AWOL

It appears that I’ve hit another lull in my drunken exploit chest-thumpingchronicling, and I really can’t offer up a legitimate excuse for it. I’d like to blame it on the heavy increase in work that has been heaped upon me at the office as of late. But since last December I’ve had a shiny new Dell—complete with all of the MS Office bells and whistles—sitting in my apartment, and that instantly negates the “lack of free time in front of a computer” defense. I could tell you that the slow down has been a result of a concerted effort to scale back my drinking and carousing, but…well I’m sure you would find that only slightly more believable than Ben Roethlisberger wearing a purity ring.

In reality, tons of drunken days and nights have come and gone this year without the slightest mention on the page thus far. Even renowned drinkers’ holidays like New Years Eve, St. Patrick’s Day, the Pirates’ Home Opener, and Brewski Festival have eluded narration in 2010. What can I say? I’m a slacker.

To try to get myself back into the swing of things, I’m going to give a few quick stories from some of my social dealings in recent months (ahh, bullet point formatting; my crutch-away-from home...).


Pirates’ Home Opener

• The entire event was one prolonged, blissful blur. About midway through the day, I found myself in that interesting state known to drinkers as “half blacked out”. It really is an interesting phenomena that only true drinkers can appreciate; if you’ve never spent a random morning trying to weave together the previous day or night’s storyline from various pieces of memory that are separated by chunks of complete blackness, each about 15 to 45 minutes in length, then no words on a computer screen are going to do it justice. My recollection of the day goes from tailgating to McFadden's, to walking into the T station downtown with Steph, to boarding the Incline, to eating calamari at Redbeard’s, to sitting in Steph’s living room watching “Zombieland”. All of which covers several miles of Pittsburgh real estate, spanning from the North Shore to downtown to Station Square to Mount Washington.

If scientists ever determine the exact amount of drunk you have to get for you to be “half blacked out”, television producers could create one hell of a reality-TV game show. Picture a camera crew following around a sloshed, unknowing contestant; then, in the studio the following day, the hungover person has to correctly deduce what in the fizzuck happened to him or her.

Player: “Bob, I’m going to say I vomited behind the McDonalds, then went inside; ordered seven Happy Meals—and a shake; drunk-texted that girl at work I have a crush on; and then fell asleep in the backseat of my buddy’s car.”
Host: “And that’s your final answer?”
Player: *nods while wincing, and then takes a swig of Gatorade*
Host: “Okay—judges, let’s see the tape!”

• After the movie, I had recovered quite nicely. It was only about 8 pm or so, and I decided to resume my inebriation. The boys had all convened at Redbeard’s, and beckoned me to join. It’s about a ten minute walk to there from Steph’s house, and as I finally rounded the corner onto the street where the bar sits, I saw a minivan taxicab parked up ahead. Outside of it stood Jay Swag, Pakistanimal, and MG, who were loading Dupa into the back. He had, it appeared, reached his limit a little earlier than expected. They had almost closed the sliding side door on him when, giggling, he hopped out and ran around the back of the van, and then climbed into the front passenger seat—even though he was the only one taking the cab.

• One of the bartenders at Redbeard’s was Asian-American. Pakistanimal—who had long ago that day throttled past “civilized drinker,” and was now barreling along at a very dickish mach-3-drunk—decided that the best way to endear himself to this gent was to address him as “Jackie Chan.” Want to guess how well that one went over? Approximately ten minutes after I’d gotten to the bar, Pak was being shown the door.

• Earlier in the day, while hanging out at the large tailgate party thrown by Steph’s company, I met a woman who used to work for the same corporation that employs Dupa…and The Ex. While exchanging small talk, I mentioned to her that my ex-girlfriend also works for said corporation.

Her: “Oh really? Who?”
Me: “[The Ex’s real name].”
Her: “Oh—she’s crazy!”
Me: *choking on my beer*
Her: “But I guess that’s why she’s your EX-girlfriend!”

Brewski Fest Eve

• The night before the grandest of beer drinking days found Dupa, our boy “The Entertainer”, Shannon, Dr. Kelly, her friend “Fist of Fury” (FoF), and I drinking ourselves silly in Johnstown, where Dr. Kelly is a surgical resident. Johnstown surely wasn’t prepared for the party that Dupa, Entertainer, and I bring, and we quickly made an impression on Dr.’s boss, an attending doctor who was seated at the bar near us. After about 20 minutes of our typical unfiltered social commentary, the attending got up and walked clear around to the other side of the bar, trying to find a seat as far away from us as he could.

• All of us were sufficiently hammered by the time the bar closed, and we retired to Dr. Kelly’s house. As soon as we arrived, the three girls all ran upstairs to put on t-shirts and sweats. Standing in the kitchen, we guys decided to make ourselves more comfortable as well. So when FoF, Shan, and Dr. came back downstairs, they found all three of us guys just as we had been before—minus our pants. Dupa cooked up frozen pizza rolls, I mixed myself a Gatorade & vodka, and Entertainer air-guitared to 80s music, all in our polo shirts and boxers.

Rocky’s Bachelor Party

• My buddy Rocky will be kissing his freedom away blushing bride at the altar soon, and last weekend roughly 30 of us gathered at Wheeling Island for his last hurrah. Fairly early in the night, one of Rocky’s friends found himself up $500+ from the blackjack table. He decided, in true gambler spirit, to place a $500 chip on “red” at the roulette table. Our crowd of drunken Pennsylvanians watched with baited breath as the little white ball spun around and around, finally landing on…red. A roar went up like Wheeling’s never seen before. The brave soul collected his two $500 chips and went straight to the cage, and then to the bar to buy a round of tequila shots.

• Rocky’s fiancée, beautiful and virtuous, has only one flaw: her utter distaste for anything stripper-related. Therefore, unlike Gaelic Gangsta’s stag party at Wheeling Island last year, there would be no shaming of the groom-to-be at the hand of Godfathers’ maniacal exotic dancers. I don’t think Rocky was even allowed to look in the club’s direction from across the casino’s parking lot. The rest of us, however, had no doubt that we’d be visiting at some point. The plan, therefore, was to get the bachelor as stupid-drunk as we could early in the night, so that we could put him to bed and then head over for a dance or two. But around 12:30, it became clear that Rocky—true to his namesake—wasn’t going down without a fight. No matter how many shots and cocktails we poured into him, he wouldn’t fall.

Desperate times call for desperate measures, and Rocky’s cousin, a police officer, formulated a new plan: members of our party were to peel off inconspicuously two at a time and head for Godfathers. As we stood talking and laughing a short while later, and with Rocky up at the bar, “Po-Po” looked at Dupa and I and ordered, “Alright, you two—go.” We looked at each other, shrugged, and walked off through the casino towards the doors. About five minutes after we arrived at the club and got seats at the bar, two more people arrived from our group. And then two more. And then two more. Eventually about 16 to 18 of us were enjoying performances by West Virginia’s best. I’m not sure if Rocky ever figured out where half of his party had gone. Hell, I can’t be sure he even figured out that we had gone.

• I recently became a part of the Twitter craze (right at the cutting edge of that trend, I know), and decided to do my best to give play-by-play to the bachelor party’s proceedings. The following is a portrait of 18 hours of madness:

6:00 PM May 15th: “On my way to Rocky's bachelor party on the Island. This...is...going...to...get...ugly.”
8:43 PM May 15th: “Dinner buffet: conquered.”
9:52 PM May 15th: “Dog races and vodka gimlets.”
11:18 PM May 15th: “Middle-aged white man on stage singing ‘My Prerogative’. Oh...my...fuck...”
11:35 PM May 15th: “If you were up $500 on the night, would you throw it all on red on the roulette table? Our buddy did. Tequila shots all around.”
12:43 AM May 16th: “Shots and gimlets flying. This is starting to feel like Savannah.”
1:21 AM May 16th: “Strip club. No bachelor. Weird? Not for our crew.”
7:52 AM May 16th: “5 hours of poker followed by getting locked out of a hotel room. Feels pretty standard by now.”
11:18 AM May 16th: “At Perkins in Wheeling, and looking at our waitress...I think I see where Tiger was coming from.”
12:23 PM May 16th: “Bachelor party was successful. Quote of the weekend: ‘You go home, tell her you love her, touch her where she pees, and it's all good.’”

That’s all for now. I need a bottle of Gatorade and some sunlight. But I promise to have more soon. Salud.