlike an RSL club there are few very drooling gambling addicts to be found. Instead, @ dishes up divinely comfy lounges, well-priced pints of beer and frankly awesome live entertainment.

Jackie Orszaczky plays on Tuesday nights, and you'd be hard-pressed to find better free entertainment in Sydney. When I last saw this Jackie O character I was almost tempted to dance until I remembered I was a drunk white male and decided to spare society such a sight. In a world gone made with drug-fuelled capitalist greed, it's a pleasure to see a place that sets out to support the arts, especially when the arts involves such a talented individual as that bespectacled, piccolo bass playing genius.

@'s website says the venue is 'Sexy, Atmospheric, Inspiring.' Whilst someone needs to get their fuckin' hand off it, I'm going to make the rare move of not being a total sarcastic bastard and dismissing the place just because of that wanktastic slogan. In fact, I actually hope this place is inspiring. If more venues took a leaf out of @'s book, we'd have a much healthier live music scene, and I wouldn't be forced to rely on drunken renditions of Khe Sanh in my search for in-pub entertainment. Which would be nice.

(Originally published in The Brag as part of the Under The Bar column).

Pubs & Bars: Judgement Bar (189 Oxford St. Darlinghurst).

I'm missing something here. So often I hear passionate cries of 'dude, let's hit the fuckin' Judgey!' When someone proclaims this, all those around me will whoop and holler and dance a jig, much like those hat-wearing, pantaloon-sporting gold-diggers of yesteryear when they had struck gold. So many of my mates get excited at the prospect of going to Judgement Bar, seriously.

What the fuck are you people doing? What justifiable reason is there for the Judgey to be so hot right now? It's full of gross young men wearing aesthetically inappropriate garb and quoting Swingers, not sure whether they're being ironic or just retarded. Occasionally some indie rock kids turn up to discuss whether Brodie Dalle is a sell-out or not. Sometimes, in rare moments of glory, the guitarist from some inner-city indie group will turn up for a beer. Awesome!

I concede that maybe I'm missing something. There must be some reason why so many of my fun-loving brethren adore it so. Maybe I've just gone on the wrong nights. Maybe there's a certain charm - a predictable je ne sais quoi - to hanging out at such a terrible non-event of a pub, and I'm just not getting it. Maybe there's a secret, ludicrously fun hidden room within the walls of the Judgey that everyone at the Judgey knows about except me. But I doubt it.

The whole thing confuses me, like the ending of Donnie Darko. Except Donnie Darko was good.

(Originally not published in The Brag as part of the Under The Bar column because it apparently antagonised its target market. Pssh!).

Pubs & Bars: The Town Hall Hotel (326 King St. Newtown).

Reviews are supposed to sway you. They exist to show you, the reader, what you should do with your life in a consumerist sense. Should you buy the new Hilary Duff CD? Should you order Lusty, Busty Sluts 39 from that mail order catalogue? Should you go to that embarrassment to Sydney bars, the hilariously harem-themed indictment of taste Zanzibar?

Indeed, Reviews are the guiding light in a world full of darkness and jeans that are too low.

Having said all that, there is no conceivable way I could change anybody's opinion of the Town Hall Hotel. I could berate it for its lack of aesthetic flair, I could scoff at its sometimes dubious clientele and I could express my disgust at once finding a pair of turd-stained undies in the men’s toilets. But it wouldn’t make a fucking difference, because everyone who has been to the Townie knows it’s marvelous.

There is no greater stalwart in the inner city of Sydney. The Townie is open when you want it to be, its bouncers are only occasionally cockheads and the beers are cheap. The crowd represents everything good and right about Newtown; goths worshiping Satan and drinking VB; no-hopers hell-bent on death through alcoholism; punk rockers with questionable haircuts; schizophrenics who’ll threaten to beat you then buy you a beer; nerds who masturbated over Return Of The King; and ageing rockers who pretend they don’t want to be noticed.

There’s something good and right about the Townie. There’s some unspoken bond that tells everyone there that they’re doing something good - that with every beer they drink they’re one step closer to their fellow man. They’re probably not, but the feeling is there. And sometimes feelings are all that we have. Especially when we’ve drunk too much. Amen.

(Originally published in The Brag as part of the Under The Bar column).