The Pickled Possum

The Pickled Possum. Could you get a more ocker name? I’m sure the alliteration was merely coincidental.
The Possum has been a Military Road mainstay for years. It’s a late-​night karaōke joint, the place to go when all other places to go are shut and you’re too drunk to go home or know better.
It’s packed with a motley crew of young and old, mainly old, and the damn place bangs. The husband and wife team behind the bar (at least I think it’s a husband and wife team) are slow as molasses and scoop ice into your drink from a small esky atop the bar. It works. You don’t come here to pick up, look good, or do anything other than caterwaul on the stage to shitty ‘80s power ballads and bad ‘90s RnB while the crowd in front of you sways put of time and spills beer on each other.
Never go away, Pickled Possum. There is quite literally no other lace like you and never will be.

There’s really nothing else like the Possum, is there? A tiny concrete bunker, open Thu-​Sat nights from 9pm until late, with simple hooch, eskis brought it with ice, seemingly run by a gang of people in their 50s, and an endlessly enthusiastic karaōke crowd. You’d be excused, when walking past the bar at any other time, for thinking that it’s a closed-​down old ‘70s relic. It is a bizarre little pocket universe of so-uncool-it’s-cool, a room of shameless, joyful, rough exuberance. Not to be entered by anyone who raises eyebrows or looks down one’s nose.