For her latest edition of Playdate, Nathalie Graham discovers Shark & Whiskey Night. by Nathalie Graham Photos by Nathalie Graham A group of shark scientists bobbed underwater near a whale carcass caught in a tangle of plastic refuse. A shark barreled toward them. This shark was bigger than normal, twice the size it had been when the scientists had last seen it.  The fate of the scientists proved inevitable, foretold by the strings and pulleys of the shark movie genre. Only one thing could happen. The water turned red with blood.  Shouts erupted in The Beacon Cinema’s packed theater.  “That’s a double kill!”  “Swallow the leader!”  “Star-crossed lovers!”  “Fin ho!”  Phone cameras flipped on next to me as people examined their laps. I mirrored them and searched my sheet of paper for the appropriate phrases, frantic.  I was too slow and, similar to the scientists on screen, fate was not on my side. “Bingo!” Someone shouted. Two more people shouted, “Bingo!” The movie kept playing. Our stunning and French female protagonist fired a harpoon at the shark which then dragged her to the depths of the ocean as Aaron Parker, a psychiatrist and co-host of Shark & Whiskey Night, stood up, cradling his pouch of craft whiskey cocktail. “If you think you have bingo, meet me outside.”  Moments later, Parker announced to the room, “We have not confirmed ‘Double Kill’ or ‘Amputation by Shark,’ yet,” he said. “‘Shark Attack’ and ‘Plot Armor’ are confirmed.”  The man in the shark onesie next to me mused, “Did we get a ‘Fin Ho!’ for sure, too?” “I don’t think so,” I said, flipping my bingo sheet over to consult the rules, which other people seemed to be playing fast and loose with. “There wasn’t a shot of a fin above the water yet.”  For 15 years, Parker and his co-host, healthcare start-up founder Kevin Davis, have hosted Shark & Whiskey Night, an event where they watch a shark movie, play shark movie trope bingo, and, well, drink whiskey. They invited me to join them and their 45 closest friends for the (estimated) 35th shark movie screening.  In a way, being there felt like an intrusion. On one hand, Shark & Whiskey Night was a ludicrous gathering of drunk people in their 30s and 40s yelling at a movie screen. But on the other, it was sentimental, an act of love and effort to keep friends connected as life keeps pulling them apart.  Fin Ho!  Ultimate frisbee birthed Shark & Whiskey Night. Back in 2008, Aaron and Kevin were in their 20s and on the same Seattle ultimate frisbee team. Their team grew into a life-long friend group largely because of Kevin.  “He's someone who has this charismatic, magnetic urge to be out,” Aaron said. “He’s like, ‘I want to be doing things. Let's get people together. Let's have adventures. Let's make memories.’ That's his approach to life.” One night, at Liberty Bar on Capitol Hill, Kevin and another frisbee friend were having drinks. He had just helped his Canadian parents set up their internet in Vancouver, B.C. that day and had stumbled across a shark movie trailer to test its speed.   “We’d had a few beers,” Kevin told me at the Shark & Whiskey pregame at Columbia City’s Billiard Hoang. “And I pulled out Netflix on my phone and searched ‘Shark.’”  A treasure trove of movies came up. He added them all to the queue.  “I apologize because this was a long time ago, and we had lots of drinks, and this is ruining the story, but I believe we watched a shark movie that night, but I don't know for sure,” he said, sipping a beer.  Regardless, the ultimate frisbee friends watched a bad shark movie and drank whiskey. Aaron wasn't positive, but he thought the first movie screened was Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus. (Editor’s note: Mega Shark came out in 2009, but there’s some debate within the group about whether their first official screening was in 2008 or 2009, so who knows! This might have been the first.) They had stumbled across the genre right before “Sharknado” caused a ridiculous shark movie gold rush.  “We're lucky we picked sharks and not dinosaurs or giant spiders,” Aaron said. Soon, the two of them planned another screening. And another. At one point, Aaron started planning the movies monthly. “We were in our 20s and we could just do fun things easily a lot,” Aaron said. “So I looked up when the high tide was every month.” He then planned Shark & Whiskey Night for every high tide.  The audience grew from three friends to 10 to 25 rotating people. The ultimate frisbee group was the core, but soon people invited plus ones from their own networks. Most people lived close by, most on Capitol Hill, which was convenient for the screenings where everyone crammed into Kevin’s Capitol Hill townhouse.  “There's not a bunch of space to have a movie, and we have a regular television on a wall and a couch that sits, generously, five people,” He said. They put a bench behind the couch for more seating, people sat on the floor, and many hung out in the kitchen drinking.  Sometimes, Aaron and a friend would start the event by reading the shark movie fanfiction they penned over drinks at Bait Shop. Their best creations included weresharks haunting the canals of Venice. One time, Aaron lost a bet and had to do a dramatic reading of anti-masturbation Christian literature from evangelical pastor Mark Driscoll.  “We were just younger and more foolish,” Kevin said. “You could just get 20 people to come over on a given Saturday on a couple hours notice, and that was super fun, but with everything in life slowing down, now [the events] are much more occasional.”  Shark Fact A shark movie is not simply a movie with a shark in it. For instance, “Jaws” is not a shark movie.  “The event will never screen ‘Jaws,’” Aaron told me. “Because ‘Jaws’ is a good movie. Good movies and Sharky whiskey are not meant to go together.” If a movie has actors and actresses you recognize (aside from Tara Reid or Jason Stathem), if it had a theatrical release, or if it had a real budget, it is likely not a shark movie, Aaron explained. “Soul Surfer,” the movie about a surfer who loses her arm in a shark attack, is not a shark movie, neither is “USS: Indianapolis Men of Courage,” a Nicholas Cage movie with a shark attack Aaron screened for an appearance on a podcast. (He never anticipated he would be a shark movie expert, but by now he assumes he’s seen more shark movies than most people in the world).  “It was a terrible movie,” Aaron said, “And it would have been terrible for Shark & Whiskey night. It's much too self-serious, but not in the right ways. It's not focused enough on the sharks.” Across the 15 years of screening shark movies, Aaron has come up with a list of 25 or so aspects that make a movie a shark movie. He puts them on a bingo card for every Shark & Whiskey night. Eventgoers cheer and jeer at the movie while keeping an eye out for signs of “Second Shark” (when there is, you guessed it, a second shark), “Breasts” (any scene where the camera aims the male gaze at the female body), “Jump the Shark” (when a shark fully propels itself out of water), “C.R.E.A.M.” (Cash Rules Everything Around Me, or, when financially motivated figures ignore known shark danger for their own means), “Star-Crossed Lovers” (one half of a romantic pair is the victim of a shark attack), “Shark Fact” (someone mentions a shark fact), “Swallow the Leader” (any person in a leadership position or frontrunner in a race is killed), and many more.  For this Shark & Whiskey Night, Kevin and Aaron screened “Under Paris,” a Netflix shark movie that premiered this summer ahead of the Paris Olympics. The plot concerned a shark in the Seine, complicating long-held plans for the Olympic triathlon in the river. It was ridiculous. The movie also showcased ten movie tropes in the first five minutes.  “The bingo makes it,” said Sasha, a New York transplant at her second Shark & Whiskey Night, at the event’s pregame held at Columbia City Vietnamese bar and restaurant Billiard Hoang.  I have my Ph.D. in Shark Science. According to her husband, Brad, the bingo facilitates a one-of-a-kind camaraderie in the theater. I’ll never forget how the whole theater screamed with glee when a massive shark (spoiler alert) shot out of the water in the Paris catacombs and chomps a young woman. I screamed, too.  “It’s not just the bingo,” Brad said, “It’s the entire atmosphere of everyone having an amazing time watching the movie.” He paused.  “How did you find out about this?”  Shark in Unexpected Place Billiard Hoang’s bustled with excited, pre-Shark & Whiskey attendees. Nearly everyone I talked to asked how I had found out about it, since everyone there was connected to Kevin or Aaron in some way or another, even if they no longer—or never had—lived in Seattle.  Former ultimate frisbee teammates flew in from New York.  “I've been friends with these folks for a long time and I don't get to come out here as often as I'd like to,” Davida from New York said. “So it's just good to have a reason to do it.” Aaron’s childhood friend from Seattle who had become a family doctor in rural Alaska had made the trek for the affair. Kevin’s friend from “university” (he’s Canadian) took the ferry down from Victoria. The kid (now a full grown man) Aaron used to babysit was there. So were Aaron’s neighbors.  “It's kind of neat to have someone's extended circle become part of your life,” Kevin said.  Planning the event for him is about injecting whimsy into his life as well as making sure he sees his friends.  Across the 15 years of Shark & Whiskey Night, people have moved away. Aaron left for a spell in New York for graduate school, but he came back. Others who left, like Davida, haven’t returned for good (yet). In Seattle, people have—gasp—moved outside of Capitol Hill. They’ve gotten married, had kids, and had less time for silly times with their friends.  “It’ll happen to you, too.” He warned. “Unless you have a draw people aren't gonna come out.”  Shark & Whiskey Night has become not only a draw, but a tradition. Both Aaron and Kevin are integral to the event’s longevity, but Kevin and his natural gregariousness were instrumental to its early adoption.  Swallow the Leader “Kevin is somewhat of an instigator, a uniter of people,” Carlos, a former ultimate frisbee teammate and original Shark & Whiskey attendee said. “And he doesn't necessarily like to make things simple, but they are always fun.” Aside from Shark & Whiskey Night, he plans food-centric events. During the World Cup or the Olympics, he’ll host dinner parties where everyone has to make a specific dish from one country. He’s hosted Dumping World Cups, Noodle World Cups, Stadium Food World Cups, etc. It’s the way he’s able to see his friends and it’s fun.  “Kevin is always eating something good and introducing me to someone interesting,” Peter, the guy who came from Victoria, B.C. said. “Shark & Whiskey Night is like a big version of that.”  People who plan intricate gatherings for the joy of bringing their friends together are special. They disrupt the humdrum of life. I first met someone like that in college. This friend hosted trivia nights at his college house, he planned scavenger hunts around the University of Washington campus. He made memories I’ll never forget. He also made such an impression on me and proved to me that you could just plan weird, elaborate things, that I strove to do that myself.  Kevin (left) at the merch table and Aaron on cocktail duty.   Like, for instance, when I wanted to plan a kickball game on the first day of spring my senior year of college, I reached out to him for help. He organized the whole thing and, though we both invited our own social groups, only his friends showed up. His friend who brought the kickball is the guy I’ll be marrying next summer.  Because of our mutual friend’s influence, my fiancé and I have written and hosted intricate murder mysteries. We mapped out and planned an entire Amazing Race-style scavenger hunt around Seattle for our friends, which is where he asked me to marry him. We haven’t hosted anything in a while, but I’m itching for another non-traditional event for the sake of having all my friends in one place once again.  The planners are important, but the events wouldn’t happen without people who are down for a little adventure. “I have this theory that all the good things in my life happen because I’m known as someone who will say yes to a wild idea,” Peter from Victoria said.  Kevin may be the connector, but the entire evening is a group effort, according to Peter. He helped make batch cocktails all day and then transferred them into to-go pouches. Other people helped etch names onto glasses. A different person brought the coolers. Someone else brought the cocktail limes.  “It’s an amazing act of generosity,” Peter said.  Since Aaron and Kevin now rent The Beacon Cinema instead of hosting in Kevin’s townhouse and because Kevin whips up legitimate craft cocktails, they charge an admission fee. But, as Peter put it, no one is making money. All of the money goes back into the event.  “There’s a real positivity to this community,” Peter said. For context, the latest Shark & Whiskey Night landed on the first Saturday after the election. “It’s been kind of a shit week for the news—and everybody here feels it—but, there’s a mutual agreement to leave it at the door for a little bit. It’ll still be bad when we go outside, but right now everyone is telling stories and eating banh mi and the world sucks a little less.”