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"I think we're the only normal bar in Chicago," boasts Weed's owner/raconteur/leading character Sergio Mayora. "The other bars are freaky." Most people who visit Weed's would come away with the opposite assessment. Hundreds of bras hang from pipes in the ceiling; a bust of Mayora presides over a corner of the bar; a chalkboard heralds the appearance of a band called General Patton and his Privates. "The bras are kind of a holdover from Underwear Night," explains manager Greg Martinez. "People wear their underwear outside their clothes. Someone threw their bra up there." And an entire lingerie department followed. Another theme night, Audubon's Birthday, left a legacy of shoes in the rafters. It happened like this: Mayora wanted to bring in stuffed birds to honor Audubon, but when that proved too expensive, he substituted a box of shoes he and a friend had found in an alley. The night was renamed "Birdbrains and Stupid Shoes Day." Patrons now leave poems in the shoes. Other special nights at Weed's: Every Saturday is open-mike night. The bar's spotlight has drawn everyone from rock bands and comedians to a 70-year-old vaudevillian. Monday is Uncensored Poetry Night (White Panther John Sinclair attends when he's in town), Tuesday and Wednesday are Comfort Night, when the lights are turned down and the music gets mellow, and Thursdays are for jazz. One thing you can find every night is tequila. "There's a lot of free tequila," Mayora says. "To get some, you've got to be a brand-new customer, or you've got to be an old customer, or I've got to be drunk. We ran out of tequila twice, and nobody knew what to do. It was like a Mexican restaurant running out of beans."

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Old Town bars, Chicago bars